#i’m absolutely terrified of the effects of drugs and the possibility of developing a dependency

[clickbeetle]

oh yeah at my high school reunion the other day, one of my old friends from back then said he’d hook me up with shrooms if i wanted to reconnect with him.

i have never ever done shrooms but i mean hey. don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

[hungrytundras]

Hello it’s lore time and today I’m going to talk about dragons as Hybrid Creatures. In my lore there are two kinds of living things. There are mundane creatures, which include the beastclans, most familiars, the plants and animals, and so on. These guys are flesh and blood. They can sometimes tap or manipulate magic or even have magical concentrations in their bodies, but its not inherent to them. 

Then there are magical creatures, spirits, ghosts, the Deities, the sprites and other festival familiars, etc. that are completely made of magic, have set definitive elements, and internal magical reserves. 

And then there are dragons who are uniquely both. The exact ratio of one to the other varies by individual but usually hovers around 50/50. It gives them all kinds of advantages and a few drawbacks as well: 

For example, dragons can die, but they usually do not age or age very slowly. They are susceptible to both physical and magical diseases but have strong defenses against both. The magical half often kicks the physical immune system into high gear and a dragon can blast through the average infection with a terrifying speed. This, of course, does not help much with Wyrmwound Plague or its various kin which were designed to thrive in dragons (and thankfully only jump to other populations in extremely rare cases) 

Dragons also demand very little food and can go extremely long times without eating at all (It does effect them, but won’t kill them)  Again, in this case, the magical system kicks in to keep the physical one going. They can’t breed or fight when “starving” because the magic required for breath storage, casting, nest incubation, etc is being devoted to supplying energy to the body. 

Going the other way, the physical half allows dragons to be much stronger casters. For a fully magical being, casting a spell means giving away a part of one’s own existence. Even though its often temporary, its still a huge commitment and will leave the entity weakened until a recovery is made. (Deities are exempt from this problem since they usually have so much juice in them that they can afford to be wasteful, but for a smaller entity like a ghost, its a tough decision.) For dragons, the threat of possibly fizzling out is replaced by the threat of actually experiencing hunger for a while (and a few withdrawal symptoms but I’ll talk about that later) They can get a lot more extravagant for their size. 

On the side of drawbacks, the magical system is constantly regulating things like chemical balance to ensure things remain at a ‘normal’ (’normal’ in quotes because sometimes you have depression. It’s all about what the system is used to not necessarily what’s healthy) This makes medication particularly difficult. Usually dragons prefer magical healing and they do so for a reason. Traditional medicine often gets rejected by the body, and when its necessary, it must be administered in absolutely heinous concentrations in order to be effective. 

This also applies to drugs and alcohol. It takes a down right terrifying amount of booze to produce even the slightest buzz and generally the stronger the caster, the less effect it will have. (not to mention many having the advantage of body mass as well) Draconic wines and spirits are notoriously strong to the point of being undrinkable to anyone else. Addictions are harder for dragons to develop but also more difficult to break if the body grows too used to having what it has.

And finally, withdrawal and dependency. The physical and magical halves are each perfectly capable of existing separately. A dragon’s body has all of the parts and pieces it needs to function all on its own, and the, for lack of a better word, spirit is perfectly capable of independent function as well, but they are part of the same being and grow to lean on each other such that the hindrance of one will often damage the other. Dragons have physical limits to their magic. There is only so much they can hold at once before their bodies start to overload and shut down (As we saw with the gaolers in Fire and Flame.) In the same way, complete depletion of magical reserve can cause the body to give out. 

Burnout and Overload are the most common killers of dragons.

