The more time you spend in the shit stream, the stupider and more boring and just like everyone else you will be. – Tim Kreider
I love Tim Kreider’s book, We Learn Nothing, but I believe I first saw this quote from Austin Kleon. I know Austin frequently mentions how Twitter itself is the purest embodiment of the never ending, slimy, oozing shitstream we cannot escape.
Except we can. It’s fucking hard, but within our power. More on that in a bit.
The original quote comes from an AdviceToWriters interview with Kreider: “The more time you spend immersed in the shitstream of TV/internet/social media the stupider and more boring and just like everyone else you will be. Hang out in real life having good conversations with brilliant and hilarious people, so you can steal their ideas and all the clever things they say. Spend a lot of time alone so you can think up some original thoughts of your own. Have adventures. Get paid.”
He’s speaking in terms of being the best writer you can be, but I think in our world today, avoiding the shitstream is fundamental if you want to become the best person you can be.
What is the shitstream? It can take many forms. It’s checking your phone the second you wake up. It’s the seventeen BREAKING NEWS notifications waiting for you there. It’s refreshing Twitter every few seconds even when you know there’s nothing new, let alone anything that will have the slightest impact on your life. The shitstream of yesterday were billboards and infomercials, but now they’re attached to us, screaming from our pockets. The shitstream can be so many things, because we are increasingly inundated with new garbage ready for us the second we’re bored. The shitstream is what you pay attention to when you don’t want to face ______. It’s what you pull up to distract yourself when you want to avoid something, whether it’s that tough conversation you need to have, the exam you should be studying for, or even just being alone with your thoughts for more than a few minutes straight.
In order to be original, creative, fresh thinkers, we need to pull our heads out of what everyone else is consuming. But in order to keep our sanity, to maintain our well-being, to be healthy, happy individuals, we MUST pull our heads out of the shitstream to breathe in the air and just fucking be.
The internet has always had this pull, but it became crystal clear how explosive and harmful it could be with the 2016 election and beyond. From that point on it’s kept us glued to a screen, itching to hear the next fresh horror. I know this is terrible for me yet have felt helpless trying to battle it back. I’ve blocked Twitter from my computer only to find that the Mobile version is somehow unblockable on my work desktop. There goes that barrier, and with a click there goes my attention. I’ve tried to set self-imposed windows to peek at the news without it swallowing me up, only to pull myself out of the wreckage an hour later, furious at what the head of the EPA is doing, and even more furious at myself for knowing what the fucking head of the EPA is doing. The addicting nature of the internet, purposeful and by design, has overpowered our willpower and discipline. But there are potential solutions worth trying out that we’ll get to. Because we must try. We must try to eliminate the shitstream from our lives as much as we can, so that we can have the freedom to spend time doing the things that we love, that interest us, that make us happy. It’s an ongoing process, filled with proud advances and frustrating backslides. But that’s life.
I don’t want to spend too much time expounding this. I do want to give it a proper introduction though, because I’m going to periodically post examples of the SHITSTREAM and the harm it’s causing us, along with examples of the ANTI-SHITSTREAM, showcasing the tools we can use to help ourselves become free of it, and the people who recognize it and are doing something about it in their own way. Let’s start by looking at two of my favorite comedians: Aziz Ansari and Louis CK.
Recently in an interview with GQ, Aziz Ansari shared that he had deleted basically all of the internet from his phone; not only social media like Instagram and Twitter, but email and the Internet browser itself. And if you know anything about Aziz Ansari, you know he looooves the internet. But like you and me, he felt this shit getting out of control:
Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. You’re not going to be able to control yourself. So the only way to fight that is to take yourself out of the equation and remove all these things. What happens is, eventually you forget about it. You don’t care anymore. When I first took the browser off my phone, I’m like, [gasp] How am I gonna look stuff up? But most of the shit you look up, it’s not stuff you need to know. All those websites you read while you’re in a cab, you don’t need to look at any of that stuff. It’s better to just sit and be in your own head for a minute. I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months, and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.
But you might be asking the same thing the interviewer asked, and what I ask myself. What about the news, what about staying current, isn’t that vitally important, especially in today’s environment? Aziz’s response:
I was reading all this Trump stuff, and it doesn’t feel like we’re reading news for the reason we used to, which was to get a better sense of what’s going on in the world and to enrich yourself by being aware. It seems like we’re reading wrestling rumors. It’s like reading about what happened on Monday Night Raw….So if you take yourself out of it, you’re not infected with this toxicity all the time. Also, guess what? Everything is fine! I’m not out of the loop on anything. Like, if something real is going down, I’ll find out about it….I’m not choosing ignorance. I’m choosing to not watch wrestling.
I don’t think me reading the news is helping anything. I think it’s hurting me. It’s putting me in a bad state of mind. And I could see how someone could hear that about me and be like, Oh, you’re ignoring what’s happening in the world ’cause you don’t want negativity in your head. That seems very selfish. Maybe it is. I don’t know. It’s not like I was reading it and then, like, immediately taking action in a way that was helping to fix problems. I can still cut checks without reading the articles. I cut my checks, man!
