Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part series.

“By withdrawing from the world into solitude, you separate yourself from others. By isolating yourself, you can see more clearly what distinguishes you from other people. Standing out in this way serves to affirm your existence (ex-[out] + sistere [stand]). Liberated from social pressures and constraints, solitude can help you understand better what kind of person you are and what your life is for. In this way you become independent of others. You find your own path, your own voice.

[…]

Here lies the paradox of solitude. Look long and hard enough at yourself in isolation and suddenly you will see the rest of humanity staring back. Sustained aloneness brings you to a tipping point where the pendulum of life returns you to others.” - Stephen Batchelor, via Maria Popova’s The Marginalian

For most of the last year, I’d been yearning to go back to a time and a place I knew I could never revisit.

Without exaggeration, possibly the most wondrous month of my life was spent voluntarily separated from all forms of technology while with my wife and children in Bali. I didn’t do it to avoid people or shirk responsibility, but rather to reconnect.

The phrase ‘living my best life’ is the headline that often comes to mind when I describe that month.

For me, that included going to bed at 9pm and waking at 5am (without an alarm), breath work and meditation before sunrise, spending the days with my wife and kids in the pool, exploring the island, playing Bananagrams or the children’s card game Sleeping Queens, or simply enjoying some quiet time.

Living my best life also included the low points—the frustrations, the fears, the uncertainty and the multitude of issues and beliefs that rose to the surface when the only devices I had in my possession were a few pens, a journal and a stack of books. Everything came up, from inferiority complexes to career reckoning to questioning the family system in which I was raised to my own parenting style. It all came rushing to the fore, ready to be addressed, inventoried and, in some cases, resolved.

That month was my paradise. The highs, the lows, the in-between.

I was not exactly riding a winning streak in the months leading into my technology fast.

Months earlier we had decided I would step away from full-time employment for at least six months, or maybe even a year. There was a true cost to that major life decision that extended beyond giving up financial security. Having made that choice while living as an expat in London, we had all of our life’s belongings packed away and sent to a storage unit that we had never seen, in a country that we’d soon no longer have the legal right to live in. In the coming months we would also give up our rent-controlled apartment back in Brooklyn, as we couldn’t afford to pay for an empty apartment, nor were we allowed to continue subletting it.

While we had a modest financial runway, we were technically homeless. We owned no property, no car, nothing really other than clothing, lots of books, toys, the stuff we had collected from over the years and that had been passed down from family. And we were okay with that. We had each other. We had our health.

Bali was the third stop on a pseudo world tour we were planning on the fly. And it was our previous two stops — a month in Morocco and a few weeks in Dubai — that served as the inspiration for my technology fast. All of that time spent in Muslim nations left a strong impression on me. Everything from watching Muslims follow the call to prayer five times a day, to touring the second largest mosque in the world in Casablanca. Because we were in these countries in February and March, Ramadan was approaching, and it was a topic of conversation with some of the locals we had met.

One was a man about my age named Omar. We hired him to drive us three hours west, from Marrakech to our next destination of Essaouira, the white washed port city known for many things, among them its wind and kite surfing, exporting of sardines, as the place where Jimi Hendrix wrote the song “Castles Made of Sand,” and whose ramparts are featured in Game of Thrones.

As we drove past roads lined with argan trees, hoping we would spot a goat climbing one of them, Omar told us of the Muslim holy month, of the practice of self discipline and deepening their faith as a way to show their devotion to Allah. He joked about how ornery people would become as each day wore on, inching closer to sundown when the daily fast would end. Not only were Muslims fasting from food and drink, but also from smoking and sex. Omar told us that come sunset the ancient medina of Marrakech would have a plume of smoke hovering above as everybody ended their fast and rushed to fit in a days worth of eating and smoking. The consistency of 30 days is remarkable. How many of us ever step away from our own crutches for even half a day?

The Muslims’ self discipline and devotion to something greater than themselves appealed to me. I grew up Catholic — attending Catholic school and church, serving as an altar boy — and yet I have no real memory of what I ever (if I did) gave up for Lent. Later in life, I amassed a respectable track record for intermittent fasting and even longer-term eliminations of substances like sugar, grain and caffeine. And even more long-term, I’ve completely abstained from alcohol and drugs for 15-plus years. So the concept of giving up something wasn’t new to me. But I had only ever fasted from things I consumed through my mouth, as if something couldn’t be as harmful entering through my eyes and my ears.

