Scenes from a life offline
Vignettes from the spaces between screens
Welcome back, friends.
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For the last year or so, I’ve been off. Not off work, off parenting, or off life—just off line. I didn’t post. I didn’t write. I didn’t ‘share’ anything.
Offline, didn’t mean disappearing. It meant refusing to turn my life into output.
Maybe you noticed. If you did, I hope it’s because you missed something we shared in the words I sent out; a connection, a shared longing, or a feeling of same-ness.
Maybe you didn’t notice. That’s okay too.
For me, the quiet was the point.
In the first frame: quiet, undisturbed.
Creating space
The funny thing about stepping back from digital noise is that it sharpens everything else. By turning down the volume of constant connectivity, I found I could finally turn up the volume on everything else.
I’m no longer distracted by the noise.
When I’m with friends, I’m actually with them. I’ve stopped reaching for my phone during silent moments, because those moments are rich with possibility, not something to escape.
Even more importantly, clearing the mental clutter opened space in my mind, a space I hadn’t realized was missing. And in that space, I could finally breathe.
And it turns out it’s not just my own feeling. A randomized trial last year blocked mobile internet on participants’ phones for two weeks and found sustained attention improved—about as much as being a decade younger.
In the next frame: morning light at a window. Nothing to check. Nothing to miss.
Building fortitude
It’s actually quite difficult to stay offline. It requires effort, in a way that feels unnatural to most of us these days. The easy thing is to pick up a device, and just let it take you away—no thoughts, no directions, just subtle pulls toward the most compelling notification or signal in that moment.
Resistance, though, is power. In resisting, we challenge the assumptions and incentives of the worlds we exist in online. And incentives are everything. Rewiring our own incentives requires intense focus and fortitude.
There’s a particular allure to being noticed online. Even if you’re not aiming for “fame,” the likes, comments, and reposts create small wins that become addictive.
When that stream quiets, you feel the absence. There’s a void. And what you fill that void with matters.
At first, the urge to check, to scroll, didn’t disappear. But letting that feeling linger taught me something: those empty moments are opportunities. They made me reach out to people in real life, or dig deeper into meaningful content in books and articles, instead of taking the easy win of a quick dopamine hit.
Being here—fully present—takes effort, but the rewards go far beyond what any fleeting notification ever could.
In the next frame: a line at a café. A calm observance of the surrounding architecture.
Reclaiming privacy
I’ve always loved writing and sharing ideas. It’s what drew me to the internet in the first place. But over time, sharing became performance.
Everything we post now feels optimized. We measure our worth in likes, comments, and shares. The algorithms quietly train us to package our lives for engagement or relevance, and that pressure seeps in everywhere.
That’s part of why I struggled to post. I don’t feel compelled to tell you every single moment of my life. I just don’t.
When I stopped posting on Instagram years ago, I felt strange at first, just lurking. But now it feels sane. I’m not only guarding my own clarity; I’m preserving my family’s privacy.
That simple act of stepping away felt freeing, more than I’d expected. Instead of worrying about crafting the “perfect” post, I could focus on living—and that’s a trade-off I’ll choose every time.
In the next frame: a moment that never becomes content. It remains intact.
Making Time
I’ve never been one to waste time. I’ve always unintentionally lived by the mantra: “Every minute matters.” But when I became a parent, my view on time shifted.
When your day is measured in bedtime stories, scraped knees, and first steps, everything changes. Productivity becomes secondary to presence. My child doesn’t care if I draft another post or sign off on one more task. She notices if I’m truly there—connected and happy.
Anything that competes with that connection? It’s gone.
The same is true for my time online. Every scroll or refresh felt cheap, robbing me of moments I wanted to spend elsewhere. Stepping offline helped me prioritize the things—and the people—who really matter.
In the next frame: bedtime. The phone is off. Time returning to its natural speed.
Finding freedom offline
I think, often, about a specific kind of hell: the life of influencers, content creator, or anyone forced to always be online.
Not because those people or jobs are bad. Because the structure and incentives are brutal.
It’s the relentless pull of algorithms. The constant need to produce. The pressure to turn every thought, moment, or process into content.
Even if you’re not “trying to be famous,” the machinery makes it easy to confuse attention with meaning—and to confuse output with self-worth.
I’m not an influencer and never plan to be. But that gravitational force—to monetize everything, to narrate everything, to be “consistent”—is something we’ve all felt and heard.
Walking away was my way of making sure that force never outweighed what’s most meaningful to me.
Creativity, for me, cannot live tethered to an algorithm.
In the next frame: hands empty on a walk. Life happening without proof.
To write or not to write?
I haven’t loved the “post-for-growth” way the internet operates now. For me, writing has always been about sharing, exploring, and learning. It’s a creative outlet and intellectual exercise. No vanity metrics. No growth hacks. Just the words, and the meaning they bring.
Going offline robbed me of an audience, but it also forced me into something deeper. I began to grasp how, at its core, writing exists in the tension between what we choose to share and what we choose to keep.
What remains unseen, unshared—deeply ours—this is a form of wealth that can’t be measured.
The poet Mary Oliver once wrote,
The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work...and gave to it neither power nor time.
Her reminder echoes in my mind every time I approach a blank page.
Some of what I write won’t hit the mark.
Some will veer beyond my supposed expertise.
Some pieces may fall into digital silence.
And all of that is ok.
I’m back, not to perform, but to practice.
I’ll keep writing, because the act itself matters.
Algorithms and metrics can lurk, but they won’t decide my path.
The real reward lies in what stays unseen, mine alone, in the quiet spaces where light can seep in.
In the final frame: a blank page, unhurried. The next sentence arriving.
Until Next Time!
That’s it for this week. As always, if you like the content, please do me a favor and like, share, subscribe — this newsletter runs on overpriced whiskey and reader engagement.
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Thanks for reading, and see you soon,
— Kevin K. (@kkirkpatrick)