Life After Internet – Traveling Mark

What Is Money?

Isn’t it astounding that money can buy you health, attention, power and many other material and immaterial things? Virtually anything your heart desires, regardless of who you are as a person, can be had if you have money? You could be the most unworthy person in the world, but if you have money, there are few limits as to what you can or cannot have. Similarly, there are some incredibly smart people out there but their ideas never come to be because they simply never had money to realize them.

Money is Divine

Have you ever noticed how many similarities there are between money and God?

Like God, money is everywhere
Like God, money is in everything
All things come from money, as they come from God
All things return to money, as they return to God
and As with God, if money abandons a person, they are faced with a demise

Whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant. Just replace word “God” with your favourite divinity and the message will be the same. And as for the last point – it is not only persons that can face fast demise when they’re out of money. Companies, cities, even whole countries can collapse just the same if they have no money.

A company – for instance – could be perfectly capable of delivering a worthy product or service, they could have the equipment needed to run their operations and people capable of doing the job, but if there is no money, the company will quickly go under. Even if many of the material and immaterial conditions are met (such as skill and knowledge to perform the job are acquired, necessary equipment and man power are available), for as long as the company has no money, they are headed for a fast bankruptcy. And on the other hand – even if a company has absolutely no skills, knowledge or experience to perform the job, nor does it have the equipment nor manpower – it can still do just fine for as long as it has the money.

Photo: Money - The Last Set of Shackles on the Way to Complete Freedom and Enlightenment

I’m sure that each one of you reading this knows a person who is running a successful and profitable business because they had such financial backup, they could get anything they desired going. And I’m sure you also know a person who is really good at something and could do very well, but can’t get off the ground because they’re stuck struggling to meet their basic survival needs. How are you supposed to establish yourself if you haven’t had anything to eat for days and can’t find a place to get a good night’s rest in?

It’s that one thing called money – which is often immaterial (nothing but pieces of data on the computers or credit card chips) – that can make you or break you. It doesn’t matter where you stand with everything else – if you have money, you can finance your company’s path to success, but if you have none, even if you have some individual, unique qualities, you may never even get a chance to start.

Never Enough

Another unique property of money is that a man never seems to have enough of it and his/her desire to have more never ceases or diminishes regardless of how much or how little he/she has already amassed. There is hardly any other thing in our lives that would have quite comparable effect on people. It’s possible to get fed up with anything, but money. Even quality sex or Belgian chocolate – if you have too much of it, you’re gonna desire a break, but it never seems to be the case with money. Even a billionaire, a person who can buy anything in this world, would still desire to have more. Just what more could more money get him or her? There could be nothing, yet the desire to continue amassing more money not only never stops, it seems to grow.

No Community Spirit

It is the curse of pleasing others – the insatiable desire to satisfy external impulses, such as social acceptance or status even if it defects our internal needs, which systematically robs the modern generation of women and men off true community spirit. We satisfy our greed by responding to what external sources demand of us. But if you look deep down into the root cause of this phenomenon and compare it with societies where community spirit still reigns strong, you’ll come to realize that it’s money that’s behind this all. Somebody does something for you, you pay them and the transaction is closed. No emotional bonds are created in this type of exchange, only business bonds and business is a dog eat dog world fuelled by greed and ruled by money.

Whereas in a world without money, a world where community spirit still exists – such as in uncontacted rainforest tribes – if you get injured and must stay at home to recover for a few days, hunters will go hunting and gatherers gathering wild edibles and water to have enough food for whole community to eat, including you. Needless to say, when you get better and are able to go hunting yourself, you will dedicate your last breath to ensuring that you return to the settlement with enough food to feed everyone.

That’s the way it goes in real communities, in communities not fuelled by greed and run by money. Hunters don’t just hunt for food to feed themselves and their immediate family. They hunt for everyone. Similarly, gatherers don’t just gather for themselves and their families, bakers don’t just bake for themselves and their families and weavers don’t just weave baskets to trade with other tribes so their own family gets something in return. They do it for the entire community and at the end of the day, the entire community comes together to celebrate another day of life.

This does not exist in the world ruled by greed and run by money. In this world, people lost connection with their deep selves and the community by trading it for selfishness. They all want their house to be bigger than their neighbours’, their car to be shinier than their coworkers’, their body leaner than their friends’ and their connections more influential than anyone else’s. They are obsessed with celebrities because celebrities embody what they desire. They have those big houses, fast cars, pearl whites and prime time mentions on TV. And if you do see anyone “involved in the community”, it is only and solely because they counted on you watching and believed it is a necessary step to take them to their ultimate destination of having a bigger house, faster car, sexier body and broader fame. Blood donors take every opportunity to let others know how many times they’ve given blood, pro bono lawyers love posing with community spirits awards for the newspapers, companies and celebrities donate to affected areas under condition that it is made publically known and the list goes on and on and on.

This in a sense is a natural evolution as introduction of money into any community, even a community with strong community spirit, will eventually destroy that community spirit, simply because if you have money, you don’t need community. If no one from the community wants to help you, you can simply pay somebody else who will. In moneyless communities, there is no room for selfishness. In communities dominated by money, it’s all about selfishness.

Difference Between Having and Giving

The most significant difference between people who live in the world ruled by greed and run by money and people who live in the world ruled by the community spirit is that in the former – the more you have, the more respected you are, whereas in the latter, the more you give, the more respected you are.