Knowing we’d be in Bali, a Hindu island in a Muslim country, during Ramadan, I had been thinking of a way to practice greater self discipline, sacrifice and develop a greater connection to my higher power.

It was my wife who suggested I spend Ramadan on a month-long digital detox. At first, I thought it was a bit much, and while it left me highly skeptical I was still open-minded.

I knew there was logical reasoning and health benefits behind it: I had spent the last 20 years tethered to devices — especially my smartphone — whether for work, for personal reasons or to fill a void. Our brains weren’t developed to ingest so much information and stimulation on a constant basis. Living 30 days separated from all devices surely wasn’t going to kill me. (In fact, it’d probably do the opposite.) When I came around to the idea I had developed a deep sense of gratitude to even be in such a privileged position to attempt this, given I had no employer to whom I was accountable.

A technology fast was the biggest material sacrifice I could make. It would require a level of commitment and discipline I had never attempted, and I knew, in the back of my mind, that by removing all of the noise, distraction, entertainment and notifications from my life I would at a minimum open a clear channel between myself and my higher power to explore. So friends and family, all seemingly a world away, would have to get updates from my wife, or just wait a few weeks to reconnect with me, I reasoned.

I was heading off the grid, as I liked to call it for dramatic effect. If I had any doubt as to this being the right thing for me, the universe gave me an extra nudge on my arrival in Bali.

When we landed in Sanur, Bali, on March 3, 2024, our driver Ketut, whose wife was the housekeeper at the villa he was taking us to, gave us a basic lay of the land on where we’d be staying and what was happening on the island.

Then Ketut mentioned how March 10 would be an island-wide day of silence, called Nyepi, when we had to refrain from going outside, turning on any lights or making any noise. I thought he was kidding. I had never heard of Nyepi. Come to find out, Bali takes this day seriously. Even the Denpasar airport is shut down and doesn't allow flyovers on Nyepi. The only people allowed outdoors are community watchmen, who patrol the villages on foot to ensure no one is breaking the day of silence.

Ketut also told us we must attend the local Nyepi Eve festivities, which was punctuated with the burning of an ogoh-ogoh, a sculpture art form that represents evil forces and looks like a beautifully crafted parade float. So no sooner than we landed did I know I was on the right track; with Nyepi serving as a day of silence and reflection, and Ramadan starting that evening, this would be the perfect segue for me to a technology fast.

Our kids were still a month away from beginning their 90 day world schooling education program, which meant plenty of device-free time with them. Fortunately, the villa we were staying in had a pool, the beach was within walking distance and I had access to a gym with an actual cold plunge and a sauna.

I thought this digital detox would be the perfect time to build muscle, meditate like no other, play with the kids, journal daily, and do my absolute best to honor my wife’s wishes of not thinking about the direction our life should be heading, potential landing spots or career paths. What I needed to do was hit the pause button on all of life’s burning questions, at least for a month, and focus only on each present moment.

In the days leading up to my tech fast I became a bit of a trope, or a meme — most definitely overzealous — as I spent too much time scribbling notes from my iPhone to my journal, just in case I needed to reference something life-altering during my time disconnected.

My notes included a five-day split exercise routine designed to burn fat and build muscle; the three hunting grounds for finding my dharma; Adam Grant’s venn diagram that explains the interplay between personal interests and societal importance; notes from James Hollis’ profound “The Middle Passage;” and many lines and paragraphs on personal transformation I had cobbled together from across newsletters and the internet that lived in a Note aptly called “Project: Chris’ Life.” Paragraphs like theses that came from Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor, which I discovered from Maria Popova’s essay “200 Years of Solitude” on her extraordinary blog The Marginalian:

“By withdrawing from the world into solitude, I separate myself from others. By isolating myself, I can see more clearly what distinguishes me from other people. Standing out in this way serves to inform my existence. Liberated from social pressures and constraints, solitude can help me understand better what kind of person I am and what my life is for. In this way I can become independent of others. I find my own path, my own voice.”

