The Beauty of Disconnection

“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”
– Pablo Picasso

There are mornings when I wake up and refuse to turn on my MacBook, sometimes I'll even shut off my Blackberry for a couple hours. I’ll just sit or lay down somewhere in my house, knowing full well I cannot be distracted in this moment. I listen to a song that inspires me (or as Stephanie Koch would call them: "Helicopter Songs") and just reflect on life, try to realize my dreams coming true, or pretend I am somewhere else by losing myself in a good novel. Some nights I’ll sit down and write my most passionate thoughts for hours on end. Nothing but the quiet stillness of the night and the gentle tapping of the keyboard. Minutes passing by with the blink of an eye and hours seeming like minutes.

And it’s beautiful.

The days when I want to take in that same tranquility but not stay indoors, I’ll take my longboard across town to run some errands. The exhilaration I get from the cool wind breeze in my face as I burn down rural hills and city side streets gives me is beyond liberating, it gives me a natural high. Reminiscent of times I've been on ecstasy, except with no down side. What could be more perfect. I enjoy the moment as I bask in my connection with life and my disconnection from technology.

These are the moments when disconnection shows its glorious face, when life is in full force, when we are fully connected to the world immediately around us, while disconnected from the world at large. These moments have become increasingly rare because of our connectedness with technology, thus why I pursue these moments and disconnect as often as I want. I'm not saying we should abandon technology. It’s not the technology we should be afraid of. It’s a life where we’re always connected, always interrupted, always distracted, and continuously bombarded with information and requests. It’s a life where we have no time to create, or connect with real people. Disconnection is the solution, or at least an integral part of it. It’s very difficult for many people, because connection is addictive. But what's difficult is always worth it. Nothing comes by easy, especially if it is to benefit your lifestyle and mental/physical health.

This week, I challenge you to remove certain distractions from your life. Be honest with yourself and think about what vices you have in your life right now that are eating hours away from your personal life. Whether it be time spent on your cell phone, sitting around playing video games, or the hours per week you spend perving on Facebook. Trust me, you won't miss much. One week removed, based on your honesty and willpower you will notice a significant change in your life. Things you "Liked" before will start to lose it's value and soon you will come to realize that none of that stuff before actually mattered. Most importantly, you will gain a greater awareness of what you actually want in life, day by day becoming closer to the true being in you. You can only begin to understand your purpose when you eliminate these kind of distractions. Disconnect from your current reality and take the blindfold off your eyes before it's too late. The thing is not many people actually get to live, most just exist. That's it. People have it made up in their minds that happiness is a pursuit or a direction and they will focus on it when the moment presents itself. The truth is that this fictional, fairy tale moment never comes. Happiness is waiting for you right now beneath your feet. The only question you should ask yourself:

Will you lower yourself as much to find it there?

My Decision to Leave Facebook

Question:

Why are we so caught up in our obsession with online social connectivity?

Yesterday, I had an eye opening experience while sitting on the couch of a newly acquainted friend's condo. I was having a momenet with my Blackberry only to take my eye off of her for a second to find the other 3 guys in the room consumed by their iPhone, MacBook, and PS3 respectively. There was little to no conversation happening in the room and it made me a little disgusted, especially since I was one of the people involved in the "screen slavery". Never before have screens got more attention than human beings. Here's a test, next time you're at school, work or out for dinner with friends, observe how many people are involved with their phones more than making actual connectivity with the people around them, it's quite disturbing. We are becoming like droids being plugged into this stream of technology infused culture where distraction is all around us and productivity is no where to be found.

We are now more than a decade into the "Age of Information", but you might as well call it the Age of Distraction because there have never been more to keep our minds off what really matters. While humanity has never been completely free of distraction, in the present day never have the distractions been as overwhelming and persistent as it is right now. Thus why I plan on minimalizing distraction by removing Facebook and other time wasting tools out of my personal life.