In the world ruled by greed and run by money, if you are a wealthy businessman, you likely have powerful connections, have politicians for friends, police chiefs for friends, judges for friends, doctors for friends – you are plain and simple respected as a well accomplished person, even if you’re selfish and evil-at-heart. Whereas if you are poor, you get labelled a nuisance, a bottom feeder, a scum, a filth, a nobody – even if you are a good person who would not hesitate to help another.

In a world ruled by the community spirit, on the other hand, you are the most respected if you are a hunter capable of catching more animals than anyone else – so you can give the community more food, or if you have the ability to heal others – so you can help keep the community healthy, or if you have the skill to paint – so you can immortalize the daily life of the tribe on the walls of the caves – in a world like that, people don’t strive to have more, but to give more because the more you give, the more respect you get and it will be naturally returned to you in the same abundance when you no longer have the ability to keep giving. This is the way it used to be among humans for millennia. Even if you rewound as little back as 150 years, you’d still find this type of community spirit going strong and people gaining respect by how much they gave, not how much they amassed.

There is a pretty good kicker to it – people who dedicate their lives to accumulating financial wealth are gonna lose it all one way or another. Both experts and non experts alike predict a collapse of the financial system as we know it, but even if none of the financial doomsday prophecies were to take place, each of us will eventually perish. We the people are finite. Your money may outlive you, but once you have passed on, all of your investments, all of your bank accounts – every last penny will be worthless to you. You can’t take any of the material things you’ve accumulated with you once you leave the world of the living and your respect aka social status that your wealth has given you will perish with you. The one thing that stays is the memory of those who gave so much while they were alive so it became worthy of remembering.

Money Is Evil

So what is money? The notion that the love of money is the root of all evil has been with us for a very long time. People kill for money, abandon their morals for money and sacrifice their loved ones for money. Governments wage wars on other governments in order to gain control of their land, natural resources and trading routes because that will bring them more money.

From the above it would seem pretty obvious that money is evil as there is no other force in the world which would make people do such vile things to one another. Yet money is a tool which helps us do more, have more and be more. But as is the case with other tools, they have the power to be our tools or to turn us into tools. Money is ultimately not the root of all evil, it is the love of money that’s behind the actions of evildoers.

People Are Weak

Money is not the first tool with capability to turn people into tools. Internet, one of the finest inventions and the most powerful tools to date is also one of the most powerful tools that turns people into tools. So I guess the problem truly is in the fact that we as people are week and allow the tools which have the power to make our lives easier, richer and more fulfilling, to turn us into their tools and obsess over them to a point of insanity. I mean – look at Facebook users to see what tools can a useful tool turn people in.

Let me say it again: people are weak. I’m one of the people, therefore I’m weak. Money can corrupt me just as easily as it can corrupt anyone else. I don’t want to be corrupted. Therefore I choose life without money. I choose life without tools that turn me into tools. Leaving the corporate lifestyle cage behind was easy. Setting myself free from cute little gadgets was much more difficult. Yet both of these combined were nothing compared to the clutches of the internet, especially since internet was my bread and butter. However I knew I would never be really free if I were a slave to any of it. Slavery, regardless of whether it’s self imposed and realized or not, is still just that – a slavery.

It takes extraordinary aptitude to awaken into such self-realization. It takes even more to successfully carry it out. The trick is – an accomplishment of such magnitude puts one face to face with his final challenge; a challenge that tramples them all seven fold – freedom from money. Can a 21st century man, a man like everyone else born in this day and age, a man who lived every day of his life understanding that money is an inseparable part of everyone’s life – can he raise above and unslave himself from the almighty force of money? I’m about to find out.

Life in a Filtered World

Internet, just as other technological advancements of the modern world, is a tool which when used wisely, provides a great deal of service to its master. However internet, just as other technological advancements, comes with shimmering gloss which has the power to blind those who use it. One can go very quickly from being a master of the internet, to being its slave, while continuously believing it’s the other way around. When a weak-minded individual submits to the internet while foolishly thinking the internet serves them, they allow it to encroach on activities which make them who they are, and that’s when they turn into slaves.

Photo: In the Real World, People Have Friends of Flesh and Blood

As cavemen, we enjoyed watching shadows formed on the walls of our caves as firelight flickered inside. As agrarians, we watched our crops grow in morning dew as our children frolicked around with their friends. As people of the information age, we sit in climate controlled rooms and listen to the sound from the speakers while staring at a computer screen. Interactions with people who have physical bodies were replaced with online chats and Facebook updates.

And I believe I know why. The fact that most people fear reality is a fact I brought to light a long time ago. For them the internet was a godsend. That’s why they spend so much of their days on the internet, that’s why they have Facebook profile and that’s why no matter how hard they try, all of their attempts to dissert on it sooner or later fail.

Filtered World

The reason why people who fear reality prefer to spend more time on the internet than with physical friends is that the internet is an imaginary world that allows them to apply filters to their existence. They can filter (aka choose) what they read, what they watch, what games they play and what people they interact with. On the internet, they can be whoever they want others to see them as. On the internet, they are who they want to pretend to be.

Walking out of this selective reality and into the real world with unbendable laws in not easy. Not for a weak-minded person who fears reality, anyway. To them the internet is no longer a mere way to escape. It is now a way to replace their normal day for a day with applied filters. The world behind the bedroom window is simply too rough compared to the world behind the computer screen so they choose Facebook to a face to face meet-up.