Fragments from the passage swirled in my head throughout the ensuing month, along with a heavy question that James Hollis had posed many times in his books, on podcasts or interviews when discussing midlife. Here, from an interview he gave:

"In the first half of life the prevailing question is, 'What does the world want of me?'...However, in the second half of life, the question is, 'What does the soul (or psyche) want of me?'”

What kind of person am I and what is my life for? What does the soul want from me? And what will a strengthened connection to my higher power reveal? These are all questions that stopped me in my tracks and that I kept returning to, and journaling about, throughout my digital detox.

Each question was profound on its own, but also overwhelming and existential —which was precisely how I was feeling about life in that moment, considering everything I had given up prior to arriving in Bali. Leaving London was incredibly hard on all of us, especially our kids who had taken so well to life there. Stepping away from work had brought on an identity crisis. Not knowing where we would eventually live, or what I would do to earn money, had been on a constant thought loop in my head. Of course, when we signed up for this world tour we knew difficult times would be ahead. One month into our travels and I was already feeling the weight of it all.

As strange as it might sound, when I’m that uncomfortable it’s almost always a sure sign I’m on the right path. Growth was in the cards. I was determined to figure this all out, to find out where it led me.

I received my first clue to the answers I sought on Nyepi Eve, when after an early Thai dinner our family stumbled upon a ritual ceremony from a local temple happening at a blocked off intersection. There were decorative umbrellas everywhere and Balinese from every generation dressed head-to-toe in white. They were chanting, singing and playing music. The streets were lined with curved bamboo poles covered in intricate patterns made from flowers and coconut leaves.

As gamelan music played and the temple community looked on, a middle-aged man in a trance state started to walk among the crowd. He appeared to be uncomfortable, maybe in emotional pain. Suddenly, and repeatedly, he would reveal a dagger and try to stab himself in the chest, yelling and groaning as a handful of men would rush to restrain him.

This went on for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t take my eyes off this man. It’s like he was determined to cut into himself and let something go. Only later on did I learn the true meaning of the ceremony, which was called Ngerebong. Of course its true meaning was far deeper than what had appeared to me that evening. This man’s body had become inhabited by a deity or protective spirit. The intensity he moved with was the power of a spirit working through him. He wasn’t suffering. There was a spiritual battle happening through him, and the other men were there to help manage the divine energy flowing through him.

When it was over, we continued our walk and stopped at the sight of an ogoh-ogoh, a massive float-like statue that the local temple spent weeks crafting. It symbolized negative forces, disorder and chaos that disrupt spiritual harmony.

The Balinese have an interesting perspective between the positive and negative forces of the world. Balinese Hindus didn’t seek to completely eliminate negative forces but rather to achieve balance and harmony. They honor the principle of duality and balance. They believe the negative, destructive forces can transform into protective ones. They believe coexistence is the goal, not complete annihilation — a little different than the classic battle between Satan and God I grew up with.

That explanation put the Nyepi Eve ceremonies into greater context for me. The principle of duality and balance was not how I was brought up in the Catholic institution. Rather, I’ve probably learned that principle best through my journey in recovery from substance abuse. So the Balinese Hindu philosophy resonated strongly with me. And as I went home that rainy night on Nyepi Eve and thought about the month ahead, I started to ponder the negative forces in my own life. No, nothing material, like my smartphone or other digital devices – because those weren’t the problems. My problems were deep within, something I had carried with me for decades.

But I knew well that putting aside all devices for a month would allow me to go deeper within than I ever have. To quote Stephen Batchelor once more: “Liberated from social pressures and constraints, solitude can help me understand better what kind of person I am and what my life is for.”

I’ll be sharing more stories every Sunday — the highs, the screw-ups, the awkward new routines — as I adjust to life with a flip phone. If you’re wondering what it’s like to live slower, simpler, and maybe even saner, stick around.

Next Sunday, May 25, I’ll share Part 2 of how my technology fast in Bali unknowingly planted a seed—long before I had any real intention of ditching my smartphone.

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