[yogaposesfortwo]

Digital Detox? Nah. How to Cultivate Digital Wellbeing

When Jess Davis and I were first scheduled to chat, I didn’t get an answer. I knew that she was planning to spend the day in the woods, and figured it was a reception issue. It’s an appropriate issue for Jess to have—as the founder of Folk Rebellion, a media and lifestyle brand advocating for offline living—a lack of cell reception kind of comes with the territory. When I spoke with her a few days later, she gushed about her experience in a Getaway cabin, a new-ish company founded to help city folks develop a personal relationship with the great outdoors. Jess had been running around for the previous couple of weeks, stressed and overworked, and had gotten sick. Jess’s friend and founder of Getaway insisted she come and stay in a cabin, completely off-grid. Unplugging for a few days was just what the doctor ordered—though it came as no surprise to Jess. A former award-winning brand strategist who thrived for 10 years in a fast-paced, tech-heavy world, Jess had a reckoning that while she’d helped to create a world that was digitally connected, the flip side was a sincere disconnection from the actual, tangible world. She founded Folk Rebellion to help others like her develop a sense of digital wellness and a healthy relationship with their devices. WTF is Digital Wellbeing? “Five years ago, digital detoxing was a way to start the conversation,” says Jess, but notes that an absolute approach may not be the healthiest way to go about digital wellness today. The digital revolution isn’t comparable to something like cigarettes, for example, when it comes to being healthy. “Technology is an amazing tool when used appropriately. For me, it’s digital wellbeing,” she says. “The same way you have wellbeing with nutrition and with exercise, I think that the next form of wellbeing is being digitally well. You can’t rush to yoga, have your juice, take your supplements, and be well if you don’t have a healthy relationship with your technology and your devices,” she says. Jess likens the evolution of digital wellness to the seatbelt revolution in the 1980s. Cars were, point blank, unsafe—and auto manufacturers were reluctant to spend the money to revamp their factories. Ralph Nader led the charge to change mindsets: It wasn’t cars that were dangerous, it was the cars without safety precautions. He successfully lobbied for seat belts, airbags, and stop signs. “I’m not saying that the tech is bad and we need to go without it completely,” says Jess, “but if we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.”