The best part to living in a filtered world – you can justify it by claiming that you do it to earn money, expand your knowledge, or help others. Isn’t internet just wonderful?

Why I Don’t Have, Never Had and Never Will Have a Facebook Account

My friend recently told me that she thinks the real reason why I never created a Facebook account even though just about everybody in the world has one, was that just about everybody in the world has a Facebook account. She thought my strong individuality and unwillingness to become a sheep even if it means going head on against the rest of the world was the sole reason for me not to join the sheep. While I can’t deny there’s a pretty solid merit to the assumption, it’s far from complete truth.

Photo: Screenshot Showing How Internet Giant Facebook Defines Itself

I realized the risks of joining Facebook long before its momentum made it the most popular social networking site in the world. People who were members back then were already zombies. They were constantly saying things like:

“Let me take a picture so I can post it on my Facebook.”
Or
“This will be an awesome Facebook update…”

Facebook members seemed to live their lives always thinking of their next update on Facebook. They are only half present, like friends you have invited to your birthday party only to have them spend the whole time on their cell phones texting back and forth with who knows whom. They can’t wait to publish their next update because they fear having actual life would make their half friends on the other side of the line forget about them.

Facebook addicts say that Facebook is like a drug. I say they are just weak and unworthy. Wasting their lives away posting comments in an effort to impress people they haven’t even met is the surest sign of weakness. They are weak because they are afraid to present their real self so they mask their weakness by making their virtual selves a reflection of who they wish they were. Their Facebook updates are a collection of thoughts and ideas they want others to see them as. The good (or so they think) gets exaggerated, the bad (or so they think) gets left out or is only partially presented.

I can easily tell whether the person who left a comment on any of my post is a Facebook user or not. Facebook users are used to twisted reality and facts upset them. When Pied Piper plays, Facebookers follow.

Facebook Screenshot - Having His Mind on Facebook Even When She Poops, This Man Spent His Bathroom Time Thinking of New Update That Would Impress

Internet power users who don’t have a Facebook account are strong personalities. They are not easy to manipulate and have a brain they’re not afraid to use. They do not need to spend their days reading updates of hundreds of virtual friends to not feel empty.

Facebook and Travelers

I’ve been traveling a lot those past two years and that also means that I frequently meet other travelers. They are physically present in a foreign country, but their mind is on Facebook. Even when they are off line, they always think of their network of Facebook surrogates and plot in their mind what update to astonish them with next. You go with one of them zombies for a beer and they’ll spend that time mentally visualizing the Facebook update about what glass their beer was served in so they can post it on their wall as soon as they make it back home.

The more I meet the travelers with Facebook accounts, the prouder I am to not never have had one. Though I must admit that dumb looks on the faces of Facebook zombies are beyond priceless when they ask me for my Facebook and I tell them that I’ve never had one and never will.

Disconnected Facebookers

My first Christmas and New Year holiday seasons were spent traveling through Thailand. It taught me a bitter lesson about how challenging this time of the year can get for budget travelers. Armed with this experience, I decided to get ahead of myself as soon as the following year’s holiday season got within a month, securing myself with reasonably priced accommodation early on and staying put until the madness was over and done with before resuming traveling.

Photo: View of the Sunset from the Kota Kinabalu Fishing Harbor

Thanks to Malaysia’s welcoming visa policy which enables most foreigners to stay in the country for up to 3 months visa free, I timed my visit to Borneo part of the country to span over the Christmas and New Year. Having gotten to Sabah – the easternmost Malaysian state – in mid November, I knew I could stay until mid February which was more than enough to carry me through the most expensive time of year for travelers. Well ahead of Christmas knocking on everyone’s door, I settled in the heart of Kota Kinabalu to wait out the holidays.

I established a pretty solid daily routine which both kept boredom away and provided healthy lifestyle choices. I had Kota Kinabalu figured out very quickly and knew where the best and cheapest places were to buy coconut – which I drank daily, fresh fruit – especially papaya, and freshly caught salt water fish grilled on a slow fire which I would eat with a double portion of bitter melon. The time I had left I wisely used on enhancing the scalability of my web based income.

Everything was fine and dandy on my end. I minded my own business and remained perfectly content ignoring and being ignored. If I was not buried with my head in my laptop, I was pacing my way to the Philippine Market to buy my fish for supper. Work was getting done and as Christmas kept drawing nearer, I felt peculiar sense of satisfaction knowing that I’ve beaten the rush and over-the-top rip-off pricing for accommodation travelers who were just coming in ended up faced with.

A Canadian Woman in Borneo

Then at devil’s bidding, I had my daily minding-my-own-damn-business routine disturbed by a fine young woman who expressed unusual interest in having a conversation with me. Having just gotten to Kota Kinabalu, she was looking for an advice on where to go and what to do and I just must have had it written all over my forehead that out of all people around, I would be the one to actually have all the answers she was looking for. It did happen to be the case, but how she picked me out is anyone’s guess.

Reluctant to get more involved, I eagerly answered all of her immediate question and passionately filled her in on the ins and outs of the goings in Kota Kinabalu as far as foreigners are involved, believing that after she’s learned all that, she’d leave me cut the world around me off once more and bury my face back in the computer screen to carry on with my duties.

But then she asked where I was from. Since she was from Canada too and just escaped brutal winter Canadian prairies experience this time of year, we just had another endless topic to talk about. Before I knew it, my laptop was shut off and we were headed out so I could show her around. At this time I thought to myself – nothing wrong with getting a bit of a break from my daily routine and engaging in something unplanned and spontaneous even if I end up having to make up for the time lost.

