“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” – Alfred North Whitehead

21 Days away from media was hard and I was surprised what I learned.  I have to be honest, I cheated using Twitter to communicate with my wife when I was traveling. Regardless, I really feel the time was well needed and I came away for the better.

Looking back I noticed that prior to this media switch off I’d become preoccupied with time creating a new kind of personal suffering; the tyranny of efficiency. My days were drawn into units of times for Blogging, Twittering, and communicating via many social forms and thinking primarily horizontally and not thinking vertically. In many ways managing all of these units of times corrupted my power of observation.  Cutting all that out, the twittersphere still rotated.  My blog still got traffic; even-though I wasn’t posting.  And when It came to connecting with people, we kicked it old school via phone or carrier pigeon. Life seemed to go on, but in a more simplistic state.

Secondly, I’d hope to get back in touch with my creative side. While I use technology to express myself creatively, I relied on it to much; instead of a more organic process like with pen and moleskin.  I began to read way more over the 3 weeks.  Doodle and sketch.  I even had the urge to paint.  I found my creative side exploding once again, when prior I felt as if I was in dry non-creative state.  I returned to a motto that I had when I was managing my awesome team at FOX, it was: if you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.

At the end of the day, I believe technological diet shapes the soul as much as food shapes the body. And we need to put ourselves in circumstances and pursue dreams that necessitate the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit.  I did that.  I’m doing that now.

Have you removed something from your routine and found in beneficial?