A Year Without Internet

[Starstuff]

This isn't a post about anti-Mustachian money use. It's more against the "Zen" (as rjack frequently notes!) parts. It starts out great- a year away from the demands of life and work, and ends with the author deciding that there is no real life outside the internet. I thought it would be interesting to discuss here because we're an online community, with a lot of us joining because a blog changed our lives. But, we're also a subset of people focused on simplifying life and connecting with non-internet things. What do you guys thing.

I debated putting this on the wall of shame, but I think it might be more nuanced than that.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/1/4279674/im-still-here-back-online-after-a-year-without-the-internet?buffer_share=43c17&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer%253A%252Brachelheldevans%252Bon%252Btwitter

[StarswirlTheMustached]

You're right, I don't think this is antimustachian at all. The key takeaway quote for me was this:

What I do know is that I can't blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems.

He's taking responsibility for himself, and that's probably the first step in the way of the mustache, in my book.

That said, he did great at the start of his experiment... so I wonder if things started to go wrong when he fell off the wagon, and back into dependence on technology. That is, when he realized that video games don't count as the Internet. He starts of talking about paper books and interacting physically-- but then retires to the couch with video games and audio books. And that was worse than being on-line, because those are solo technologies, and he started falling into the rut he describes. I get the impression, in spite of his experiment-- unless he goes into more detail elsewhere, I only read first few of his essays and this retrospective-- he hasn't been mindful enough of his technology.
That's a very easy trap to fall into, though.