She was an attractive girl which made the time spent together so much more enjoyable but that was not the sole reason why I took a break from myself and went to be her guide. I did get to appreciate extra intake of fresh air and frequent interesting topics that kept popping up. There was never a dull moment with her and I believe we both learned a lot from each other. But as it goes, there just had to be one thing that kept adding spoilage to the overall experience.

The Disconnected Facebooker

While I was submerged in the environment, taking notices of the sounds and smells and movement of things and people around me, she kept checking her phone and constantly debating with herself whether what she’s seeing was worthy of a photograph she could post on Facebook. There were errands she needed to run, but at the end of the day, they were really just side-track excuses to put her in places and situation she could take pictures of to post on Facebook for her friends to envy.

Photo: Facebook Attracts Some of the Most Delusional Losers in Existence

She was physically next to me, but her mind was constantly on Facebook. She wanted to check out merchandise in many stores but never to see whether they had anything she could buy, only whether they had anything she could take a picture of to post on Facebook. Both of us being foreigners in Malaysia, staff in every business we walked into had their eyes right on us and eagerly assisted her in trying wacky costume on believing that they would score a sale.

That’s what, at first, I thought she wanted. But after we’ve walked into fourth store in which she would try a costume on only to have me take a picture of her wearing it after which she would check the camera to see whether the pic was suitable for Facebook and then take the costume off and wave the business good bye, I started getting sick and tired of it.

For one, I didn’t appreciate being part of the tease game, but most of all, there was this reality of my companion being vastly disconnected – physically present but mentally on the computer imagining what caption she was going to give that last picture in the costume I just took of her for her friends on Facebook to admire.

Photo: Facebookers Like to Go an Extra Mile to Make Themselves and Their Dependents Look Like Desperate Show Offs

Our time spent together was full of unfinished sentences and lost thoughts because she would spot something that caught her attention and wanted to take a picture of it for her Facebook. Staff have always willingly assisted by climbing ladders and getting whatever she pointed at off the shelf because the idea of two foreigners on a shopping spree promised an opportunity of good sales. None of it was happening and I started to feel embarrassed teasing those people like that.

The fact that I was gonna stay in Kota Kinabalu for another month or so didn’t really bother me. Under normal circumstances, I don’t mind making a fool out of myself and be seen by the same people as a fool twice, but this was making me a part of something I would never engage in on my own terms. By the time I realized what life with Facebookers was really like, I was too deep in the commitment to show her around to easily withdraw.

Can’t See The Forest for the Facebook

The extent at which this Facebook user was disconnected from real life became even more apparent and overwhelming after we’ve returned from “taking pictures for Facebook” tour around Kota Kinabalu and she got on the computer to start posting them on Facebook. Utilizing the instant chatting capability available to Facebook members, she kept chatting with her friends and surrogates and felt compelled to pass how they responded to what she was saying about her today’s experiences to me. I could not believe what I was hearing.

Photo: Facebookers Are Delusional Psychopaths Desperately Looking for Attention by Exaggerating Their Experiences

When she shared with her friends the experience we’d had buying cakes at the night market, she passed on information that was completely incorrect. We came to that stall but the lady who ran it was on her cell phone. Another local lady who stood on the opposite side of the counter took over from the lady who couldn’t assist us because she was on the phone and explained what flavor these cakes were and how much they cost. We paid for a few slices and as she was packing our cakes up, she threw an extra cake in.

Needless to say, my Facebooker companion spent this whole conversation taking pictures for her Facebook. She also asked the lady to pose with the cake for a picture and when she was debating it with her friends on the messenger, she was all too eager to tell them this awesome story about a lady who stole an extra cake from a seller who was not watching because she was on the phone.

That unfortunately is not what happened. Because my companion was too preoccupied setting up her camera to take pictures she could post on Facebook, she missed when the lady said that she was the seller’s sister and a partner and together they run this and other stalls. She had full authority to decide how much cake was OK to give the customers but my Facebooker companion had her mind on Facebook, plotting captions she was going to add to pictures in her head so facts escaped her attention. Plus being a Facebooker who cares more about attention from fellow Facebooker than anything else, she may not have been interested in the real story because a story of a lady who stole a cake from the seller simply sounded way cooler than a story of a seller throwing an extra cake in.

And that’s how misinformation gets passed among Facebooking sheep.

Unknown Reality

This experience told me everything I needed to know about the travelers who have Facebook. They are so taken aback by being on Facebook, they entirely submit their traveling experience to it. They don’t travel – they leave home to take pictures for Facebook. They live for Facebook and surrender everything traveling delivers to the goal of boasting before their Facebook surrogates. Their mind is never in the moment – it’s on Facebook. They have no memory of sounds and smells and random flashes of movement because they constantly think of their next status update and crave attention from other members.

Photo: Words Can't Explain How Proud I am Never to Have Joined the Moronic Sheep on Facebook

Facebookers use Facebook to present themselves as those perfect people with amazing experiences and life that turned out to be downright poetic. My encounter with this Canadian girl was not my first, nor my last with a traveller with a Facebook account and they were all like this. There is clearly something about Facebook that bleaching the brains of people right out. I’ve never been prouder of not being a member of a flock of sheep who are this disconnected from reality.