The Dangers of Digital Overdose Going through the windshield of a car is a significantly more dramatic deterrent, however, than the threat of a sore thumb. Consequences of digital overuse are much more nuanced, and complicated by the fact that digital dependency is, point blank, a revenue model. The more time we spend online—and the more information we share—the more money companies make. “When you think of addiction you think of drugs,” says Jess. “You think of all of these terrible things that you think, ‘Oh, no. Not me.’ When you find out that people are sitting alone and they can’t get off of their phones for like 13 hours a day or a video game, this is addiction.” Jess should know. Before she left her previous life, she absolutely considered her own dependency an addiction. “The experiences that I had and what’s now being documented is a general sense of dissociation from reality,” she says. “A malaise, a feeling of un-wellness 24/7. Inability to focus, memory loss—which was my number one ailment—which now they call digital dementia. It’s terrifying, but it’s literally called that,” she says. If we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen. Overuse can result in myriad consequences. We’re physically rewiring our brains to consume and retain shorter and shorter content, which shortens our attention spans. This can in turn inhibit our ability to be creative and to follow-through with complex tasks. Additionally, there is no shortage of evidence that boredom—space previously unfilled by mindlessly scrolling—spurs innovation. But it’s more than that. “One of the things that they’re finding is the scariest thing to me is that children who studied with an iPad or used and iPad as a learning device from birth till they entered kindergarten versus children who did not,” says Jess. She understands that these can be great learning tools, but when comparing the socialization of these kids, children who used the device were 35 percent less empathetic than the ones who didn’t have it when they entered kindergarten. “What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?” asks Jess. There’s also the issue of increasing narcissism, which leads to increased rates of depression and isolation. The long-lasting effects of heavy social media use have yet to be determined, but again, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence that the negative effects of overuse are damaging at the very least. And Jess suspects that there are potential negative effects on physical health as well—she thinks there could be a correlation between the cortisol released when our phones ding, and increasing stress levels that lead to autoimmune disease. “That’s my hunch, anyway,” she says. Corporate Responsibility Just as the doctor who created Frankenstein was ultimately horrified with his invention, Jess says that many of the bigwigs who helped to create Silicon Valley are aware of its dark side. One group, the Center for Humane Technology (the guy who invented the “Like” button and an original founder of Twitter among its founders) is one organization looking to pull back the reins on the creations they put into the world. What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic? “They’ll go to Google, they’ll go to Apple, and they’ll say: ‘This is how you need to start thinking about making things’,” says Jess. “On the other end of the spectrum is me, and organizations like Folk Rebellion. What we’re really trying to do is to educate the consumer.” Jess says the approach to curbing digital addiction should be three-pronged: Organizations funded by the government (ie: education in public schools), corporations, and personal choices. “I think it really starts on a small scale,” she says. “Homes, small businesses, neighborhoods, families, schools—things like that.” Advice for Kicking Your Addiction The first time Jess purposefully went without her phone for a three-day weekend, she says she was forced to face just how dependent she had become. “I’m an introvert at heart,” she says. “What happened was I kept touching my back pocket when I was being introduced to somebody, and I then had this gross realization that I’m cutting off conversations of people I have just met because I’m uncomfortable and I have this sort of get-out-of-jail-free card in my back pocket,” she says. The first step Jess recommends to digitally detox is to truly get rid of everything. Keep a pen and paper handy, and jot it down every time you think of your phone, touch your pocket, or feel uncomfortable without it. “Then you start to understand your triggers,” says Jess. “Once you have that, you go back to the real world and you have to start to set these boundaries in balance.” Jess only checks her email Monday through Friday, at specified times. She keeps her cell number private. She gave herself the rule that she no longer scrolls while in motion—that includes the subway, while walking, or in a car. “It’s just creating space,” says Jess. “If you can slice off and put these little hatch lines throughout your day of space that you can expand that doesn’t have the digital or the tech in it, that’s where you’re starting to create that better balance of it.” The other thing she’s done is to reintroduce tangible mediums where possible. “I use tech all day—I’m a creator on the computer,” she says, “and so when I don’t have to be working, I go back to the forms that I used to love before these devices kind of consumed everything. I have magazine subscriptions. I actually carry physical books.” Despite that they’re heavier, for Jess, it’s a relationship worth the weight. Bottom line? Technology isn’t the enemy—it can be a powerful tool to connect, which can enhance your relationships and make life easier. Allowing the digitized world to make life too easy, however, is the trap. As yogis know, balance is the key. Author: Lisette Cheresson Source: https://wanderlust.com/journal/digital-detox-uk/ Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: Yoga Poses for Two Read the full article

[antialiasis]

Hadestown

Whooops I have a new musical obsession, help.

I was actually mostly drawn to this one musically. I heard a cover of “Why We Build the Wall”, found the musical soundtrack on Spotify and listened to the whole thing out of curiosity, and was like “Hey, this is bangin’, I want to listen to this again.”

Hadestown, as a narrative, isn’t really particularly me. It’s a love story (or, more accurately, two love stories of sorts). As you will know if you’ve read any of my blog, I’m not much of a romantic when it comes to fiction, and the love ballad(s) are pretty consistently my least favorite songs in basically every musical; this is no exception.

But there’s something that appeals to me in Hadestown anyway. It’s a very liberal modernized-but-also-not semi-metaphorical reinterpretation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (that’s the one with the guy who wants to bring back his dead girlfriend from the underworld, and Hades lets her go with him so long as he doesn’t turn back to look at her on the way; spoilers, he does look back, and she ends up back in the underworld forever). It’s actually doing a vaguely similar kind of thing as Jesus Christ Superstar, which may be part of why I dig it: taking well-known mythology, developing the figures in it as characters and exploring their motivations, existing in and embracing this in-between space where it’s simultaneously about these ancient mythological figures and extravagantly modernized reinterpretations of them, intentionally skirting the line and never quite committing to exactly to what extent it’s literal or metaphorical or something in between.

