hello from the other side

a record of my first two days away from the internet and social media and wow

What I am about to share will sound ridiculous and, were I in your shoes or sandals depending on the season, I myself would not believe what I am about to say.

But nonetheless it is a truth and thusly I shall share it here.

I write to you from a physical location of space and time. There are walls and floors and other people who inhabit the space with me. These people are my wife and my son. I knew this before, of course, but now I seem to be understanding it in a whole new light even though at present, it is dark outside.

At some point soon, the sun will come out (tomorrow) and thusly become the today.

There is also a dog here who is named Robert. He is a scruffy little fellow and I enjoy rubbing his head greatly.

There are birds who chirp here and, by the sound of their chirps, they've been here a while. It's the first I'm hearing them. For I have been lost in a land of make believe through which I send you this missive now.

A land of make believe and fake beliefs, pretend and posture, notifications and yesicantations.

But things are simpler here. And lonelier too. I've found the night time to be most difficult. Without my blankie (a smart phone that connects without wire to the world wide web), I've felt lost. Unsure of what to do or how to feel.

If a man feels something but there's no feed to doomscroll his feelings away, does he have to actually feel that feeling in its entirety?

Ok hi its me again. Alex. The above was also me, though. Offline me. A goofball and gentleman both. It's been two days since I began my journey into the land of real 3-D life. It is weird and honestly I suck at it. I'm still spending most of my time in front of screens and I haven't been great at following my own rules which, for the record (and the mp3, ugh) are below along with a rating, 0-10 of how well I’ve been able to follow them.

• Not always online — Offline as a default. (4/10 — its very hard to remember to turn things to offline)

  • Devices will not have the internet on by default and I’ll need to turn them on.

  • Phone may go into airplane mode and I’ll use a burner phone so Lauren can reach me

• No roaming and scrolling — Only check my phone / computer at my desk (8/10)

  • this can be at a coffee shop / other place I’m working

• One and done — Only look at any message once, respond, and be done with it (9.5/10)

• No social media — take all the apps off my phone and change all my passwords. (3/10 on a technicality - I haven’t removed the apps but I have also not used them)

  • Substack doesn’t count because this is how I make money (hey btw speaking of, subscribe maybe idk?)

• Audio-based stuff is good — Phone calls, spotify and podcasts are all okay wherever. (7/10 - yes, audio is good but as we learned in DARE, audio is a gateway drug into the depths of the phone. Often while listening to something I find myself wanting to also scroll too)

A record of the delightful piece we’re going to play this evening (source)

I have, as promised, been keeping a log of what's been going on. Most of this will be behind the paywall because the truths and ramblings therein would get me in such deep shit with the US government that I simply cannot let them out into the world.

Based on the initial post I made, a lot of people all want to stop being on their phones on social media etc too. Let's use the comments section here to talk about how its going.

If you would like to be a part of the 'community' that's trying this but can't afford a paid subscription, email me at botharetrue@substack.com and I will comp you a paid subscription NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Seriously, like 130 people have already done it and more come in every day.

If on the other hand you can afford the $7/month, the cost of a single cocktail supreme at a fancy bar in downTown wherever the fuck, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Hell, ya know what, I'll even give a deal for anyone who wants to become a sub: 19% off. That's a crazy amount. It means that you only pay $5.53 per month which is the cost of a Venti STarbucks Machiaturd Latte with Horchata Supreme Pumkpin Filling and a Light Drizzle of NONFAT SugarFree Honey and Salt Syrup (0% soy 30% almond, 50% cow).

Ok here are the logs, starting right after I began the challenge on Tue, Nov 7:

Actually wait, a couple announcements:

ONE

A while back, I asked the world how to be good at LinkedIn. Business impresario

Tommy Dixon

, responded and responded swiftly.

His piece - helping alex dobrenko with linkedin - is one of the funniest things I've read on here and only like 15% of my saying that is because it's entirely about me.

Seriously though, Tommy is a 'client' of mine who I've been helping get out of what he often describes as an intense, too serious mode of being on the page. This piece is Tommy at his peak goofball. Reading the comments from all his readers saying how much they loved

Is this a tacit ad for my 'let me help you with your writing' services? No. That's ridiculous.

TWO

Miter

just launched Episode one of SALON DU MONDE, FREMONT, a TV show that reminds me of MTV in the early days - surreal and fucking awesome. Miter asked me to make a funny lil video for the first episode and so I did. Also featured are the amazing funny of

Jimmy Doom

, art of

Aaron Zonka

and

d.w.

, musical beauty of

Campfire Sparks

,

BrittaRiffindots

,

Alexander Ipfelkofer

,

FogChaser

and most importantly, certified BAThead and singer songwriter

olivia rafferty

.

And now, the offline logs of a man who is trying to not be on the internet

Tue, Nov 7

04:41 -

Started the day at Starbucks, 431am and met my neighbor Albert - he lives a few doors down but we’ve never actually spoken. A few little waves but that’s it. I’d been curious about him and his life but we’d never spoken.

Today, I see him and i say hi and he says hi and asks if my dog is named Robert and I say yes. He says he’s never heard of a dog with a human name. I tell him yeah, it’s an accountant’s name. He asks if Robert does my taxes and I say no not yet we’re trying to get him to start.

We both smile and I feel full.

This happening on the same day as the beginning of this internet challenge cannot be a coincidence because I refuse to let it be so. We are the meaning makers, the makers of…. – ugh I forget the phrase. I wanted to google it – to look up ‘we are the meaning makers’ but then I’d be jumping onto the internet which I think is…bad? Not sure. Starting to figure this all out. I could keep a list of stuff to look up?

10:34

back at my computer. a morning without notifications. its hard to know how to describe this other than…different? calmer? like I rode a nice lil horse through the day rather than a roller coaster high octane up and down machine that nearly killed me several times. I’m writing this on my computer and the internet is off. I have ethernet cable wired internet like a real man who never forgot about y2k (sic), so i unplugged the cable. Gonna start my day now and figure out what to do today and this week. Might even be a wee bit reasonable about it.

10:40

cool how certain websites have an offline mode, e.g. Readwise. This will let me read stuff while offline — v useful since often my work is about reading stuff. same goes for google docs, many other apps me thinks

10:41

Readwise offline could still be a big distraction lol.

10:47

whoa already got all my text messages sent. and just looked at the phone once. That already feels like a fucking life changing thing.

Also, I’m writing all of this in a notepad file and also keeping track of a to do list there. This is the first time in recorded history that I’ve listed out my tasks without using a complicated task mgmt system that I then become obsessed with figuring out (keyboard shortcuts etc) and end up forgetting about my tasks entirely.

11:29

And just like that, my inbox is cleared. holy balls that’s insane. INSANE. Did I just reply ‘I live an offline life now you can never find me’ to each person before deleting their message? Sure. But still< inbox zero is inbox zero. airplane

13:11

Just had a dope call with a new client and, within 10 min, sent them an invoice. That would have usually taken me days to do because I was behind on other stuff. This is wild. WILD.

Yesterday, Wed, Nov 8

K it’s paywall time. Reminders:

• I’ll be updating this every couple of days with new stuff

• We can hang in the comments and talk about trying to live offline

• 19% off:

If you would like to be a part of the 'community' that's trying this but can't afford a paid subscription, email me at botharetrue@substack.com and I will comp you a paid subscription NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Seriously, like 130 people have already done it and more come in every day.