The BDSM Effect

Before I embarked on my long journey around the world, I used to go to that gothic club in downtown Edmonton. Being a gothic club, it was frequented by the most open-minded and tolerant people in the city. Because gothic people accept others for who they are without prejudices, everyone was able to come out of the closet regardless of how culturally questionable their kink was. Needless to say, the club was popular with gay people, cross dressers, transsexuals and practitioners of countless alternative lifestyles because whether one liked dressing up in a medieval armour, wearing weird flashy hair extensions or being on a leash, this club was the one place where they were never judged and never had their ways of expressing themselves questioned. It was also the only club in the city which wasn’t plagued by regular acts of violence.

Having been in a sub/dom relationship myself, I had a firsthand experience with BDSM and everything that comes with it. Contrary to popular belief, words cannot describe how emotionally empowering BDSM relationships are. The amount of trust and responsibility common among partners living in a sub/dom relationship is not easily found among people who deem the BDSM lifestyle repulsive or unappealing.

But this is not the topic of this article. Instead, what I want to bring up is an interesting phenomenon that sub/dom relationships reveal to a keen eye. I have never met another person who would notice and realize this phenomenon so I gave it the name of my own and called it “The BDSM Effect“.

The BDSM Effect

Healthy BDSM relationships are consensual expressions of love that involve dominance of one partner over another. They are based on the fact that the dominant partner (aka Master) draws as much pleasure from dominating someone as the submissive partner (aka Slave) draws from being dominated. But who really is the slave?

While there is no denying that Masters enjoy every bit of being in control of their slaves, they do it because they know their slaves draw immense pleasure from it. Even though they are masters of the play, the very purpose of their dominance is to please the slave. They are – even though it appears to be the other way around – servants of their slaves, doing everything they can to drive their slaves up the wall with ecstasy.

The BDSM Effect vs The Internet

I have written a lot lately about the internet and the danger this tool represents for weak-minded individuals when it stops being a tool and starts being an addiction. I believe that the above described BDSM effect, which nobody else seems to notice, is a perfect method to explain the fine line between using the internet to serve you and being under its spell.

In BDSM relationships you find a master and his/her slave. To the master, as well as (almost) everybody else who would look at the two, it would be unquestionably clear that the master has everything, especially the slave under his/her control. In a user/internet relationship it would likewise unquestionably seem that the user is in full control of his/her tool, but just because something seems unquestionably one way, it doesn’t mean it’s not the other way around, we just fail to see what really is going on under that obvious surface. That’s the BDSM Effect for you!

Life Without the Internet

It was when I first took a trip to Cuba when I first experienced life without the internet since it’s become an integral part of my day to day life. By that time I was already involved with webmastering for 8 years and used it to earn a living for 5. There was not a day in the 5 years preceding my trip to Cuba during which I would not spend at least a few hours on the internet. As a matter of fact, there was not a day during which I would not spend most of it on the internet. I worked on the internet during my office hours and then during my off duty time when I was at home, I got right back on the internet to continue developing and strengthening my online presence.

I knew that leaving for 2 weeks during which I would not lay my eyes on a computer screen was bound to leave me feeling helpless. The fear of not responding in time to an important business email or loosing readers because they haven’t gotten any updates for a while would surely follow me around every step of the way. And it could only get worse – there are a million and one ways my sites could go off line and if I’m not around to fix it, it could negatively affect everything I’ve worked for for 5 years.

Regardless, I told myself that I’m gonna take this trip and will enjoy it to the fullest, totally ignoring any potential of poop hitting the fan while I’m away. I decided that this was gonna be my time to enjoy myself and that even if there was an emergency that’d absolutely require my attention, the world would have to put off falling apart because I will not care and will do nothing about it until my trip is finished.

And the World Kept Turning

The plane that brought me back to Canada after my incredibly amazing trip through north Cuba landed in my home town late at night. My luggage never showed up on a conveyor belt so I had to spend two extra hours at the airport dealing with filing lost luggage claims. By the time I got home, it was 2.30 am.

I was beyond tired after a long flight and totally worn out by the disappointing end to an otherwise amazing trip (lost luggage can really mess you up), yet despite work duties I had scheduled for the following day, instead of heading straight to bed to get some rest, I fired off my computer to see what I have missed out on.

I discovered a truly shocking thing: without me… the world has gotten on just fine. It truly kept on turning even though I was not returning any phone calls and did not respond to any emails for 2 weeks. So if the world doesn’t fall apart if I disconnect from it, is there any merit to fearing that my life would collapse because I disconnected from the world? In this particular case, I truly fared well because I made a deal with myself prior to disconnecting, but could I do it again in the future?

Seemingly Urgent Demands

Technology made our lives easier, but it also created new seemingly urgent demands that keep us so distracted, we dedicate unholy amounts of time dealing with them. Prior to the introduction of the internet into our lives, none of us would be bothered by a comment made by some stranger from half way across the world on a forum, but now that we have the internet, responding to that comment seems so important, we put everything else aside in order to respond to it.

These seemingly urgent demands only exist because we allowed the tool which we should be using to make our lives easier, to keep us distracted by the above mentioned seemingly urgent demands. Do we still own our own time if it belongs to something else? Do we still own it if we allow it to pass us by as we get more and more enslaved by the tool that should be serving us?

My Life Without the Internet

As Murphy’s Law would have it, poop did in fact hit the fan while I was in Cuba. One of my most important sites went off line and remained inaccessible for 6 days before I was able to address it. It severely affected my member base and search engine rankings. It took the site 2 years to recover from damage those 6 days caused.

