I Lived Without Internet For Two Weeks, Here's What Happened

hi today's episode in part brought to you by an apartment that has no internet and of course jay's favorite brand of tea yorkshire tea always take advice from an englishman when it comes down to tea because this thing is divine anyhow today's episode is going to be about uh how i managed to not go insane without the internet for two weeks right before i moved in here into this apartment my landlord handed over um handed me this like huge care package you know like the tenant's survival guide to this crappy apartment with 20 000 problems in there there were like contact details of plumbers um people that could you know vacuum your carpet and then like the mail service guy or like po box subscription auto kind of auto kind of jazz and i crap you not there were 20 flyers in there just about internet providers just about you know internet services so i saw the flyers and i was just like yeah it makes a lot of sense for me to have internet here since my entire career depends on the internet but then i thought about it again do i actually need the internet here's like the thing that sort of like tripped wires in my brain the state library which is a beautiful library with excellent internet and it's free it's right down the street from my apartment it's like three minutes away so i could just walk there and i thought to myself i'm not gonna die without like eight hours of internet if i want to use the internet for specific purposes like submitting schoolwork or checking in with um with people or like uploading youtube videos i could just head over to the state library so i took all of his flyers in a care package and threw them in a bin and that basically kicked off this entire experiment of living deliberately so in today's video i want to share some of my some of the lessons that i've learned from this entire process of living without the interweb first of course distractions funnily enough because we spend most of our lives distracted yes even the people um in his self-help circles that claim that they're not distracted people they're still distracted people there are two modes of brain function in here just like the focus brain mode like there's just like the flow state there's so many names for this thing but there's also like the normal state which is kind of like the state that you go into when you're cooking a meal when you're just hanging out with people when you're just being yourself this right here the hyper focus state that's not gonna really determine who you are like in the long run but it's the rest state of your mind like the sort of that you engage with when you're free i feel like that has a much bigger like that determines a much bigger chunk of your personality so therefore after i got rid of the internet to distracted state that i slide into um kind of like aligned itself with hobbies that just don't involve the internet at all for example reading a few pages of the book even though i've never touched that book ever in my entire life for example reading an article from a magazine surprise surprise people still read magazines or listening to music and of course you would ask yourself how how would you listen to music if you don't have the internet well i do have like a few gigabytes of data on my phone that i can use for spotify streaming so i can listen to music but i can't do anything beyond that so without the internet i found myself slipping back to all of these things that i didn't know that i've enjoyed for example reading for example listening to music for example cooking a meal that's something that really surprised me that you know when i was hooked on this dopamine rush of the internet this hedonic treadmill of the internet i wasn't aware that i've actually enjoyed those things but now since the internet's gone i found myself slipping back to all of the things that i used to really enjoy as a kid or as an adolescent or you know right now venturing to my early adulthood um i found myself you know just reconnecting with some of the weird that i've enjoyed before the second lesson that i've learned from this entire internet experiment fiasco was that um my actual internet usage became a lot more deliberate and there's no longer that craving for the internet because i have to go downstairs press the elevator you know engaging some small talk with my neighbors that entire process takes effort that five minute walk to the library that takes effort settling down at the library that takes effort after going through this entire ritual you better make sure that your internet time's worth it you know it's always like okay here's a video that i need to upload here's an assignment that i have to submit here's this thing that i was going to get done but nevertheless it just got swept under the rug because i got busy the internet is just a tool to help us grow the internet is just the tool for us to be better human beings it's not a part of us and it shouldn't be a part of us in a sense the trip to the library sort of ritualizes this using of the internet so it's no longer just a commodity it's something that you're using to get yourself to somewhere better so the entire relationship really shifts and i think that's one of the major lessons that i've learned from this entire process and the last lesson which is going to matter a lot for people who are venturing into their mid-20s or early 30s which is that sleep gets so much better without the internet i'm not going to quote any scientific studies because you know so many channels on on youtube they've already done how to work for me but personally before i was the kind of person that would not go to bed before 1 a.m right before i was not the kind of person i would go to bed early and wake up early right that's just like no i'm like a bohemian person or like you know some crazy i'm not kind of orderly person that has that kind of temperament but then after getting rid of the internet it's really weird how this worked i found myself just wanting to wind down at around 9 00 pm found myself gravitating towards my kettle to make a cup of tea i found myself wanting to read a chapter of for example proust or for example something else or for example something just soothing we're not making any judgment calls here you know like you can sleep late and that's totally fine if you're into that kind of stuff but i don't know there's a sense of like i'm a little calmer and life is a little more orderly and i was actually able to implement habits that actually stuck around for example journaling every single day for example reading before bed every single day and for example just brewing tea on time and having breakfast on time those things are difficult things for 20 something to master right because typically i would just rush out of the door and grab breakfast on campus but now with these few hours that i've spared by going to bed early and waking up early um i've actually spared out quite a few hours just to listen to to a podcast where like make make a really good breakfast and actually brew myself my first cup of coffee so those are some of the lessons that i've learned and also i made the fatal mistake of lighting myself with window light again because you know how melvin's like the weather is just crazy and there's no way of knowing how bright the video is going to be because you know the sky is always changing if you like your videos with the window it's going to change constantly nevertheless i hope you guys enjoyed those pockets of insights and i really want to hear your thoughts what's your relationship with your internet usage and what kind of value is it bringing into your life anyway rc wonder here and i will see you guys in the next video

Channel: R.C. Waldun

Views: 47,446

Rating: 4.9706316 out of 5

Keywords: rc waldun, living, minimalism, how to live without the internet

Id: s5xqJyvcc68

Length: 7min 6sec (426 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021