Cable was the first distraction I cut out of my life. I became an avid reader, keeping my face in more books instead of logging time on Facebook. I soon found out that book after book, my understanding of the world we live in became increasingly more vivid and clear. You could say, I now have a higher definition of viewing the world from viewing less high definition. Easily one of the best decision I made in 2010. This year I planned on removing Facebook from my life. After reasoning with myself and subconsciously picking up on some obvious signals along the way, I made the choice to remove a major distraction and notorious time killer from my life.

This is more than just a statement, it's a vision of something bigger to come. The underlying focus is to boost the moral and personal gratification of certain aspects in my life and spend more time concentrating on intimate relationships, not just connecting with them online. Yes, connecting with family and close friends online is important to me but paradoxically, I feel there would be a boost in our quality of life, our relationships, and our sense of community if we all spent less time social networking online and spent more time concentrating on actually connecting with people we truly and genuinely care about in real time. Erin Lacourciere said it best as her New Year's Resolution: "Less Face-book time and more Face time."

It is a lot easier to hide behind a keyboard than it is to confront someone. We spend less time with our friends and family because when we are with them we are all on our mobile devices being consumed by whatever it is that is happening right now in the fast-paced, never ending, always growing social networking world. There are simple solutions to devoting more love and appreciation to your closest friends and family, instead of reverting to SMS, Email or Facebook. Make a phone call or surprise them with a quick visit to their home. It will show that you have character, a quick text messag can give off the impression that you are a "care-acter", not actually caring. It's easy to pretend and be fake behind the anonymity of a keyboard, in fact I find it to be very impersonal and cheap. If you truly care about someone, you will make the extra effort to get in touch with them, call them, or even stop by for a visit like the good old days before cell phones when we were little kids and your friends actually ran over to your house to see you, it shows love and legitimate care for a person. I miss that and want to find a way to resurrect these old school values in a new school way.

Facebook has become the lazy person's tool for staying "connected" without actually having to be connected. Attaining more friends without actually having any friends. Staying in the loop with your communities with out even having to leave the house. This is a sad, yet true reality of the way things are and where we are headed. I say just because this is how it is right now, doesn't mean it's the way it has to be.

All I know is in the present day, 2011, we have entered into a time where we can no longer escape technology. We have created it and now it has consumed us. There is virtually endless amounts of shopping, downloading, uploading, surfing, blogging, social networking, and gaming that can take up all of your precious personal time. All the while, as you're brain is being sucked into your one-on-one time with your computer, several new notifications have popped up on your Blackberry or iPhone, forcing you to be distracted every minute of every hour, stealing your attention away from the most important matters in life.

If you don't know what I'm talking about consider this.

Right now you have several programs opened up on your MacBook, multiple pages on your web browser, you're PVR'ing two shows at the same time while watching another and attempting to keep five BBM/SMS conversations going all at once. This is just one primary example of the multitude of distractions in our day-to-day lives. Removing one or many of these is a huge step towards the productiveness of our humanity and image of our reality.

We’ve come into this Age without being aware that it was actually happening or
even realized the consequences to follow. The sad truth is that the internet has become an addiction for many. There’s this instant short-term gratification we receive from constant activities such as checking our email, text messages, favorite blogs, forums, Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook. That’s why it’s so easy to become addicted to being connected and distracted. No one seems to think there is anything wrong with this; meanwhile other addictive activities, such as doing harmful drugs or eating unhealthy fast food have the same kind of instant positive feedback. You do the activity and almost instantly you’re rewarded with some kind of pleasure and you don’t feel the negative consequences until later.

It has become so outrageous that now it is not only a standard but an expectation for you to be a part of social networking. It's in our blood, you're either dead or you're Facebooking. More than half of Canadian citizens are now on Facebook so it has officially become the norm. I'm sure some of you have seen the 2010 blockbuster, "Social Network" if you haven't rent it today and open your eyes to what is known as the biggest phenomenon on the planet today. Facebook. Embarrassingly so it has even interlaced into our lingo.