Had I not gone to Cuba to stay around so I can spend most of each day on the internet like I had before, I would have taken care of the issue quickly, minimizing the downtime and avoiding long term consequences. It would be pretty much the same if I went to Cuba and instead of enjoying myself and having a good time, I’d spend the entire trip in internet cafes, monitoring my websites for potential problems.

So much work I did went down the drain because I wasn’t on the internet to fix it in time, yet it didn’t really bother me. For when I lay on my death bed, I will have memories of an amazing time I had in Cuba to think of, of all the people I met and had many adventures with, of the beautiful places I explored and the foods I tried, of bathing in waterfalls, of hiking in jungles, of fighting with turkey vultures for the rite of passage through the marshland…

When I lay on my death bed, the relationships I established with random internet acquaintances will mean nothing, as will the shiny things I would have bought for the money I would have earned. For when one’s on their death bed, their internet acquaintances will not stand by them to hold their hand during the last moments of their life, as will not any of those big screen TVs, shiny new cars, designer clothes, mahogany furniture, Swiss made watches or flashy iPhones. Does it make sense spending more of your precious time on Earth playing with your computer, texting on your cell phone or staring at big screen than spending it with your family and friends gaining pleasant memories that will stay with you forever?

Conclusion to Life Without the Internet

There is a very solid reason why I titled this post “Life Without the Internet”. For without the internet, one has a life. Depriving oneself of walks in the sun, of frolics with their children, of dinners with their friends in favour of spending their time on the internet, one merely exists. They do not live.

Life After the Internet

This is the first day of my last days…

— Nine Inch Nails: Wish

Life is an opportunity to create, to taste food, to experience love, to have an orgasm, to learn how to play guitar, to frolic in the rain, to laugh, to be adventurous, to make friends. Life is also… disposable. It is a little span of time that allows us to choose and to achieve.

Here’s the kicker – every second after our birth brings us closer to death. To live is to die yet only the almighty knows which of the two is better. One way or another – it pays to make every second count.

Does Technology Make Our Lives Easier or More Difficult?

The fact that our countdown starts the second we are born is something we as humans have realized a long time ago and being the top of the food chain, we brought technology into our lives to make them less complicated. I can’t help but notice, however that even though technology does make our daily survival chores easier, it also disconnects us from social and cultural ties that existed in our societies for millennia.

It would almost seem as though every new technological invention, like a double sided sword, would on one hand make the task it is intended for easier, but on another make our lives as a whole more complicated by over-stimulating our bodies and minds with unnatural impulses.

Internet – The Ultimate Antisocial Tool

Internet is considered to be one of the most groundbreaking inventions of men. It has revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives on both societal and individual levels. Easily the most significant impact the internet has made on our lives is the removal of physical presence. Internet connection is all one needs to do business globally, manage international workers, make and receive payments, balance checkbooks, plan a vacation and more – all without leaving the bedroom.

Internet also made the availability of information and speed at which it becomes available unsurpassed, but it’s the fact that you can get this news while chatting with friends, booking your flight ticket or masturbating that truly impacts our lives. 15 years ago, different activities required the use of different tools and presence in different places but today, all one needs is a computer with internet access.

To bet on a sporting event 15 years ago, one would have to go to the booking office. Today one can do it by sitting on a computer with internet access. To talk to a few friends at the same time, one would have to arrange a meeting so they all are in the same room. Today they can do it by sitting on their computers with internet access even if they are worlds apart. Heck, 15 years ago people actually knew all of their friends in real life. Today, thanks to the internet, people have more friends they have never met in person (virtual friends, aka surrogates), than they have the real life ones.

Internet – in a single sentence – has become the ultimate antisocial tool capable of leaving huge holes where comradeships and community once reigned.

Life After the Internet

From a documentary Zeitgeist: Moving Forward I learned that a need for human touch and companionship are necessary for survival and normal development of all human beings. What are we as human beings going to develop into if we continue allowing the internet to keep us from getting to know and interact with one another without any physical contact?

Internet is an excellent tool, but as with everything, when used by weak-minded individuals, it starts to control them, even though they think it’s the other way around. You can tell how many weak-minded individuals are out there by taking a look at how many profiles exist on Facebook. The description of Facebook states the following:

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them…

..and that’s the way most people perceive Facebook as. Little do they realize that while it connects them with some, it disconnects them with many more. Prior to the internet, people connected with friends by meeting and socializing with them. Instead of entertaining themselves by staring at computer screens, people went somewhere to be with people. Facebook eliminates the need for physical contact and face to face interactions and replaces them with imaginary world in which sounds require speakers.

Internet addicts have internet-numbed brains which prevent them from acknowledging an extent to which internet affects their lives and even if the acknowledgement comes, an attempt to withdraw and set themselves free never thoroughly follows through. To them internet is not a tool which is used when necessary. To them it’s an addiction they dedicate most of their time to, even if it means sacrificing time which would be spent with family or friends. Afterall, how could lunch with friends be any more important than a comment written to impress hoards of people they haven’t even met?

Alienated Communication

Life after the internet disconnected people from people. Even if there is an off the internet meet-up, the weak-minded, internet-numbed individuals will attend it by spending more time on their little machines (whether texting with cell phones or checking their status and posting comments using internet enabled gadgets) interacting with surrogates than talking with physically present friends.

