It’s 2023 and the technology we have is nothing short of magic.
8K television. The sum of all human knowledge in our pockets. Affordable virtual reality.
First there was the industrial revolution.Then the digital revolution. Now we’ve entered the AI revolution.
They promised technology would improve our lives. Make things easier. Make us happier.
But let’s seriously consider that for a second - is technology ACTUALLY helping us achieve self-actualization?
With all the technological marvels we use every day, why aren’t we fulfilled? Why aren’t we all fucking enlightened?
What if the promise of technological progress has actually stifled us? What if technology, instead of nourishing our souls, has been enslaving us in a dopamine-fueled masturbatory hellscape?
And then there’s the usual suspects - social media, reality TV, smartphones… but it’s more than that.
It’s noise.
It’s the constant, unending ejaculation of information that’s being creampied into our brains every day. Bullshit that shouldn’t concern us. Nonsense that has no impact on our lives - and it’s all monetized. Every day, people are profiting off our outrage.
And we let them.
We pretend it’s our civic duty to know about every fucking tragedy, every microaggression, every controversial viewpoint, every sensationalist piece of coverage that’s been clipped out of context and exaggerated - and it’s killing us.
It’s time to wake up.
Technology was supposed to set us free. It was supposed to save us time so we could pursue happiness. Yet somehow, despite centuries of technological progress, we’re busier than ever.
Anger and anxiety are through the roof, despite this being the best time in human history to be alive.
The prophets said TV would rot our brains. They believed the internet would corrupt us. They insisted that social media would ruin our social lives.
And they were right… about all of it.
With each incremental innovation came an almost imperceptible loss of our autonomy. Mass media told us what to think. Mobile devices promised to eliminate boredom by transmitting a constant stream of entertainment directly into our minds.
But what no one told us is that creativity thrives in boredom. See, those quiet moments when you have nothing but your thoughts - no stimulation, no memes, no Netflix shows, no podcasts, no pornography - that’s where your mind starts to piece things together. That’s where ideas are born - not in the chatter, but in the stillness.
Our technopoly has convinced us that silence is bad. Silence must be filled with dialogue and music and outrage.
But if you’re never alone with your thoughts… then you’re not a person anymore. (FIGHT CLUB CLIP: “Then what are we?” “I don’t know, consumers…”)
If you never silence the noise, you’re just an NPC binging on a cacophony of garbage.
So what do we do? Do we reject technology and move into the woods? Do we revert to a pre-industrial way of life?
Even if we wanted to, most of us wouldn’t. Not really. It would be too isolating. We’re too deep into this global experiment to turn around and flat out reject it. People have tried and failed, time and time again.
But what if instead of totally rejecting technology, we change our relationship to it? What if we got hyper-intentional about every piece of tech that we allowed into our lives?
If we want to become self-actualized, we have to be in control. And right now, technology is in control.
We’ve let other people make the decisions.
Consider this: the smartphone. If you’re a living human today, you probably have one.
But think about it - did you really DECIDE to get a smartphone? Probably not. It’s the default. Everyone has one. It’s normal. Most phone stores only sell smartphones now. The decision was already made for you, and you never questioned it.
How many things do we accept just because they’re common? We need to question everything, eliminate what doesn’t serve us, and double down on what does.
And once you do that - your relationship to technology and yourself will dramatically change.
The smartphone is magic. It’s an absolute miracle. It’s capable of so much, yet most of us primarily use it for cheap dopamine.
But what if we were intentional with it?
So here’s what I did - I started over. I imagined a world in which I didn’t have a smartphone, and then I considered what problems I had that the smartphone could solve.
Here are the three main problems I identified:
My mind is disorganized
My health is suboptimal
I don’t have enough time to learn new skills
Then I considered the ways in which my phone could potentially solve these problems, mainly through the use of carefully curated apps.
To solve my disorganization problem, I chose apps like Google Calendar and ToDoist.
To improve my health, I chose MyFitnessPal, Whoop (a health tracker), Waking Up, and Spotify (for music while working out).
To learn more skills, I chose Duolingo and Math Tricks Workout, to improve my language and math skills in the dead moments during my day, between activities. Moments when I normally would open Instagram or TikTok.
Almost anything else on my phone is a distraction, and is probably unnecessary.
So what happens when you eliminate everything but the facets of technology that actually serve you?
It’s simple: You grow.
Now technology is working for you, instead of against you.
If you can’t identify any problems a technology solves for you, then the entire thing must go. It’s time to evolve and eliminate that which does not serve us.
As we exit the digital revolution and sprint full-force into the AI revolution, it’s essential, now more than ever, that we decide our own futures. Will we let technology assist us on our path to self-actualization? Or will we let it devour us and turn us into zombies?
If we don’t make that choice, then someone else will make it for us.
There’s a future within our reach where each of us has more freedom, more autonomy, and more fulfillment. But there’s no one looking out for us. There’s nobody there to catch us.
It’s time to regain control. It’s time to reject society’s defaults and decide for ourselves who we’re gonna be.