Some thoughts on my social sabbatical: For context, I had […]

Some thoughts on my social sabbatical:

For context, I had been posting something almost every day for over a decade. It started in 2004 as part of the due diligence process for an investment offer for flickr. I have been the most active there, racking up a mind-boggling 43 million unique page views.

So then I dropped it all cold turkey. It was amazing how much time it freed up. I am way too anal on photo editing, and it all adds up. With the new time, I finished a book — the new Elon Musk biography — instead of just starting them and adding to the piles of partially read books at my bedside. And yes, I pushed my daughter on the swing. =)

I am reading The Power of Habit, and I see how the interrupt-driven nature of the social pings and snacking on the mobile apps can distract from the drudgery of the work email backlog. The generally positive vibe here is a tempting place to return to, especially with 40K people contributing to my attention-seeking behaviors. =)

By removing the browser bookmarks and phone apps, it drew stark attention to each time I reached for them, out of habit. I realized that I would come here each morning with the first cup of coffee. And it would take an hour oftentimes to catch up with all of the overnight comments.

I noticed subtle changes in the photos I would take, with an eye to family photos instead of online posts (my wife does not want me to post photos of the children, so I found myself asking them to not jump into certain photos. Sad.)

I noticed a reduction in my stress during the evenings, where I would typically cogitate about the post of the day. It was like a daily deadline.

I am contemplating a return, but with a weekly cadence instead of daily. I am not sure if the interaction will feel the same. And I find that I imagine at least one good post every day, as I am still seeing some amazing things: in the past month, that includes flying direct from NASA Ames to Branson’s new Virgin Island, playing with lemurs, letting the CEO of Goldman Sachs pet the vampire squid case on my iPhone, hearing Travis forecast an amazing adoption of robo-cars, speaking at my high school reunion, immersive experiences with the Microsoft Hololens and Valve-HTC Vive VR rig (much better of the two, IMHO), a Napa retreat with the CEOs of Apple and Disney telling great stories, playing dress-up with Emmanuel Jal and hearing his harrowing tales as a child-soldier in Sudan, setting up a SpaceX tour for Moby and hearing him offer to DJ a party with me, MakerFaire hijinx, a 7 hour meeting with Larry Page, driving an Antarctic research vessel jacked-up on four tank treads (each driven by an electric motor) and flooring this “Double-D” as I called it, through the streets of Monterey, speaking at NOVUS about exponential inequality, becoming enamored with the incredible leverage of the One Acre Fund in empowering the poorest African farmers, going on Chinese TV… and that was just the first three weeks.

I lament not being able to share it all, and worry that my memory of these events won’t do them justice if I fail to record them in real time. I wish there was a less-time-consuming way to do that.

My daughter noticed that I was posting again, and she was not happy with that. Perhaps that is the most important signal.