To act without an audience
Today I carved turns in a concrete bowl on a skateboard.
I didn’t do it well. For the first hour, my legs were shaky on the board. My backside turns were far worse than my frontside turns. I found myself running off the board as I misjudged my trajectory.
And yet, I was there to experience that present moment. To be with my board in a bowl.
There was no audience to speak of.
On the way home, I recalled going fly fishing with Gary, my step-dad, and his dad Merle. I remember watching as they both cast their lines into the East Branch of the Penobscot river in Maine with ease, the fly landing on some preordained eddy of water. Ploof.
And it didn’t matter that they could do it far better than I. I stood in waders and cast my line, and I wasn’t the picture of grace, and it didn’t matter. I was out with the men, fishing. It was fine to be awkward because that didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter if we caught any fish. What mattered was that the water was cold, and you could feel the current against your waders, and we were together doing a thing in the woods.
Amen.
So it went in the skatepark bowl. I was one of the old guys on a board. There were a couple of kids on scooters dropping in, riding down and racing up smooth bumps and launching themselves over them. We gave each other room, taking turns in spots.
I wonder sometimes to what extent I’ve gotten stuck on finding an audience. As we get more and more hooked on attention, on the seeking of it, on social media and leaving your mark, it can start to feel like you’re not much of anything if you don’t have an audience.
What a wonderful reality check to get out of that bubble and just skate in a bowl made of concrete. To hear the wheels spin. To feel those moments where balance feels on the edge of failing.
I came back from that recharged. I have no pictures to show for it. No movies. Just the memory of it and some aching muscles.
I tell myself these things: Dare to put your phone away. Dare to confront what’s in your heart.
The more I do that, the more I see the ways I’ve lost my edge. Become more dull. Less willing to stir the pot.
Spending hours upon hours online, even if it’s in the guise of work, does little to sharpen your mind. And listening to others on Youtube tell you how to do things may be a novelty, and even a useful one at that, but at some point it becomes noise.
I have felt myself begin to lose the ability to think for myself in ways that are deeper than surface level. That is what happens when you chase the next digital hit of dopamine, the next “hack” to get an audience, the next “like.”
I look at how I’ve changed and I see that I’ve become addicted to my screens, holding them in front of me until I fall asleep. Keeping my phone in my pocket in order to check it every few minutes. Never too far from my iPad.
What the actual hell has happened?
For all the utility we’ve created, we’ve also found ways to reduce a large bulk of our existence to the passive consumption of content that other people create. So much less happens in our brains, and so much more is simply served on a silver platter. Except that the silver platter is a screen backed by LED lights.
What’s the way out of this digital muck?
I believe that it starts with discipline.
We can do more on paper and less on a screen. We can create digital boundaries. While a laptop can be a wonderful tool for writing, it’s also full of distractions. Phones are even worse. Exercising digital discipline keeps us from getting sucked into the muck.
There is strength in turning off social media and ignoring the steady stream of likes and notifications and comments coming our way. There is strength in turning away from endless scrolling. There is strength in consciously avoiding things that we know make us weak, like porn.
If you want, do that and see how your brain responds. See how you recalibrate yourself such that you take pleasure in the wind turning over the leaves to show their tender green undersides. See how you take more pleasure in eating the sour green apple that you pick from a tree.
See how your curiosity expands as you begin to read more, and maybe even some great work. Perhaps you’ll find yourself getting lost in fiction and literature. Maybe in your reading you’ll find new beauty and your heart will crack itself open in ways you didn’t think possible.
I write this and there’s a side of me that feels like it’s coming to the surface after having been suffocated by technology. I am 42 years old. I was in college when my friend Adam told me about Google for the first time. And I remember life before Nintendo. I remember flying on 747s when they still had flight engineers on board. I remember watching TV with rabbit ear antennas. I remember singing along to Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street on PBS in the sunlit living room that my grandfather had in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. I remember my mother frying up frog’s legs in our kitchen in France, and I remember that, yes, they tasted like chicken smothered in butter and garlic.
To shake off the chase of digital dopamine highs, to write simply for the sake of writing, to reminisce solely for the sake of reconnecting with something human, that’s worthwhile.
I can’t imagine someone being on their deathbed wishing they’d checked their Facebook status more often.
I am aware that I’m living in contradiction of some of my values. I value nature. I value movement. I value human connection. I feel great joy when flying planes and teaching others how to do so. And yet, I also spend vast portions of my day and my time trying to sell things online while working from three screens in a basement. Trying to hustle. Making a living. And there’s a part of me wondering if I can’t apply my mind to creating a more aligned life.
I can imagine living somewhere off grid. Or on an island. Or even just in the woods. Having a small garden. Hunting for food. Spending time outside, enough time to see the seasons up close and watch as the leaves start the turn from summer toward fall.
I can imagine spending time fostering connection between people. Connecting myself. Connecting and growing with the woman I love.
I can imagine spending time listening and playing with my boys, Lukas and Noah. Still, I’m too far away from them.
I can imagine somehow connecting strongly enough with my writing to be able to make it part of my living.
All of those imaginings are human things, human ways of finding direction. Imaginings like that come just before the hero sets sail across the ocean. To have and to hold an inspiration is a divine thing. It’s a favorable wind if you choose to pursue it.
What comes next are questions.
What am I willing to lose in order to create this life that I see? What material things am I willing to cast off?
How many nights do I need to spend under the stars in order to discover the next step? The next place?
To live less than an inspired life feels like choosing to live in a trance. It is choosing to let others tell us what is important. It is choosing to turn away from the search for meaning. Maybe that’s natural as well. Because to do what is meaningful — to ask oneself if one’s life is meaningful — might expose us to the truth.
The truth of nature and life is both beautiful and terrible. The ocean that looks so majestic from afar can rise and drown you as though you were nothing at all. It can swallow you whole. That we exist at all in the midst of that is a miracle. It is divine in whatever way you choose to define it. It defies explanation, if you ask enough origin questions.
So if you choose, put that phone down. Make some tea. Or a fire. Or go for a walk.
Smile at someone you know. Smile at a stranger.
Take a breath and feel it fill your lungs, and see if you can appreciate the miracle of that.
There’s more to say, and more to see, and more about which we can smile.
Until then, be well.
Jesse