"Today, I Tagged your sister, Liked your girlfriend's profile, then Poked your mom"

Facebook has become the "Face" of our world and to many quitting would seem like an outlandish or even Amish thing to do. Sure, I'll wind up a social networking outcast. I won't be invited to all of the important "groups" and hyped up "events". Let's just say, it's the risk I'm willing to take to receive less distraction, more productivity, and a higher quality of life.

Here’s an example of how distracted you are. If you somehow have made it this far reading my words, how many times did you get distracted or tempted to switch to something else? How many times did you think of something you wanted to do, check your phone, change the channel or deviate from this page by means of other distractions? How many times did you want
to switch, but resisted? How many different things made a noise or visual distraction while you were reading? How many people tried to get your attention? In an ideal world, the answers to all those questions would be “zero”, you’d be able to read with no distractions, and completely focus all the time.

Removing Facebook is one rather large source of distraction for me personally. It will allow me to harness more of my time on writing, creating, and maintaining important relationships as well as getting my career on the right track. I hope some of you have become inspired to alter or remove certain distractions from your own lives. It doesn't have to necessarily be Television or Facebook. It can be anything, as long as know you are making a conscious effort to strive towards realizing your purpose, potential and living out your true passion.

Finally, to put things into perspective, out of nearly 1000 people that I have on Facebook, roughly 100 will acknowledge this post. Out of those 100, maybe 10-15 will actually read this. Out of those 10-15, few will read the entire thing without being distracted, but only one will become inspired to do the same with their life. One is all I am looking for right now. You can't expect the masses to lead, following is what we do and what we have done for centuries and centuries. All it takes is one leader out of 1000 to stand up and spark the necessary change needed within a society. If no one stands up, we will continue to head in a direction with no direction. When the Italians decided to sail the uncharted seas into the unknown, somebody had to step up and steer the ship. That man was Columbus. If it were not for his uncanny courage, they would not have founded North America and who knows what the state of our culture would look like right now or if there would even be one. I'm not saying I'm Columbus but today we are faced with the same kind of challenges as they did. For the last decade and a half we have been surfing the uncharted seas of the web in discovery of something better. We have already realized the infinite access to information we have on the internet, yet we have become the laziest and most unproductive Age in history. Quite simply because there have never been more to distract us. In reality, given the circumstances and access to resources and technology we do today, it is remarkable how little we actually get done. It is time to reshape the way we view our world, ourselves, and each other. There is a better way and I plan on finding out exactly what that is.

You're Already Perfect

‘Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.’ ~Lao Tzu

A lot of people go to the library or local book store and pick up personal development self-help books because they want to improve something about themselves. They’re not satisfied with their lives, they’re unhappy with their bodies, in their mind, the way things are is never enough.

I know... because I was one of those people.

This desire to improve upon self and compare ourselves to others was one of the things that led to writing. I got sick and tired of trying to keep up, set trends, be relevant, see the latest movies and be involved in the latest reality tv shows. Blah, blah, blah. This fake reality soon became overplayed and highly stressful.

Suddenly, I had a powerful realization that has helped me is simply my life: You’re already good enough as you are, you already have more than what you need and you’re already perfect just the way you are.

Try saying that to yourself, as corny as that might sound, just to see if it sounds true. Does it resonate as something you already believe (in which case, you can probably stop reading now), or does it not feel right? Do you feel like there are things you still need to improve?

The thing I’ve learned, and it’s not some new truth but an old one that took me much too long to learn, is that if you learn to be content with who you are and where you are in life, it changes everything. All of a sudden, your life as you know it becomes actually enjoyable and you start living life passionately, instead of robotically. You become yourself (and what a breath of fresh air that is) and you start to throw opinions, standards and categories out the window. This makes room for not only overall improvement of the quality of your own life but it also translates into your relationships, aquaintances and even complete strangers. People will start to see you glowing (not physically of course but metaphysically) and want to know more about what it is that makes you enjoy being in your own skin, loving life, living out passions eloquently as a consequence of your choice of being.