Here, it’s Greek myth in something vaguely like the Great Depression. Orpheus, a poor musician (who in the lyrics is said to play the lyre, even though on stage he’s clearly playing the guitar), falls in love with a practical, down-to-earth girl named Eurydice. Times are hard and they are poor, and Eurydice is most concerned with food and shelter and basic needs, while Orpheus is devoted only to his art; in “Wedding Song”, she asks where they’re going to get wedding rings or a wedding bed and Orpheus insists that when he finishes the song he’s working on, the rivers and trees and birds will provide what they need. As Eurydice tries to prepare for the winter and storms and further hardship, while Orpheus just sits there working on his song, Eurydice is approached by Hades, a rich industrialist who rules the underworld, Hadestown, where no one goes hungry. He seduces her, or persuades her, or kills her - again, this musical exists in the space between the literal and metaphorical - and she comes with him to Hadestown, where Hades has the inhabitants, or the spirits of the dead, slaving away working to build a wall to keep out the poverty and misery of not having a wall to work on, and Orpheus journeys to get her back with directions from our narrator Hermes.

Intertwined with that story is the story of Hades and Persephone, who were in love a long time ago, but are now bitter and estranged from one another - Persephone (as in the myths) spends the summer months of the year happy above ground, but in the fall Hades comes for her and takes her down to Hadestown, where he’s obsessively building walls and machines and furnaces and electric grids that he wants to impress her but do just the opposite as she despises the heat and the light and the noise: It ain’t right and it ain’t natural. In Hadestown, Persephone runs a speakeasy of sorts, where she sells the miserable inhabitants the sky and moon and stars, or quite possibly they’re all just a metaphor for a lot of liquor and drugs (the word moonshine, of course, sees some use).

I find myself drawn to the story of the latter two here, somewhat predictably, because they are a couple of very fucked-up people in a very fucked-up relationship. Hades is absolutely the villain here, and a pretty chilling one at that: “Why We Build the Wall” is the backwards, rousing anthem of a sort of cult leader enslaving a population of people and persuading them that the wall they’re building will keep them free, and holy god damn can he make his voice terrifying. But there’s this sense of desperation to him as well. One of my favorite songs by now is “Chant II”, where Hades threatens Orpheus with death or imprisonment or some other sinister fate, and rants, practically frothing at the mouth, about women, and how they’re so seasonal (har har), they’ll come and they’ll leave, and you just have to keep them with you by chaining them and weighing them down with riches, and then:

Now I sing a different song One I can depend upon The simple tune, the steady beat The music of machinery Do you hear that heavy metal sound? The symphony of Hadestown And in this symphony of mine Of power chords and power lines Young man, you can strum your lyre, I have strung the world in wire Young man, you can sing your ditty I CONDUCT THE ELECTRIC CITY!

And you realize Hades has basically built this entire industrial city because machines are dependable and reliable and he can control them and they won’t leave him every six months. You can sort of see it laid out how once upon a time Hades and Persephone were happy, but as the cracks in their relationship developed, he channeled his fear of losing her into the most toxic possible path, and that’s what’s made him this possessive tyrant obsessed with industrialization and control, effectively just as trapped in this cage of his own making as his citizens. He’s terrible, but you get how he got there, in his awful fucked-up way, and that’s always a thing that I’m into.

In the end, Orpheus and Persephone melt him a little and grant him a bit of self-awareness, and as Orpheus gets his chance to try to save Eurydice, Hades and Persephone also decide to try again - which I hope also involves, y’know, freeing the slaves/souls/literal-metaphor-mixture-something, or at least no longer forcing them to imprison themselves behind a pointless wall, and Hades all in all redeeming himself and becoming a better, more compassionate person again, but given that, I’m actually rooting for them, which is impressive after the literally nearly everything that goes on between them. Persephone wants to try again and she deserves happiness, okay.

