Turn OFF, Tune OUT, and Wake Up; The Primal Reboot Experiment

As a single dad with two young children I tend to stay home... A LOT. I'm Home right now actually. It is difficult to wrangle two small underdeveloped humans in public when its just you and you alone.

GOD FORBID ONE OF US HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM! If it's me... Who's gonna watch em'? and if it's one of them something like this might happen...

So me and the kids were upstairs at a bookstore the other day and Lucian says to me "I have to go potty!" oh no. (he hasn't been potty trained that long and an accident in Barnes and Noble could ruin my day) I tell my daughter Ezri to grab the book she wants and we high tail it towards the escalator. about halfway down I'm holding my sons hand and look back to see my daughter standing at the top paralyzed by fear and shaking her head NO.
Ezri come on!
NO What!? come on!
NO
Lucky for me a kind stranger wanted to go down too... So my daughter was awkwardly ushered onto the moving STEPS OF DEATH.
We make it to the bathroom and I tell my daughter to stay RIGHT HERE. don't move DON'T MOVE from this spot got it?
Got it.
Turning my attention back toward my son... He's crawling UNDER the stall. An occupied stall. I hear some guy (taking a dump I presume) "Uh, Hi, buddy!"
LUCIAN! NO!

I just kinda stopped going out unless we really needed toilet paper or something. Or It's been long enough that I kinda forget how stressful it is. I'm naturally kind of an introvert  ANYWAY; so, I don't mind spending time alone and reading. I'll spend HOURS researching things that interest me online or figuring out the most effective workout routines for myself.

I've gone months were I've only left the house for work or to go grocery shopping. I just became complacent without really any social interaction whatever. I do enjoy solitude yet at the same time I  get lonely. I'm finding I'm not so skilled in social situations anymore but I can fake it well.

I'm not a Total introvert because i engage in thrill seeking behavior which is a decidedly extrovert trait. (Adventure races, hello?)  I love parkour and rock climbing etc. I love the energy of downtown I love crowded dive bars with loud music.  I'm only really SHY around girls i like. Which sucks. A lot. But, for the most part I'm not at all afraid of making a fool of myself. I'll engage in reactionary humor, behaving in unexpected ways to just to see what people do. in school I was the class clown. I thrived on the attention. almost like a performer would. I guess I'm a well rounded individual. An "introverted extrovert" if you will. But, my life is somewhat unbalanced and i need to get out more. My social life needs an overhaul.

The biggest thing standing in the way of this (besides not having a free babysitter) is that I am an information addict! If i go to the library I'll be there for four or five hours and check out fifteen books. More than i can read by the due date! I am to books what women are to shoes! I get on the computer and the next thing I know I have 15 tabs open to various research articles on health and fitness, brain science, philosophy even the occasional conspiracy theory. Despite my being a skeptic! It would be cool to find something on aliens or the Illuminati that i couldn't debunk! Not to mention all the material I've read on psychology and how to pick up women! (most of it really doesn't fit my personality... I never have felt comfortable acting like someone I'm not)

Of course everything I learn needs to be cross referenced. Every study needs to be looked into. Who did the funding? What exactly was the experiment? How many people were involved? For how long? And was there a control group?

I long ago ceased to be impressed by "There is a new study that says that..." Or "facts" with no cited references. I need to know everything about it before I accept it. Face value means nothing to me anymore. I might get on the computer for a specific reason but i often lose track of said purpose. If its facebook and someone puts something interesting up ill read that and the next thing related to it and the next thing related to that thing that was related to the first thing and so on and so on.

So in my never ending quest to know everything about everything it was only a matter of time until I came across the paleo diet and way of life. This lead to my learning all about neural plasticity and how habits are formed (Those things relate somehow) Causing me to examine my own habits and learning that all the times I seek out new information on the Internet my brain is being flooded with dopamine. Essentially making me a drug addict. My drug of choice may be knowledge but its still debilitating because its all thought and no action.

