Audio recording of the post, “[Friday Feature] Introducing Friday Feature, a new series about our readership’s content”
Today we are going to be kicking off a new weekly series just for Fridays on alixandercourt.com. I hope you are on the edge of your seat for this.
We are going to call it Friday Feature, and how it works is I am going to pick, at random, a visitor that has engaged with this site and write about their content.
Samuel Morse Quoting Numbers 23:23 “What hath God wrought?”
In many ways, how Newport ended his book is an apt way to do so. Yes, the all too poignant words of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and the morse code, as he demonstrated the telegraph to the United States Supreme Court, are maddeningly accurate now staring down the end of the first quarter of the 21st century: WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?
For those of you who don’t know, I have read Cal’s work before. This, Digital Minimalism, is my second report on Cal’s work. I’ll admit that finishing this book has been as transformative as it comes when taken into light of the plague that has infected our species. No, I’m not talking about The Mind Virus of Pornography. I’m talking about connectivity.
I noticed something in the LaGuardia Airport Terminal on my way home from a recent vacation to the Liberty States: New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware. It only took a brief glance waiting in the terminal to see how sick our species has become since the advent of the smart phone in 2007. Sick with what you ask? Sick with distraction. In a very short time, these devices, powered with social media apps of today and the moneys being pumped into our attention economy, have entirely robbed our species of our most precious resources: our time, attention and care for others.
Take a thirty-day break
Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism
If you don’t believe me, then take up a challenge proposed by Cal Newport: “Take A Thirty-Day Break“
Now if this sounds obscene or impossible to you, consider that you may very well need to take a deep and difficult look at the relationship you have with your devices. If you are anything like me, then you will see this thirty day challenge as the reason you have been waiting for to get out. And shoot, you might even stop everything (including enjoying this post) and take on the challenge right now.
This is not a detox. I told you that from the get go. A detox implies that you will go back to doing what makes you sick. This is a transformation. You will never be the same after you have re-assessed your relationship with your devices. And if this is your first DTR (determining the relationship), you are likely in for a real awaking. But don’t worry, Digital Minimalism will equip you with the foundations and practices you will need to over come the challenge (literally, those are parts one and two of his book).
I am sure what you will likely find in those thirty days, just as I have, are things that you have missed that you weren’t even aware of. How about the joys of solitude? Or what about the power of face-to-face conversation, with someone you care about? And what about the rewarding experience of taking part in your community; a real, in-the-flesh, community of people who share common values with you? If you are scoffing here that you can get all that from airplane mode, messaging a friend, or posting to one of your preferred groups… you are probably sick.
“Turn on, tune in, drop out”
Timothy Leary
If you don’t understand what I mean by sick, and you don’t understand what sickness I am talking about, than you most certainly can not be a part of the cure.
If this is your first time hearing this, then may it awaken you to the truth of what is going on all around us every moment…
Are you ready?
Okay…
Here it is…
The all-consuming, attention-whoring, power of modern connectivity fueled by social media, general purpose mobile computing machines, and the trillions of dollars that tech giants have invested to keep you “turn[ed] on, tune[ed] in, drop[ped] out” of your life are what are currentlyholding you back and keeping you sick.
Undo what man hath wrought
Alixander Court referencing Digital Minimalism
To be free of the attention sickness, and to reclaim your life from the unintended slavery that the digital era has imposed on us as a species – power off your screens, go get Digital Minimalism at a book store near you, and undue what man hath wrought.
I’d love to know your comments below about what think about what man hath wrought.
If you ever felt like you wanted to read something from the Restricted Section of the library, reading revolutionary literature will definitely will turn some heads.
Dr. Theodore J. Kaczynski is most notoriously famed as the UNABOMER. But for many others he has one of the most honest examinations of modern technological society and its profound impacts on ecology.
Written entirely from the SuperMax Prison, “Anti-tech Revolution, Why and How” is a gripping, step by step, (albeit) nearly mathematical, examination of the impetus of power. Specifically the power wrought from self-propagating systems.
This book was exceptionally fascinating, and incredibly lucid. At no point did I feel that I was reading the thoughts of a loon, or a crazed psycho-path. From start to finish I felt as thought I was reading the words of a very concerned and very thoughtful older cousin… maybe a brother… lol… Brother Ted…
Anyway, this book was significant to me because I hadn’t anticipated that what he wrote would play out implicitly in the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the earth. I anticipate that Theodore might have something to say about a self propagating system like a virus infecting the human population and careening the entire human civilization into a tailspin. In fact, he might say that it was due to the advances in human global transportation that spread the virus and it was the near instant communication that spread the fear of it until it cause our entire system to stutter.
After having finished the book the day before the US travel ban, I am left with a question after having learned Kaczynski’s goal… will it be man who satisfies his goal, or will it be a non-human entity like a virus? If you want to know his goal, read his incredible book.
Have you read the book, or any of his other works? What are your thoughts on Theodore Kacynski altogether? Leave your thoughts below!
Alixander Court 