Orpheus and Eurydice have a healthier relationship (I mean, Hades and Persephone would be very hard to top), but it’s still fraught with Orpheus’ neglect of their basic needs, and eventually his giving in to his own inner demons as he finds himself unable to trust and believe that she’s truly behind him despite the promises that they made (and to be fair, Eurydice did go and get herself Hadestowned last time he left her alone). “Doubt Comes In” is another one of my belated favorite songs on the soundtrack; it gives such a good musical sense of that creeping dread as his confidence falters and he loses his nerve.

All in all, I just like listening to this soundtrack a lot and I mayyyy be feeling an uncontrollable urge to organize another trip to New York so I can slip in and see this performed help

[electriceell]

Matt Murdock & Borderline Personality Disorder

It seems to be pretty universally believed among the Daredevil/Marvel fandom that Matt has some very serious neuroatypical tendencies. I’ve been told that he has depression in the comic book canon and, at first, that seemed pretty reasonable, all in all. He does really self-destructive crap, has a pretty low sense of self-worth, some pretty serious guilt, and pessimistic thoughts, all of which are Major Depressive Disorder territory. That being said, a lot of the other symptoms: loss of interest in life and reduced energy/decreased activity don’t seem to turn up at all. 

What makes more sense, to me at least, is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It is, of course, necessary to acknowledge that we cannot diagnose characters since they exist in a very specific unreal spectre of our world. We have no way to reference their actions or choices and no clear insight into their thoughts and thought patterns. On top of that, I was somewhat recently diagnosed with BPD and it seemed like the things in me that are Matt Murdock are some of the stuff that started to make sense in light of the BPD diagnosis. 

The DSM-V has five general criteria for personality disorders:

Significant impairments in self (identity or self-direction) and interpersonal (empathy or intimacy) functioning.

One or more pathological personality trait domains or trait facets.

The impairments are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.

The impairments are not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or sociocultural environment.

The impairments are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).

For BPD the first two these break down like this: 

Impairments in Personality Functioning:

Impairments in identity or self-direction: Markedly impoverished, poorly developed, or unstable self-image, often associated with excessive self criticism; chronic feelings of emptiness; dissociative states under stress.

This one is really the crux of BPD and one that I think is frequently misunderstood. “Unstable self-image” is something that is hard to wrap one’s head around, especially considering that “instability in goals, aspirations, values, or career plans” are considered separately in the ‘self-direction’ category. Matt certainly has stable goals, values, etc. but despite that, he exists as many different personalities. He tends to morph to what the people around want him to be; he does his best to inhabit the space that he imagines is meant for him. With Foggy he’s gentle and kind, a fake softness to cover his sharp edges, with Elektra he becomes the sharp edges and nothing in between, for Karen he becomes the perfect gentleman and protector he sees her as needing, etc. I would argue that he leans into the traits that he thinks his partners see as desirable or good or ~Matt~ in order to become what they want. Karen and Foggy have mostly overlapping images, making it possible for them to coexist with Matt, but Elektra is totally other. By this token, Matt with Elektra cannot overlap with Foggy because the essential Matt-ness changes depending on who he’s with. On top of all of this, Matt literally exists as the two incongruous halves of himself. The show tracks the ways that Matt Murdock, attorney-at-law and Daredevil cannot inhabit Matt at the same time. But I honestly think this is less crucial to Matt’s BPD than his amorphous personality.

Impairments in empathy or intimacy: Intense, unstable, and conflicted close relationships, marked by mistrust, neediness, and anxious preoccupation with real or imagined abandonment; close relationships often viewed in extremes of idealization and devaluation and alternating between over involvement and withdrawal.

