By Slim Man
I just flew in from Europe. And boy, my arms are tired!
I played a couple of private parties, one in Italy and one in Germany, and took some time to travel in between. I left the USA on September 11th, I got back on the 28th.
I told very few people I was going. Most of my friends and family had no idea. Why? I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I just…disappeared. I also wanted to see if I could unplug for a while. So, I made very few phone calls, did very little texting. I didn’t post anything on social media. I didn’t send out any newsletters. I answered very few emails. I took a few photos, but not many.
I wanted to stay away from the iPhone, the iPad, the iCrap. I wanted to shut down what I call The Weapons of Mass Distraction.
At first, I panicked. Whenever I would reach for my iPhone and it wasn’t there, I’d feel like I’d just left my kid on top of the car and drove off. But as days passed, a funny thing happened.
I started noticing things that I hadn’t noticed before. Like the plate of food in front of my face. When I went to a restaurant, instead of trying to get the perfect photo to post, I just sat and enjoyed the meal. Instead of trying to capture the perfect video of a bartender mixing an exotic drink, I just watched and imbibed. Instead of Tweeting a pic of me high-fiving the Pope, I just enjoyed the experience.
I tried to stay in the moment. I didn’t want to be distracted by all the pings and dings and rings of all the screens I’d become so addicted to. I didn’t post a video on FaceBook and then check it every 10 minutes to see how many “likes” I got. I didn’t upload a photo to Instagram and see how many “hearts” I got. I didn’t Tweet. I wasn’t Pinterested!
What happens when you unplug for a few weeks? What happens when you stay off all social media for 17 days? What happens when you shut down the Weapons of Mass Distraction?
Well, I became less distracted, for sure. I walked a lot, and when I did, I started noticing things I hadn’t noticed before. Instead of looking down at my phone, I looked up at the apartments above the shops. I saw people hanging laundry—you don’t see a lot of that in Palm Springs!
I ran into a friend while walking down the street in Rome, a guy I hadn’t seen in years. That might not have happened if I was making a video on the iPad.
I did some things that I might not have done if I’d researched every detail on Trip Advisor and Yelp. Instead of surfing the Net, I actually asked some people for recommendations—places to see, things to do, restaurants to visit. I spoke with these people face-to-face! We had conversations. It was some kinda wonderful.
I became a lot more relaxed. I tend to worry a lot. Sometimes I worry so much, I get worried about being worried so much. But when I shut down the Weapons of Mass Distraction, I found out that I didn’t worry as much.
Worry is contagious. When you read on the Internet about global warming, nuclear war, and a man in New Jersey wearing Saran Wrap as a bathing suit, you tend to worry. So I stayed away from the news—TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet.
The last night of my trip, I was in a hotel in Berlin. I played a private party the night before, and had to leave early to fly back to the USA. I couldn’t sleep, so I turned on the TV for the first time since I’d left. And what came on the TV, at 4 in the morning?
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton doing their first debate.
Welcome back!
Slim Man is a singer and writer. He does concerts, and has a new cookbook, Slim Man Cooks, all details are at www.slimman.com