I recently went to a library and the place was packed. However, I was the only one browsing for books. Everybody else came there to use their free internet. Some youngsters sat mere feet away from each other, yet instead of looking into each other’s eyes to talk, they stared at the screens and chatted using an internet based instant messenger service.

What happened to us? Why did we allow such amazing invention as internet to completely take over our lives and sacrifice everything that makes us who we are to it? When TVs became widely affordable and every household had one, we thought something important was being lost because instead of socializing with other human beings, people spent hours staring absently at a TV screen. We truly had no idea back then what was yet to come…

Internet and Traveling Mark

Internet addiction, just as any other addiction is a sign of mental weakness. If you allow the internet to take you over and do not do anything about it while you can, then you are a weak-minded individual and deserve every bit of what is coming to you. Luckily for me, my journey to self discovery opened up my eyes to more than just what my life after the internet turned into.

My income still depends on use of the internet, but I’m not saying there is anything wrong with using the internet as a tool to achieve great things. I realized a while ago what massive pair of shackles internet represents and have appropriately addressed it. Since that time, I’ve been realizing nothing but its potential. For me, life after the internet has not ended in favour of virtual reality. How about you? It takes a strong individual to see beyond the tip of one’s nose. Have you had your eyes locked to the screen for so long you can no longer focus on the vast world that spreads before your nose’ tip? Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life? At least make it the rest of your life, not the rest of virtual reality in which you existed.

Reign of Sheep

Shortly after I started this blog, as soon as I commenced my round the world trip, I realized that every info you can find about travel through third world countries on the internet as well as in popular travel publications is wrong. As if written by dim-witted imbeciles, every single travel guide in existence had dangerously misleading information, picturing travel as a positive and uplifting experience that involves encounters with friendly and hospitable locals and introduces cultures which despite poverty and threats of oppression always embrace peace and generously give even if they don’t have enough for themselves. What a crock of shit.

Because no realistic travel guides existed, the only thing people traveling abroad had to work with were these piles of whale poop. As a result, charts of people murdered, robbed, raped, scammed and otherwise abused abroad continued to grow exponentially. Yet instead of smacking themselves over their heads with a rock, these sickly deranged blockheads continued to spread their falsity while circle jerking one another all the while people out there were being mistreated having wandered ill-informed into the realm of inherent crime.

Enter Traveling Mark

Seeing all the misleading information the world of travel was oversaturated with, I stepped in and started sharing the full picture. If there was anything positive to share about the place I visited, I shared it, but if there was something negative, I shared it just as well. I told it like it was, delivering the full story without ever skimping on truth. I also never softened things up – if someone was a rip off artist, I called them a rip off artist, not a misunderstood individual who’s had challenging life and is struggling to find his place in the world.

You’d think the world would come together to thank the first ever writer of full truth about the world of travel, but the world remained silent. It remained silent because of fear of those who made themselves heard loud and clear right away – the very dim-witted imbeciles who wrote all those misleading half-truths on travel blogs and in tourist guides prior to induction of Traveling Mark.

Like a mob of gangsters standing by to “take care” of anyone and everyone who messes with their “business”, these loud-mouthed, dim-witted deluders showed me instantly why there is a complete lack of truthful travel guides and why no one dares to speak in favor of one. The slew of hate speech and threats was alarming but I stayed true to my cause and remained adamant to provide truthful information even if it meant going alone against the entire world.

What happened next was astounding. One by one, the bloggers who attempted the same truth telling but were trampled shut by half-truthers’ army of sheep started to re-emerged and contacted me with letters of admiration that I survived the lynching by the dim-witted imbeciles and not only that – showed them all a finger and came out on top. The momentum I created resulted in an unstoppable boom of full truth sharing travel blogs which ultimately shut the dim-witters down. They’re still used to yapping their loud mouth at anyone who doesn’t abide by their rules and have their own sheep circle-jerk one another as they gang up on non-compliers, but their undisturbed and unchallenged reign is over and done with.

The Half Truther Army

My path to victory wasn’t an easy one, though. I didn’t give in to the sheep for one second, yet it puzzled me beyond words how well manned the half-truther army was. Among them you could also find individuals who seemed otherwise reasonably capable so why would they trade their wits for half truths? Why would they not share the whole truth having had the capability to see it? And why would they not only fail to share the whole truth, but fight to their last breath on behalf of dim-witted half truthers as if theirs was the law? This were the questions I kept asking myself for the longest time until bit by bit, the complete picture started to come together.

Fear of Reality

How much many travelers suffer from the Fear of Reality became clear early on. It is definitely one of the chief factors influencing the weak minded individuals even if their intelligence level is otherwise pretty solid. It takes an exceptionally strong person to handle the truth so walking around with rose-tinted sunglasses permanently mounted on a face is a simple alternative that allows one to retain their false sense of security their weak minds can’t otherwise live without.

As with virtually everything that dumbs people down, those who suffer from Fear of Reality can’t see its effect on them and think they are entirely immune to it. The denial and inbred belief that they are completely above it makes them more susceptible to attacks on anyone who dares to point it out. From there, there’s just a small step to attacking anyone whose view of the world is unmarred by presentation of false colors, such as that of people with rose-tinted sunglasses.

More elaborate break-down of the fear of reality and its effect on travellers can be accessed on this page.

How High Can You Fly?

Another significant factor that dooms otherwise seemingly capable individuals into a life of a half truthing sheep is a severe lack of ability to actually see the full truth. Those who base their living on taking advantage of others mastered the art of presenting obstacles before the eyes of their chosen victims in order to make their scam appear legit.