Do I even need to go into this one? Matt, in his entire life, manages one long-term close relationship, which is certainly intense and unstable. He is incredibly attached to Foggy, willing to strike out and start a law firm with him, but too scared to tell him about his senses. Despite evidence to the contrary, Matt doesn’t trust Foggy enough to tell him something essential, presumably for fear of abandonment. Extremes of idealization and devaluation absolutely come to play with Foggy, Karen, and Elektra. Matt seems to idolize Foggy, considers him the heart of Nelson & Murdock, but then proceeds to detach and condemn Foggy for not accepting him as Daredevil. Elektra is perfect and the center of Matt’s world and ~knows Matt better than anyone else~ and then she’s terrible and destroys everything. There’s a definite reason for this snap change, but it’s still very extreme, changing polarity quickly. 

Pathological Personality Traits:

Negative Affectivity characterized by  emotional lability - Unstable emotional experiences and frequent mood changes; emotions that are easily aroused, intense, and/or out of proportion to events and circumstances.

I mean. Matt does not have normal emotional responses as an adult. He flares with anger easily, which would explain his sense that the devil is in him. Outbursts of anger with following intense remorse, shame and guilt are also considered common in people with BPD. 

anxiousness - Intense feelings of nervousness, tenseness, or panic, often in reaction to interpersonal stresses; worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities; feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty; fears of falling apart or losing control.

This is another one that I have trouble even digging into because it feels so obvious. We’ve all seen Matt’s ability to handle interpersonal stress. He basically backs out awkwardly while mumbling about random things. Or he yells or punches things. That’s basically the only ways he handles things. 

In addition, Matt clearly clings to ‘killing his father’ and then, of course, Stick leaving him. He says he ‘has an incredible ability to bring disaster into his life’. I have to think both of those are attached to this sentiment. And of course, nearly driving Foggy out with Daredevil and keeping his senses to himself. 

He’s terrified of losing control and crossing the line and killing someone. Despite a strong, intense moral compass, he seems to exist in a state of fear that he might murder someone in an outburst of anger (see emotional lability).

separation insecurity - Fears of rejection by – and/or separation from – significant others, associated with fears of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy.

Jack, Stick, Elektra, Foggy - people leave him. And since his dad died he’s fucking terrified of it. His resistance to loss of autonomy is demonstrated most clearly with Elektra and Stick. It’s easy to justify with them because they’re ~bad influences~ and morally ambiguous, but Matt is scared of becoming their puppets despite being, you know, an autonomous human being. 

depressivity - Frequent feelings of being down, miserable, and/or hopeless; difficulty recovering from such moods; pessimism about the future; pervasive shame; feeling of inferior self-worth; thoughts of suicide and suicidal behavior.

Matt never feels good enough, has terrible sense of self-worth to the point where he LITERALLY BELIEVES HE’S THE DEVIL SOMETIMES. Shame surrounds his existence as Daredevil and lying to the people around him and also not doing enough as DD. I don’t think it’s that much of a reach to say what he does as DD is suicidal behavior. He knows this can’t be sustained. But he keeps going with no sense of self preservation. 

Disinhibition, characterized by impulsivity - Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli; acting on a momentary basis without a plan or consideration of outcomes; difficulty establishing or following plans; a sense of urgency and self-harming behavior under emotional distress.

... Nothing says acting on the spur of the moment or without plan quite like when he gets hacked to pieces by Nobu or goes on a rescue mission for Stick. Or for Karen et al. to be entirely honest. Urgency and no regard for his safety are basically the backbone of Matt Murdock’s Daredevil. 

risk taking -  Engagement in dangerous, risky, and potentially self-damaging activities, unnecessarily and without regard to consequences; lack of concern for one’s limitations and denial of the reality of personal danger.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NEXT

Antagonism characterized by: hostility - Persistent or frequent angry feelings; anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults.

Is he ever not angry? Like really. Pretty small things (Stick’s commenting on Jack) set Matt off and get him swinging. Repeat on the devil in him - small things spark anger in him. 

