“We all communicated perfectly well face to face for thousands of years before digital media showed up, and, although personal technology certainly has its merits, it is not so transformational that we cease communicating face to face. Yet a significant swathe of the population struggles with the very notion of direct contact and its consequences.
There is an overriding fear about what might go wrong in such interactions and this suspicion and negativity pervades other aspects of our lives,” writes Howard Lewis, in his new book titled Leave Your Phone at the Door: The Joy of OFFLINE. “The OFFLINE ethos is far more concerned with what may go right and acknowledges that the endless pursuit of perfection and excellence can be potentially destructive. I hope this book will help people maximize their personal worth in both a business and a social context, for the ability to develop empathy and rapport will become critical in a world dominated by algorithms and AI. The irony of social media is that it is profoundly antisocial, and the OFFLINE philosophy should enable those strangled by its grip to successfully
reengage with real people in real time and real life. One day a week, walk on the opposite side of the street to the station. You will still arrive at the same destination, but en route, you may notice the different facades of buildings, the sweep of the curve, kids on the way to school and dogs on the way to walk. This exercise reaffirms the duality of OFFLINE, which is less a shrine to the analogue world and more an invitation to celebrate the much underrated virtues of randomness and serendipity.”
As evidenced by the aforementioned passages, Lewis is able to write with this surprising narrative delicacy, laced with genuine insightful and wise passages about the current state of living OFFLINE is meant to address. Reading the book, I have to admit I felt a bit blue when I recognized my own considerable dissociation and removal from the world around me, and how much I am missing out in terms of the present time.
As someone who was eleven when the internet become a regular presence in our lives, one of the things I miss the most about a pre-internet era was the sense of cooperation and agreement between individuals. If one can afford an internet connection, the instantaneous sharing of information has taken the place of a face, a handshake, a transaction, and a connection. What Lewis offers is an elixir, a realistic one at that, to this kind of isolating phenomenon. It’s something that makes the kind of social stagnations tied with this removal manageable, if not curable per what Lewis encountered on his own, personal journey.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Leave-Your-Phone-Door-OFFLINE/dp/1635769396
“I am reminded with every passing day that I know a little about a few things and not much about the rest. Yet this blissful state of ignorance has contributed to my life in the most positive fashion, as it has always encouraged an innate sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around me,” writes Lewis. “…We live in an imperfect world.
There is a pervasive but misguided belief today that technology and artificial excellence are an indisputable force for good. It has infiltrated almost everywhere. Sport is a glaring example of this downward trend. Historically, before the dawn of the action replay and its fancy successors, sport was as much a tale of knock-ons, dubious law decisions or line calls, sly conduct by players, egregious officials, miscarriages of justice and outrageous fortune or misfortune. All these ingredients are a metaphor for life itself. The element of jeopardy is being squeezed out by a craving in society for certainty but I much prefer a twinge of uncertainty which, of course, cuts both ways!”
Cyrus Rhodes
