A Retreat Journey: #4 Cheat day
20 December, 2018
07:50 pm
It’s a little late than yesterday. Mainly because I woke up late. I didn’t even get the chance to write in my morning journal nor to go to the terrace in the morning. So,I just spent my morning inside my room, meditating, reading and trying to entertain myself with books. I started to feel this itch to check on the news, to check what’s going on in my twitter feeds, to know what are people up to. So, I did a cheating days. I ended up finding myself going down the rabbit hole reading about the case of youtube chinese content creator called sexycyborg with asian-american journalist and vice. It was interesting because as far as I know, the chinese government bans youtube. So she has to use VPN and for some complicated reason, she was deplatformed by patreon. I think it was because she was putting a Vice journalist address in her video. I also spotted she was trying to open an account on steemit. So, I just broke my rule.
I initially wanted to live without internet and basically away from things except relying on traditional surviving methods. For instance, to find information, one has to go outside, read books, newspaper or ask around instead relying on our smart devices.
I have fear of earthquake. Not only but also natural disaster in general. I’ve been living my life witnessing some natural disaster. It never had huge impact on me except this one time when I was living in Bali. Back in the day when I experience a volcano eruption, I was just fine, instead I was happy because my school were closed due the ash rain.
Then, I experienced several minor earthquakes. It didn’t have any impact on me. I was not even shocked. Until Bali. It scared me very much because I was living just 10 minutes from the beach. I wasn’t even in a good mental state, so that was adding up to my worry state. I even slept under the table for about two nights. Even after I moved out from Bali, that fear and trembling was still following me.Well until yesterday after the meditation. I am not afraid of it anymore.
Recently I also started to shift my thoughts to a different direction. “ when shit hits the fan” what can I do? So I started answering this question. The first thing I can do is accumulate digital wealth and gold. The second thing I can do is telling my brain to be less attached to worldly materials.The third thing I do, prepare for the worse and exercise to have good endurance and flexibility.
The reason I am on this journey was also because, I am addicted to my devices. It’s not that I have too many social media rather I was addicted to information. I was a zombie but I feed on information. I can spend the entire day reading from one thing to another; diverse topics, until I suffer from ‘ Information overload’. I can find myself lurking and reading in 4chan even some deep web. These things didn’t really add value into my life instead it only gives rather pessimistic outlook.
Now let’s talk about hunger. I am trying to train my stomach to eat lesser than I usually am. I went full deprived mode and I failed. I was very hungry this afternoon because I only had three spoons of oatmeal and a glass of hot cocoa for the past two days. With huge cravings and the smell from the kitchen, I was tempted. I started to miss food. So, in the noon, I went to the grocery store and got myself cakes. As results, I ate two cakes and drank two glass of chocolate powder.
Now music, I can’t never imagine my life without music. The only source of music was my phone and I can’t use it. I tried to listen to nature more, but there was something missing. I am accustomed living with harmonious melody flowing inside my ears.But anyway, the caged birds were singing. So that compensate my cravings.
I started to feel odd about this journey. I wonder if it really is helping for someone with mental distress.
Notes :
So the second day didn’t really go as planned. I had my cheating day. The quietness starting to get into my head and I started having trouble falling asleep.
Stay tuned for the next following days. If you want to read the previous journey, check out the links below:
- A retreat experience, what is it like living without internet connection ?
- A Retreat Journey : #1 The Why
- A Retreat Journey: #2 The difference between Seek and Find
- A Retreat Journey: #3 On Nature, Independent,and Interdependence
Signed, M.