Stable across time check Not explained by age or socio-cultural environment check Not due to substances (drugs or meds) or a medical condition (head trauma) check (even if Matt has serious head trauma, I don’t think that’s what shapes his personality functioning)

Being raised in an abusive environment is common among people with BPD. Correlation, of course, does not imply causation, but Matt’s early and intense relationship with Stick was abusive and could have shaped BPD tendencies.

When it comes down to it, a personality disorder makes a lot more sense for Matt’s unstable and non-normative functioning than depression.

“I’m so good at beginnings, but in the end I always seem to destroy everything, including myself.” - Kiera Van Gelder, The Buddha and the Borderline

[chocolate-brownies]

Jess Davis is just one of the luminaries you can learn from at Wellspring this October. For tickets and more information, click here. Wellness industry professional discounts and scholarships available!

When Jess Davis and I were first scheduled to chat, I didn’t get an answer. I knew that she was planning to spend the day in the woods, and figured it was a reception issue. It’s an appropriate issue for Jess to have—as the founder of Folk Rebellion, a media and lifestyle brand advocating for offline living—a lack of cell reception kind of comes with the territory. When I spoke with her a few days later, she gushed about her experience in a Getaway cabin, a new-ish company founded to help city folks develop a personal relationship with the great outdoors. Jess had been running around for the previous couple of weeks, stressed and overworked, and had gotten sick. Jess’s friend and founder of Getaway insisted she come and stay in a cabin, completely off-grid.

Unplugging for a few days was just what the doctor ordered—though it came as no surprise to Jess. A former award-winning brand strategist who thrived for 10 years in a fast-paced, tech-heavy world, Jess had a reckoning that while she’d helped to create a world that was digitally connected, the flip side was a sincere disconnection from the actual, tangible world. She founded Folk Rebellion to help others like her develop a sense of digital wellness and a healthy relationship with their devices.

WTF is Digital Wellbeing?

“Five years ago, digital detoxing was a way to start the conversation,” says Jess, but notes that an absolute approach may not be the healthiest way to go about digital wellness today. The digital revolution isn’t comparable to something like cigarettes, for example, when it comes to being healthy. 

“Technology is an amazing tool when used appropriately. For me, it’s digital wellbeing,” she says. “The same way you have wellbeing with nutrition and with exercise, I think that the next form of wellbeing is being digitally well. You can’t rush to yoga, have your juice, take your supplements, and be well if you don’t have a healthy relationship with your technology and your devices,” she says.

Jess likens the evolution of digital wellness to the seatbelt revolution in the 1980s. Cars were, point blank, unsafe—and auto manufacturers were reluctant to spend the money to revamp their factories. Ralph Nader led the charge to change mindsets: It wasn’t cars that were dangerous, it was the cars without safety precautions. He successfully lobbied for seat belts, airbags, and stop signs.

“I’m not saying that the tech is bad and we need to go without it completely,” says Jess, “but if we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.”

Photo by Anja

The Dangers of Digital Overdose

Going through the windshield of a car is a significantly more dramatic deterrent, however, than the threat of a sore thumb. Consequences of digital overuse are much more nuanced, and complicated by the fact that digital dependency is, point blank, a revenue model. The more time we spend online—and the more information we share—the more money companies make.

“When you think of addiction you think of drugs,” says Jess. “You think of all of these terrible things that you think, ‘Oh, no. Not me.’ When you find out that people are sitting alone and they can’t get off of their phones for like 13 hours a day or a video game, this is addiction.”

Jess should know. Before she left her previous life, she absolutely considered her own dependency an addiction. “The experiences that I had and what’s now being documented is a general sense of dissociation from reality,” she says. “A malaise, a feeling of un-wellness 24/7. Inability to focus, memory loss—which was my number one ailment—which now they call digital dementia. It’s terrifying, but it’s literally called that,” she says.

If we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.

Overuse can result in myriad consequences. We’re physically rewiring our brains to consume and retain shorter and shorter content, which shortens our attention spans. This can in turn inhibit our ability to be creative and to follow-through with complex tasks. Additionally, there is no shortage of evidence that boredom—space previously unfilled by mindlessly scrolling—spurs innovation. But it’s more than that.