That last part pinpoints the best counter-argument to “YOU GOTTA READ THE NEWZ!11!” Why? So I can have ammo to argue politics with a stranger/friend/family member? Reading the news doesn’t DO ANYTHING. Just like tweeting about it doesn’t DO ANYTHING. I don’t think you should stick your head in the sand. I don’t think you should be completely oblivious. But the 24 hour news cycle, and now the internet, have obliterated the filter between you and the news. You can have it all the time, anytime you want. And that is increasingly toxic to our selves and to our culture as a whole.
Louis CK took it even further. He straight up quit the internet. This isn’t the first time he’s illuminated the dangers of abusing today’s technology while making us laugh. He brings up a ton of great points, but in particular the sin of looking at one’s phone while with another person. Obviously we’ve all done it to people and we’ve all had people do it to us. But I don’ think I ever experience the visceral feel of loneliness more than when I’m surrounded by friends who are all consumed in their phones, even more so than when I’m actually alone. And this is just one instance of the shitstream-ing into our everyday lives.
If you’re familiar with Louis CK, you probably know he’s a fan of ejaculating. So how does that work if you quit the internet? What men might find even harder to fathom then quitting the entire internet, is quitting porn. In a Vulture interview they bring up this very issue:
So if you’re not looking on the internet, what do you jack off to? Are you one of those weirdos who buy porn on DVD?
Here’s a weirder option: Take a little longer and try to get your imagination frothed up to where it gets you off. What a strange exercise! I hadn’t done that since 1998.And how’s that going for you, masturbation-wise?
It’s gone pretty well. I kinda like it. It also means: Maybe store it up for a while and wait until you actually have a sexual urge. I don’t know what it’s like for women, but for a lot of guys I know — and myself — masturbation is an anxiety release. If I’m trying to get some work done and getting irritated, just go rub one out and it calms you down. It’s a shame to do that as a swap-out for real sexual connection to your virility and your sexual drive. I don’t have a perfect record, but I am trying to see if I can just let a sexual urge be. Having an internet prohibition really helps. I sometimes have gone to jerk off when I’m not even hard. I’m in a bad mood, so let’s put on Google and find something to get me off. That’s happening every second around the world.
Despite it being unimaginable for most men, Louis uncovered potentially one of the most beneficial aspects of quitting the internet: quitting porn. If you’re curious why that might be so beneficial, just skim through Your Brain on Porn.
We know our phones and the internet are bad for us in a ton of different ways. People probably don’t need an essay articulating why that it is, they already know how they feel. So what the fuck are we supposed to actually do about it? For most of us, quitting the internet entirely is not just impossible, it’s not even desirable. Even Louis still keeps his site running to sell tickets and specials off of. As much as I rail against it, I love the internet. I like Instagram, I like Netflix, I like reading interesting articles and watching videos of my favorite comedians. But I don’t like the feeling when I’ve lost control of how I use it, when I’ve lost control of myself, and how it seeps into the rest of my life. Luckily there are tools available that can give more of the control and power back to us.
Freedom and Self Control.
Both are website blocking apps that you install on your computer and/or phone. Both block whatever websites you want blocked for the amount of time you determine. You are then unable to visit those sites for that amount of time, period.
I’ve primarily used Self Control for the last couple years, mainly as a long-term way to block sites I knew I absolutely did not want to visit, so I wouldn’t even be tempted. But recently I switched to Freedom because it provided more flexibility. I bought the yearly subscription for less than what a decent meal out would cost me. This way I can set up recurring, 24 hour blocks, so those sites I blocked on Self Control are now blocked in perpetuity and I don’t need to reset a timer. I can then also block sites I temporarily don’t want to be distracted by, for shorter periods of time. This is great for blocking out everything if I need to focus on writing, work, etc. And when the timer’s up, I can access those sites again. I’m still fine-tuning it, and want to set more recurring blocks so I can force myself into better routines. At this point, it seems to be the perfect solution for me.
If you have any questions, thoughts, solutions, or just generally want to discuss this topic, reach out and I’ll be happy to respond. I like talking about this shit and think it’s very important to get a better handle on the ways we use and engage with the internet.
*The great irony of all of this: you’re reading this on your computer or phone. You may have seen this link via Twitter. This isn’t lost on me. Where does Austin Kleon bitch about Twitter?…..well, Twitter of course. The internet writ-large is here to stay, and it is the literal stream in which information is shared. Like much of life, it is a paradox: the internet is a wonderful, empowering, connecting tool that perpetuates learning, growth and greater opportunities; the internet is a harmful, addicting cesspool where our worst impulses are manipulated and perpetuated. What I’m advocating for is a greater awareness of what we’re paying attention to in the stream, and through this awareness, a greater ability to control when and how we are using this tool in our lives.