This is not a soundbite
This is not a soundbite, so if you know me and you’re interested, please keep reading.
Welcome to 2021.
The physical isolation in 2020 and the grinding to a halt of our normal busy lives has given me the opportunity and choice to press a reset button on my life and create something new, something life-affirming. The year 2020, like the numbers, indicate, offered to me the clearest vision of my life. Seeing what was good and important as well as what were all the dark chaotic areas that I just used to cope with. 
It’s not clear what we will all face in this upcoming year but we know what we’ve been through and I wanted to share just a few things that I learned before I go publicly silent.
The first thing is that life is precious and moments are precious. Not in a way that I feel that I need to hoard it with fear, but in a way that I want to respect life and each moment in it.
Another thing that has become crystal clear to me is that friendships and connections with other humans are so incredibly important to my (our) humanity and growth.
This brings me to the primary purpose of this post. The connections with others that I speak about will not be more fleeting texts on messenger apps or silent peeping from the corners of other people's lives as they present themselves on Facebook or Instagram. What I wish to affirm is the authentic real and fully present connections that are possible with people in my life.
Most social media has taken human connections and turn them into sound bites to stimulate and titillate and there’s plenty of information here on the Internet about how this is detrimental to our well-being. I’m not here trying to judge anyone I’m only speaking my truth.
 In this inquiry of mine and feeling of disconnection, I’ve come across Cal Newport, who is written a book on digital minimalism among many other interesting reads. (Video links below). He summarizes what he has written about in a fairly simple statement. I paraphrase.
The Internet is a powerful tool for supporting our humanity, our interests, our desire for knowledge, but with the advent of social media, it is actually replacing these aspects of our life.
I recommend watching one or two of the videos, or even better, picking up his book and reading or listening to what he has to say.
While it didn’t require this clear thinking, intellectual man writing a book to explain these things to me, he has affirmed what I’ve been feeling for many years since Facebook really took off. I could say a lot more but I think those conversations would be more interesting one to one with whoever would like to connect with me.
I am choosing to reduce social media only to my business interests and professional and personal education groups. I want to look outside of the dominance of social media to rebuild and create my connection with friends and family.
What does this mean?
For me, it means that I want to connect with those who know me or would like to know me, but in a direct and authentic way. My primary desire is to meet people in person, but also by phone or by video call. We can take the art of letter writing and pop it onto an email format and try that as well. As I am currently in France and many of you are not, we can connect through audio conversations or video conversations. For me, this is about finding the time and making the time for these individual connections. For many of us who complain that we don’t have time, we only need to look at the screen times on our devices to realize how much time we spend surfing the Internet or social media sites. I trust that when I detox from these places I will have quite a lot of time.
I want to open up my mind and my heart to each and every one of you in an authentic way. Whether we speak for five minutes or three hours, it doesn’t matter. Whatever the amount of time is, it will be a time full of presence and attention.
Can this be done? Can I break away from the machine? I don’t know. But I’m at a place in my life now where I have had to let go of many people and things that I love, and so it’s the only choice I can make.
For me, 2021 is a new prescription for my vision of what I would like my life to be. If you want to be a part of this experience you can reach me through email and for the time being the social media platforms. At some point I will turn those off and it may be more difficult to get a hold of me, but trust me I’m here, I’m real, and I am looking to connect.
Who knows how many people will read this after the algorithms of Facebook mess with it, but I will leave all my ways of connecting me open for the time being and repost this a few times.
This is a scary leap for me. I will lose connection with some of you but I will also hopefully gain a stronger and more fulfilling connection with some of you as well.
If this topic interests you, here are a couple videos.
This is lighter and easier to watch video on the subject.
This is a longer video with a more in-depth conversation about the subject matter.
I wish all of you a beautiful new year!
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