The Luxury of Life Offline
In a world that demands constant connection, disconnection has become the ultimate privilege
There’s a line in the old Otis Redding song that keeps haunting me: “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away.” “Just, Wasting time.” When did those two words become so foreign to us? When did doing nothing become something we forgot how to do?
After Christmas, I made a decision that felt both terrifying and essential. I disappeared. I took off, and spent one week at a monastery, in a little town, not far from my home —just me, a narrow bed, a wooden chair, and silence so thick you could almost taste it. No cell phone buzzing with notifications. No emails demanding immediate responses. No scroll, no refresh, no endless digital tether pulling me away from myself.
The first day, my hands kept reaching for a phone that wasn’t there. Phantom vibrations. Muscle memory searching for dopamine hits. But by day three, something shifted. The quiet stopped feeling empty and started feeling full. My thoughts, usually fragmented across a dozen apps and obligations, began to settle like sediment in still water. I could see clearly again.
I’m not alone in this hunger for analog living. Everywhere I look, people are reaching backward to move forward. Teenagers are buying disposable cameras at thrift stores. Twenty-somethings are installing landlines in their apartments. Walkman’s are selling out. Gen Z women are booking stays at convents—actual convents—for what TikTok has dubbed “vow of silence summer.” Yeh, this seems to be a trend right now - I had no idea when my spirit compelled me to do this late last year - so I was very surprised to see its becoming a thing.
This isn’t just millennial nostalgia or Gen X wistfulness for simpler times. It’s something more urgent: a collective exhale after years of holding our breath in the digital deep end.
What strikes me most is that this movement isn’t rooted in panic or burnout the way it used to be. People aren’t fleeing their screens because they’re broken—they’re stepping away because they’ve remembered there’s a whole world that doesn’t require WiFi. Hiking without documenting it. Reading books that don’t become content. Having conversations that disappear into the air instead of living forever in a cloud.
There’s a quiet rebellion happening. Being offline is becoming its own kind of luxury. Proof that your life doesn’t need an audience to have meaning. That you’re interesting enough, fulfilled enough, rich enough in experience that you don’t need constant validation from strangers.
And here’s what’s beautiful: when people do come back online, they’re pickier. They want substance, not filler. They’re choosing newsletters over newsfeeds, intentional communities over infinite scroll. They’re treating digital spaces like they treat their time—as something precious, not unlimited.
My week in that monastery taught me that boredom isn’t the enemy we’ve made it out to be. It’s the soil where creativity grows. It’s where ideas bloom without being immediately harvested for content. The best thoughts I’ve ever had came in moments of stillness I would have interrupted with a screen.
Maybe we don’t all need to check into a convent or monastery. But what if we tried one day a week? One weekend a month? What if we let ourselves sit on a metaphorical dock somewhere, watching time pass without trying to capture it, optimize it, or share it?
Life offline isn’t about rejecting the future. It’s about remembering the past enough to build a present worth living in
QUOTES TO READ TWICE
Silence is the best answer for all questions. Smiling is the best reaction to all situations. -Unknown
The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. -Rumi
A QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF
Is there a sound you love that is best heard when everything else is quiet? (Mine is the call of the cardinal)
Tiny Action
Ask your grandchild what they enjoy doing alone in the quiet, and why?
💡 ‘DID YOU KNOW’ - SHARE WITH YOUR GRANDCHILD
Did you know that silence was once seen as the key to true understanding? Quiet reflection shaped some of the greatest minds.
With love,
Nana Carolina
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