4.7 • 11.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2022
⏱️ 5 minutes
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The Minimalists discuss why Joshua decided not to install an Internet connection in his new home. Listen to full episodes of The Minimalists Private Podcast: patreon.com/theminimalists
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0:00.0 | I don't have internet at home. That is true. I think one can live without internet altogether. Sure. It seems less practical. That seems like a more aesthetic response. Yeah. But there are times throughout your day that you don't have the internet. It just happens to be a little bit more practical. |
0:29.0 | It just happens to be part of my day is a bit longer. Danny experienced this weekend. He on Saturday had a screenless Saturday. He had an accidental screenless Saturday on purpose. Oh nice. |
0:42.0 | He and Amy set their phones in a drawer and just went out to Malibu, hung out on the beach, spent time together. And he said, I felt like I was being heard for the first time. Yeah, that's awesome. And she felt like she was being heard. |
0:59.0 | And why is that? Because we've removed that distraction. At home, there are three things that I don't have right now. We've moved into this new house. One is I don't have home internet, which also means I don't have Wi-Fi. If I ever did get home internet, I would never get Wi-Fi again. |
1:15.0 | And if I find that it's absolutely essential to have home internet, it would be a wired connection. And there's a reason for that. I don't want the electro small associate with the Wi-Fi in my home. I know it disrupts my Wi-Fi sleep. It doesn't really mess with mine that much. But if you turn on a Wi-Fi router, it really screws up her sleep. |
1:32.0 | And so a lot of people are very sensitive to dirty electricity. And Wi-Fi is part of that. Obviously cell towers can be part of it. Just regular electricity in your walls are a part of that as well. It's unavoidable. But I want to minimize it. It's one of the reasons we move to remove it has less electro small. |
1:50.0 | And so that dirty electricity. |
1:53.0 | It's so dirty. Shock me. And so no, we don't have internet at home. We also have a television at home. And yes, do I enjoy some shows from time to time? Yeah. But now we have to find a way around that or go into a movie theater or downloading something onto a laptop and watching it that way. |
2:18.0 | It's injecting some friction into our lives. So no home internet. That's some serious friction, right? Because I don't have instant access. And in fact, there's not a cell tower close by to where we live. So I get one bar of service if I'm lucky in certain parts of my house. So forget about trying to tether to your phone. |
2:34.0 | Not possible where I live. But the third thing I don't have at home is a phone, a cell phone, meaning throughout my house, I don't bring my phone with me. We have the entryway rule. So I walk into the home. |
2:47.0 | And I set the phone and on this counter in the entryway. And that's where it goes. That's where it charges. That's where it stays. I have access to it. I can go walk over there. I can respond to a text message. |
2:58.0 | But it doesn't give people immediate 100% access to me throughout all of my waking hours. And so how do you do that by being more deliberate with how you need to use these tools, whether it's the internet. Now I have to go somewhere, whether it's into an office to a coffee shop, to a friend's house, to a library, whatever it might be. |
3:21.0 | And I'm now focusing not on surfing the net, but deliberately using the internet to accomplish whatever I want to accomplish. But you know what it does not having internet because I did this for five years once, right. |
3:34.0 | I didn't have home internet for five years. And it was the most productive five years of my life. Yeah. You and I published four books during that period of time. We started the minimalist podcast. We made our first documentary. |
3:47.0 | We started going out on tours. And it made me hyper focused. And it's not that I didn't have access to internet. It's I removed it from the place where I felt most compelled to just surf for a little while. |
4:00.0 | I'll just waste a little time. Oh, just for a minute. And all of a sudden, I look up and it's been an hour and 45 minutes that I've been on Instagram looking at butts and, and more butts. Yeah, and fast cars. |
4:13.0 | And it's like, well, what am I doing here? I don't. This isn't serving the greater good for me. So I've removed that distraction. I've added some friction. This allowed me to produce creative traction in my life. |
4:27.0 | Yeah. And the same is true with TV. The same is true with a phone. What are the things I can remove that adds a little bit of discomfort to my life that ultimately makes my life more meaningful. |
4:38.0 | Did you enjoy this standalone Patreon highlight? If so, you can listen to full episodes of the minimalist private podcast available exclusively on Patreon. |
4:49.0 | Visit patreon.com slash the minimalist or click the link in the description. Your support keeps our podcast and YouTube channel 100% advertisement free. |
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