Why Screenless Living Made Me Happier: A Waldorf Parent's Journey

Our kids go to a Waldorf school, where tech isn't introduced until later. 

Conversely, in public schools, they give ipads to toddlers. And over the years they they get more and more entrenched. Every assignment and test for the next 12 years will be on a computer. The Waldorf students still hand render their pages in high school (though they start USING computers as freshmen there). 

Public or private is not really the argument.

We just need to protect our children from these addictions. Avoid them being parented by megalith corporations. Billions flooding in through their eyeballs. 

Hold the line. 

The two most radiant people I've ever met were entirely Screenless. In fact, they inspired my own Screenless journey. (Which I'm failing at right this moment, by the way). They built a sailboat, sailed around the world by starlight, fell in love, traveled with a rock band through India. All kinds of things. Because if you caught their vision, you were rapt. They were throwing off sparks. Beards like songs. 

(I'll introduce them in the Screenless Writer book which comes out this month). 

Anyway, as I got off of screens more and more, voila, I became happier and happier. For a host of reasons, some of them scientifically validated, others more intuitive. But for a few clues, they include EMF, Dopamine, Blue Light and Leptin, other hormones, sleep quality, chronic cortisol, confused priorities, herd thinking, bait and rage, addictions like porn or shopping, etc.

The third happiest person is (drumroll) me not on screens. I fight for that state. I'm like a twirling dervish. I'm all grins and starry eyes. Seriously. Perhaps you've seen me out in the world? I might have looked a strange bird, through binoculars. 

But when I realized was, even though I had learned to be happy, wandering around the neighborhood in bliss, everyone else was miserable. I mean, they were all still staring at phones wherever they went, and then rushing home to stare some more. 

If I'm exaggerating, I barely am. It could drag me down. 

That's what inspired The Bloom Papers, the paper newsletter I'm doing now. I want to be offline and happy (at least SOME of the time) and also invite others to do the same. Otherwise the world becomes a lonely place. A checked out, quantifiable land of non-mysteries and rare miracles. 

During my healing sessions, it took AT LEAST an hour for someone, a client, to even ENTER THE ROOM. I mean, I just waited, chatting, until they showed up. Where had they been, I asked. Lights flickered on, like the electricity being turned on in an old house. 

We live in a radiant world that is only the tip of a spiritual 'iceburg'. It's so beautiful we can and should weep at its grandeur now and again. Or else we're too mired in Ahrimanic (materialist) thinking. 

Not everything can be reduced to hormones, minerals, a quick fix pill, etc. I can guarantee, happiness is more effective than any medical intervention every time. AND we need to fight for it and hold it. 

But I know, I know. It is something of a luxury to be free and have the opportunity to flee screens for a while. I've built a business around this aspect (Classic Typewriter) and I'm building another one. There are other businesses in similar spaces. I just got a Light Phone 3, for instance. There is Remarkable 2. Etc. 

So I have to teach some of what I know as well about thriving outside of the matrix. 

I mean, you can see I still use computers. In my greatest delivery of value, there are no screens. So I'm bridging those worlds. I do my best writing and thinking off screen. People do their best receiving and thinking off screen. These places will meet in a paper newsletter. 

The world is a shining opportunity to create meaning that empowers. 

So keep fighting for your freedom, my friend. 

In Bloom,

PS. The Bloom Papers ship in November. Request a letter here (if you haven't already). After that we don't enroll again until SPRING. Because this is a seasonal thing. At every new moon, we unfold the papers, and we unfold ourselves. 

PPS. We have a stunning array of typewriters in the house. Get yours here. A good typewriter can change your life entirely. Well, you need to USE it. And I'll go through how you may do that. (Opportunities abound). 

By the way, a typewriter is merely the BEST instrument that exists for capturing embodied, present thought. It's not the best that COULD exist. It's just that more advanced tools fail as writing instruments.

A pen can work too, though cumbersome to write with and difficult to read. IT's an essential tool as well. I love a good pen, and I write constantly. Someone just introduced me to Everbook, and I think it is great. It's a paper note taking concept. I also keep a NEXUS (my most refined and innovative thoughts hold a special place on handmade cards) and I'll introduce you the circle to more of these types of things in the paper newsletter. 

It's not about giving up tech and returning to an earlier state. It's about maintaining humanity during these critical times. 

To do what one is born to do, and to operate in one's own sphere of joy... indescribable. Naysayers try to shake, and it is like an ant trying to move an oak tree.