Why You Need to (REALLY) UNplug

*This from my personal journal just before Float Sideways took a 3 year hiatus on social media. I am sharing it because EVERYONE at some point feels this way. It’s what you do with those feelings in the moment that make the difference on your journey. Having these feelings, and then taking a long break helped tremendously with my own ability to Float Sideways.

Remember, just because someone shares their philosophy doesn’t mean they are an expert on it!

“This tumble into apathy started yesterday with a seeming straw on the camel’s back: I asked to switch an Email from one account to another:

The Trello board doesn’t load, there are different passwords needed, from Danielle’s system to mine. She is texting me: Try this, try that, nothing works. It works for her, but not me. Where are my posts now? All lost? All I want to do is share my thoughts, lessons I have learned, ideas, wisdom, and is it all gone now because of wanting to switch a stupid email?

I try to go for a walk to settle my emotions and my overly stressed out by technology brain. I know that music works for me, I’ll try that. Start a playlist, ahhhh, release, I start crying, it feels good but I am sitting on my driveway out front. The music stops, WHY? I don’t know! It looks like I got a text while the music was playing. I try to restart the music, doesn’t work. I go back inside, trying to not act as mad and frustrated and disheartened as I feel so I don’t stress out my partner. I get different headphones, still wanting to take a break with something that works for me. I plug in the new headphones. The music is clearly playing on my playlist but I can’t hear it. I take it all off and just sit there and cry.

I cry so hard my nose starts bleeding. Shit! Now I have to go back inside. The neighbor’s caregiver sees me from her driveway and waves, thinking I am such a strong person from the advice I offered her the day before on continuing to beat her addictions and just go for it. I smile and quickly wave. What the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t handle this? The more I cry the harder my nose bleeds but I can’t stop the tears or outlet of emotion. I need a washcloth, where is one? Fuck! I throw my fanny pack and it breaks a shade. I just stood over the sink watching the blood pour out of my nose. I don’t care. It’s red, it’s something that I can watch for a few seconds to distract me from the shitty ass feelings I am feeling.

I don’t want to be here anymore, having to deal with this technological bullshit of an intricately woven pattern of frustration and stress in trying to get one to coordinate with the other, all the while ignoring my own systems that are trying to do the same but I am not listening to them either. The black hole is sucking me in. I just want to watch T.V., smoke pot, and indulge the munchies. But of course I can’t.

My partner tries to hug me and make suggestions but I feel nothing. Nothing that remotely sounds like it would work to keep me from falling deeper into the hole. I don’t even think I care anymore if I do, except I help my family and friends with their medical deciphering so I am at least helpful to someone.

Today I am trying to have a conversation with my counselor on a video app, and for the first time EVER, the sound just….goes away. Really? What is it with me and technology? I finally just put the phone up to my ear so I can at least hear her that way. About 15 minutes later the whole call just gets dropped. First she can’t see me but I can hear her. And then the whole call just gets dropped. I text her that it’s time to go anyway, and set my phone down and start to drive. She calls me and I can’t find my damn phone. It was JUST on the seat a minute ago. It’s ringing and I can’t find it and I know it’s her. I look again and again, throwing things in the back as I move them out of the way, thinking at the same time I don’t even want to talk anymore anyway but I should. I finally found it under the seat. We reschedule.

I go to the post office to mail a package, I try to use the self service Kiosk and all I get is the little swirly circle going round and round. I wait, it starts. I get to the address part and it won’t take her address which I have put in before and it worked. So I say Fuck it and go stand in line at the counter and mail it there.

On the way home I hear something on NPR that I want to write in my ‘Float Sideways’ folder in my NOTE app. I open it, and the screen won’t work for me to even get the cursor to click in to write the name of the person talking about objectivity and our perceptions. What the hell? I realize how SO much of my day is trying to work in systems that I feel amazingly incompetent in, and the minute I think I have a handle on it, they don’t work, or there is an update, or there is a new app that I have to use, or a new folder I have to create to then try and remember what stuff and where I put it.

I want to go back to talking with people. JUST talking. Not writing anything down that then I have to find the correct place to put it.

Keep the website only? Only one thing to deal with, and blog there. When I find something to share, or think of good things to share, then I will blog versus LOOKING for something to post because the present day, dopamine addicted ‘audience’ demands 5 to 10 posts per week. I am feeding right into the frenzy of scrolling and addictions, and distractions, and NON presence by trying to be a presence in a place that I am at odds with! Moral dilemma?

I know there are both good and bad things about our current technology. At the moment of the many births I attended, I watched technology get in the way.(bad) During Char’s death, I watched people being able to connect with her when I held the phone up to her ear and her friends talked to her to say goodbye. (good)  I watched Mom and Cindy enjoy their family Zoom meeting. (good) I watch people get so totally caught up in sharing something on their phone that they lose track of the conversation that is happening right in front of them at the lunch table. (bad) I have watched myself afraid to talk anymore because the words don’t come out right, at least in my head they don’t seem like they are coming out right, but on text I can type and retype before sending and autocorrect is assisting. (bad) People who I trust have said the words are coming out just fine. Why don’t I believe them? Why am I so negative on life anymore? Why if I had the choice to leave peacefully right now, or stay in this current life, I would probably leave? I’m overwhelmed, and scared for the future and frustrated that it seems more people aren’t noticing and doing something about it.

Today I am seeing things in 2D, and maybe have for awhile now. (How long?) What is going on with me? This ‘new’ world is driving me insane with frustration and confusion and apathy, and…………” (end of entry)

*Float Sideways did return to social media, but with one consistent message:

Take the time, every day, as often as you can, to UNPLUG. From tech, from those daily stressors.

GO INTERACT WITH THE WORLD AROUND YOU INSTEAD. RETURN TO PRESENCE. LOG OUT OF THIS SITE.

Pull that Eddy instead of thinking you have to keep navigating the rapids.

It really works to become more peaceful in those frustrating moments.