At What point do I plan to use all the information I have stored up? So I've come to a decision. I'm getting over my addiction (paradoxically using info i found on the Internet) I know enough to effectively change my life already... Ladies and gentlemen i give you

THE PRIMAL REBOOT

I blogged about the primal reboot before but I guess I didn't save it properly and it was lost. (blogging is very new to me) So here is the rundown. The human brain (and body) have not evolved much past the paleolithic era. Things that exist today that we are not prepared to handle (evolutionarily speaking) Are known as super stimulants. So the Primal Reboot is designed to get us back to a baseline. Its a simple technology fast. No smartphone no Facebook or social media No television movies or music. you don't listen to the radio in the car (but you can still drive the car) use as little artificial light as possible replace by sunlight of course! I also try to avoid using the microwave. The extent to which you choose to eliminate technology should not be detrimental to your career or social life. Just instead of texting. pick up the damn phone or just show up unexpectedly. Instead of TV or radio take in a play or see some live music.

Okay, this isn't my first go round, tried and failed primal reboots, are now considered "one week experiments" The benefits that I experienced have me ready to go all out though! They include; a much clearer and focused mind, greater attention span and an increased social confidence. These benefits came after a "withdrawal" phase with symptoms that include; two or three days of "depression" and being socially withdrawn. This is probably due to the fact that the brain is adjusting to less dopamine from super stimulants such as facebook notifications, text messages, television, computer, movies and music. One of the more interesting side effects were the song lyrics and music bubbling up into my consciousness while driving because I'm so accustomed to listening to music in my car! Seriously I haven't listened to NOFX in YEARS But it still rattling around in my brain... I guess it's true... PUNKS NOT DEAD!
How would our caveman ancestors have reacted to music BLARING out of a tiny speaker while traveling 80 mph in a box with wheels? yeah. they would freak the fuck out. He might even literally lose his shit.  You're a better driver with the radio OFF. Trust. 

So beginning today (okay tomorrow; since I'm on the computer currently) I'm going to attack this! I'm going for 90 days. That's my goal. It is a considerable amount of time for a technology fast but the minimum to break down an old habit and create a new one is 66 days. I've chosen 90 because I'm doing this in conjunction without my workout program which will also be 90 days (12 weeks) so i figure an extra month or so cant hurt! I plan on keeping journal so I will have plenty to talk about when I return to the interwebs. It will be incredibly interesting to see what affects this has on my life. I expect many unforeseen benefits and am very excited to be my own guinea pig. :)

Also, this will be good for me right now. I'm training for the spartan race. Last year I did two adventure races The Rockwell Mud-o-cross and the Tough Mudder. For the mud-o-cross I only started running two weeks before the race And the Tough Mudder I didn't Run at all. My workout consisted of swinging a seventy pound kettlebell and doing burpees to exhaustion. But it worked! I finished (not last) and handled all the obstacles like a champ!

If the primal reboot experiment is as successful as i believe it will be. I'll have a lot to write about and share. it will wrap up around may 10th so ill have another six or seven weeks before the Utah spartan beast on June 29 and that's not the only race I'm planning on doing this year!  When my tax return comes in a considerable portion of it is going toward entry fees for various races. including go ruck challenge in October. which should prove... Interesting.

I want to return to what it means to be a true human and bring my kids along for the ride. Adventure Races; going Over Under and Through obstacles. getting muddy climbing walls, jumping off shit and swimming is a return to our roots and people love it! It's the fastest growing sport there is right now and I'm all about it!

Returning to a minimalist lifestyle and enjoying simple pleasures and simple food is immensely satisfying and liberating. Its like being freed from the matrix! Its not like you gain superpowers or anything... except, you kind of, do. Being a true human being in todays society it's almost like you DO have super powers. Your mood improves, social anxiety dissipates and "attention deficit disorder" simply disappears because you are not multitasking nearly as much. Your focus is on the here and now. As it should be. For me personally, I'm more confident and engaging.

Your smart phone is not saving you from an awkward social situation its ensuring that you'll continue to have them and that they will get worse and worse as you continue using technology as a crutch. When you turn the technology off whats left is your life.As it really is. None of that shit is your real life. It's all just escapism. 

Your real life is what you have when all the modern tech and social media is OFF and that can be frightening because it's boring and not what you want and you don't know how to fix it. Not knowing what to do or where to start will lead to feeling powerless and depression may set in. Those feelings are temporary. These are doors. Thresholds that you must break through and that will be much harder than simply turning the power strip back on. As every addict knows; in the road to recovery you eventually have to face that which led to your turning to a substance in the first place. It might just be that America is addicted to information and escapism but on a chemical level it might as well be heroin.

Instead of turning on, tuning in and dropping out; I think its high time we...

Turn OFF, Tune OUT, and Wake Up
Seeya around may 10th!
-James Out.