“One of the things that they’re finding is the scariest thing to me is that children who studied with an iPad or used and iPad as a learning device from birth till they entered kindergarten versus children who did not,” says Jess. She understands that these can be great learning tools, but when comparing the socialization of these kids, children who used the device were 35 percent less empathetic than the ones who didn’t have it when they entered kindergarten. “What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?” asks Jess.

There’s also the issue of increasing narcissism, which leads to increased rates of depression and isolation. The long-lasting effects of heavy social media use have yet to be determined, but again, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence that the negative effects of overuse are damaging at the very least. And Jess suspects that there are potential negative effects on physical health as well—she thinks there could be a correlation between the cortisol released when our phones ding, and increasing stress levels that lead to autoimmune disease. “That’s my hunch, anyway,” she says.

Corporate Responsibility

Just as the doctor who created Frankenstein was ultimately horrified with his invention, Jess says that many of the bigwigs who helped to create Silicon Valley are aware of its dark side. One group, the Center for Humane Technology (the guy who invented the “Like” button and an original founder of Twitter among its founders) is one organization looking to pull back the reins on the creations they put into the world.

What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?

“They’ll go to Google, they’ll go to Apple, and they’ll say: ‘This is how you need to start thinking about making things’,” says Jess. “On the other end of the spectrum is me, and organizations like Folk Rebellion. What we’re really trying to do is to educate the consumer.”

Jess says the approach to curbing digital addiction should be three-pronged: Organizations funded by the government (ie: education in public schools), corporations, and personal choices. “I think it really starts on a small scale,” she says. “Homes, small businesses, neighborhoods, families, schools—things like that.”

Advice for Kicking Your Addiction

The first time Jess purposefully went without her phone for a three-day weekend, she says she was forced to face just how dependent she had become. “I’m an introvert at heart,” she says. “What happened was I kept touching my back pocket when I was being introduced to somebody, and I then had this gross realization that I’m cutting off conversations of people I have just met because I’m uncomfortable and I have this sort of get-out-of-jail-free card in my back pocket,” she says.

The first step Jess recommends to digitally detox is to truly get rid of everything. Keep a pen and paper handy, and jot it down every time you think of your phone, touch your pocket, or feel uncomfortable without it. “Then you start to understand your triggers,” says Jess. “Once you have that, you go back to the real world and you have to start to set these boundaries in balance.”

Jess only checks her email Monday through Friday, at specified times. She keeps her cell number private. She gave herself the rule that she no longer scrolls while in motion—that includes the subway, while walking, or in a car. “It’s just creating space,” says Jess. “If you can slice off and put these little hatch lines throughout your day of space that you can expand that doesn’t have the digital or the tech in it, that’s where you’re starting to create that better balance of it.”

The other thing she’s done is to reintroduce tangible mediums where possible. “I use tech all day—I’m a creator on the computer,” she says, “and so when I don’t have to be working, I go back to the forms that I used to love before these devices kind of consumed everything. I have magazine subscriptions. I actually carry physical books.” Despite that they’re heavier, for Jess, it’s a relationship worth the weight.

Bottom line? Technology isn’t the enemy—it can be a powerful tool to connect, which can enhance your relationships and make life easier. Allowing the digitized world to make life too easy, however, is the trap. As yogis know, balance is the key.

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Lisette Cheresson is a writer, storyteller, yoga teacher, and adventuress who is an avid vagabond, homechef, dirt-collector, and dreamer. When she’s not playing with words, it’s a safe bet that she’s either hopping a plane, dancing, cooking, or hiking. She received her Level II Reiki Attunement and attended a 4-day intensive discourse with the Dalai Lama in India, and received her RYT200 in Brooklyn. She is currently the Director of Content at Wanderlust Festival. You can find her on Instagram @lisetteileen.

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