Unplugging feels like withdrawal.
The first few days: fog. Then panic. Your hand reaches for the phone without permission. You catch yourself mid-reach and realize how deep the wiring runs.
Silence is brutal when you’re not used to it. Time slows. Thought returns. You’re forced to sit with your mind, and everything you’ve been drowning out surfaces. The problems. The insecurities. The fact that you don’t actually know what to do with unscheduled time.
This isn’t about meditation. Anyone can close their eyes for twenty minutes and call it discipline. The real test is what happens after—when the impulse to check, refresh, or “just see what’s happening” claws at you every thirty minutes. Even in the bathroom. Especially in the bathroom.
You start to see the pattern. These systems were built to keep you dependent. Every ping was engineered. Every scroll was calculated. And you believed you were in control because you could put the phone down—until you noticed you couldn’t stop picking it back up.
Here’s what you realize when you finally stay unplugged long enough:
You’ve been a battery.
A power source for a machine that runs on human attention. It doesn’t care who you are—rich, poor, disciplined, chaotic. It only cares that you keep feeding it. The system takes everyone. No discrimination. Just extraction.
Your time and attention—the two resources you can’t regenerate—handed over freely to systems designed to generate billions. And we thank them for the innovation.
Even when you know better, it’s hard to break. I don’t drink. Don’t use drugs. Train daily. Stay disciplined. Still got hijacked. The “I’m in control” belief is part of the design.
The irony: when you try to compensate, you just find new dopamine sources. Can’t scroll? Exercise more. Stack podcasts. Constant music. Anything to avoid silence. Even the healthiest routines can become another way to stay plugged in.
The only way out is to notice the trade you’ve been making.
Post your work if it serves you. Build. Share. Sell.
But never scroll from fear of missing out. Never check “what’s happening” as if the world moves faster than you do. The pattern is always the same—humans being humans. Nothing new.
The machine will always want more.
Don’t give it your charge.