Really take a moment to realize the depth of what I am saying here: You already have everything you need to be happy, right here, right now. One day you will wake up and understand this. Don't let it be on your death bed.

Let's put things into perspective here...

You already possess two eyes that have the ability to appreciate the beauty of the northern skies, the radiance of the sunlight beaming down on your face, the constellations revealing the divine masterpiece of our existence.

You already possess two ears that have the ability to appreciate the sound of your favorite music beating beautifully on the inner rhythm of your heart beat, the sound of rainfall (almost nightly if you live in Vancouver, so you better start appreciating it), the laughter of your friends and loved ones, a baby crying for it's mother understanding what it is to be loved and appreciated.

You already possess two nostrils that have the ability to smell the fresh-cut grass, coffee first thing in the morning, the fresh scent of ocean breeze on a hot mid summer night.

And you already possess two hands that have the ability to brush the face of the one you love most, understanding what it is to be loved and give love in it's dawning essence. Hands to hold, hands to shake a complete stranger and exchange kindness and radiance into each other's lives.

These blessings are a miracle that we take for granted.

Instead, we strive for more and more when we already have everything. We spend so much time and money on things that will "supposedly" improve our lives. We want nicer clothes, cooler gadgets, bigger muscles, bigger boobs, flatter stomachs, bigger houses, more cars with robotic voices that talk to you and command you where to go. Call me an old soul but I feel that we’ve kind of gone insane in this rapidly increasing want for more as an overall Western society.

The sane thing is to realize we don’t need any of that. We don’t need to improve our lives. We don’t need to improve ourselves, because we’re already perfect.

Once you accept this truth, it will free you.

You will now be free to do things you never before thought imaginable. Not because you want to be better than the next guy, but because you do what you love and you love what you do. The secret ingredient to this you ask? Do only what you are passionate about and gives you the most amount of joy. Find it, follow it, pursue it and become it. Don't wait for someday because John Fogerty once told me, "Someday never comes".

2011: The Canvas

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

~Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) Journalist, Novelist

There could not be a more fitting time than 1.1.11 to begin crafting the image of self and the life around you. Today we have been given a blank canvas and an opportunity to realize more of what we have in store for 2011. Create an image of your own identity where your thoughts are the brush hand woven by the mind, your consciousness is the framework and your life is your canvas.

Before you begin, make sure your canvas is authentic to you and not anybody else's. The most beautiful paintings are crafted not just from a paint brush but more so behind a crystal clear vision. An inward view of beauty which becomes an outward product of the life which you see before you.

When sketching the image of your life, imagine it from the inside out and not the other way around. If you have problems looking within, stare at yourself in the mirror. The truth may look ugly to you but with a clean canvas, you have the ability to change your image for now and forever.

The most beautiful art is simplicity in it's essence. Erase the clutter from 2010 and concentrate your craft on only that which matters most to self. Don't paint things or possessions or attainments or achievements. Those don't matter in the true image of self. There is much more beauty which beholds within.

Make an effort in your art to create something new, not reproducing what has already been done. Most of society places higher priority on following or keeping up with a fast paced, always moving world. Our effort should consist of creating a more gratifying human world with more creativity and less conformity.

Today, stand in front of your canvas and envision the shape in which you want your year to look like. It starts now, while it is the most fresh in your head, not tomorrow when the vision is cloudy. Don't hesitate, start sketching it out in your head. Take the initiative to live your life according to the way only you know you can. Life is what you make of it. Take your brush, dip it into your soul and paint your true nature the way it was intended. I think Kahlil Gibran, the Prophet said it best here,

"True art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes."

Real creation is expression through the way you craft yourself. You are a canvas, life is your creation, now go carve your future.

Photo Credit: Erik Olavi Vesterinen