That’s why even an otherwise intelligent and educated person can become an easy victim of a scammer and come home believing that that missing money was his own fault though he doesn’t remember where exactly he misplaced it and will continue perceiving the perpetrator as his friend and someone who actually helped him. The victim would also go as far as to attack anyone who attempts to fill him in by clarifying that he was scammed.

Again, as with everything else that dumbs people down, this inability to read between the lines to see things for what they really are is something nobody who suffers from it would admit to willingly. This one more than anything, actually. People who suffer from this shortcoming, regardless of how otherwise intelligent and educated they may be, are so dumbed down they will take scammers’ lie for their own and will defend it at any cost. Typical thinking would go something like this: “The person smiled, hence he cannot be a scammer and anyone who dares to say something negative about him will have me on their ass.”

Here’s a more elaborate post on why how high you can fly determines how far you can see.

The Facebook Sheep

I’ve had more than a fair share of encounters with the Facebook sheep and it’s just never pretty. I understood very early into my trip that enslavement is as enslavement does. Most dim-witted imbeciles only get as far on their journey to freedom as quitting work to travel. They end their corporate enslavement but swap it with thorough gadget and/or internet enslavement. I’m not even getting to money enslavement cause that’s already a bit too much for dim-witters to swallow all at the same time.

The Facebook sheep who travel and blog about travel don’t travel for the sake of travelling, but to broadcast their travel to all their friends. All they ever have on their mind is Facebook and the first thing they do when they get back from a trip outside is to get on their Facebook to post updates.

They don’t really interact with locals – they talk to them to get something that would make a good blog. They don’t really go to see a sunset – they take a picture of it for a better update than their friends made. They don’t really sample food – they merely mark the dish’s name so they can post about it.

Facebook sheep plain and simple travel to broadcast their travel on Facebook. They always think of that next Facebook update and of what picture to take to go with it. With their mind always on Facebook, they’re never really fully present in the moment so there really is no surprise that they don’t see the full truth. They only see that which makes the most interesting update for Facebook.

Being humans, we are not very good multi-taskers. Each of us likes to think that we can multitask, but every scientific and social experiment into it proved otherwise. Can you really blame a Facebook sheep for falling short of their travel experience with many things going unnoticed when their mind is focused on shooting a video that will make it on their next post? You truly can’t because it’s a natural human shortcoming but why do these Facebook sheep then insist on arguing with sane individuals who had the same experience but their mind was not on Facebook hence they got full picture of the reality?

Living For the Herd

One of the most influential downfalls of many, not just the travel half truthers is the curse of pleasing others. The sheep live for the herd. In travelers’ case – they don’t travel for the sake of traveling but for the sake of positive press. They want to be coveted by their Facebook friends so they limit their experience to interactions and reports that deliver the thumbs-ups.

It is understandable that because the herd of sheep composed of dim-witted imbeciles and their brown-nosing followers without brain is huge and easily capable of trumping anyone who separates themselves from the herd by being able to think for themselves, most people will volunteer to becoming a sheep because that gives them an approval of the herd.

Whereas the capability to think outside the box and rise high above the ground to see the forest for the trees (see the How High Can You Fly section above) is seen as outcast-ish by the herd, those who demonstrate the ability to think independently are frowned upon and ultimately singled out and victimized. Because nobody wants to feel singled out and victimized, people will sacrifice their individuality to become the respected sheep of the herd. Whether what they think and how they act is right or wrong becomes irrelevant and renounced in favor of whether what they think and how they act is favored by the herd.

The dedication to please the herd before anything else is one of the most dominant characteristic of vast majority of individuals alive today. As such, this characteristic, moreso than any other, would never be admitted to by anyone who suffers from it and is entirely addicted to it.

Further information on the Curse of Pleasing the Herd can be found on this page.

The Reign of Sheep

So eventually, bit after bit, the entire picture of why people, including those who seem to be otherwise mentally capable of thinking for themselves are so determined to pass on the half truths about the world of travel came together. They are the Facebook addicted sheep who fear reality and lack the capacity to see forest for the trees. But most of all, they live for the herd.

There are basically two types of people in the world today:

Individualists
Sheep

Sheep feel safe and secure being part of the herd. They abandoned their individuality and modified their thoughts and actions to match those approved by the herd. Like children following the Pied Piper into their doom, the sheep will jump into a well if other sheep of the herd do it too. And if someone were to come along to tell them that they’d be stupid to jump into the well for they would needlessly drown, they’d respond by attacking said individual and backed by the rest of their herd, they’d trample the individual for his nerve to think for himself and speaking in opposition to the herd.

The sheep are many, whereas the individuals are usually alone. That’s why many otherwise capable thinkers succumb to pressure and become one with the herd and start acting sheepish. If one sheep takes a step to the left, all other sheep take a step to the left. If one sheep bleeps, all other sheep bleep. To say something that’s not sheepish when sheep are around would get the whole herd bleeping and that’s pretty much guaranteed to shut any innovator up.

If you do as the sheep do, you’ll gain their respect so next time, if it’s you who bleeps first, all other sheep will bleep in unison with you. If you don’t do as the sheep do and dare to think for yourself, the sheep will bleep in unison against you, calling you a freak and forcing you into becoming a loner.

As for me – I’d rather be alone than become a sheep. I can look in the mirror and not see a puppet. And that is more important to me than all the bleep fanfare in the world.