Step 5: Find the Balance In Connectivity
NOTE: This is a rough first draft. Things to do:
- Links and references
- I don’t think the paragraph on contribution may make sense, but it might be my own concern about that section.
One of the last facets of Augmented Humanity deals with how to balance the online-offline connection. Everett’s long term goal of his new endeavor is to show people how to build a “second self” that can take care of all of their bodymind structures (not just digitally). He hasn’t released exactly how do this yet, but he does hint at eventually developing your digital bodymind to a point where it is self-sustaining. This portion of the HOWTO discusses some of the traps and the techniques that Everett discusses to keep you in balance with the digital bodymind and the rest of your structures.
Based on Everett’s and my own personal experience, there are two things to consider when balancing the online-offline connectivity of your life. The first thing to consider is that you may be spending too much time on the Internet, especially time that is not well-spent in the first place. For instance, spending three hours playing FarmVille is probably not going to do your digital bodymind any good. Nor is spending hours on Wikipedia or watching the flow of the Twitter stream. For most of us it’s very easy to get lost in the stream of the cloud and be addicted to watching people post content, no matter how trivial, in real-time. It’s important to resist the urge of spending all of your time in social media or performing low-value functions like checking e-mail and writing long e-mail responses.
It’s true that in the beginning of developing your digital bodymind, you will be spending quite a bit of time on the Internet. This is perfectly normal; it’s like starting a new business. Even Everett hints at this when he says, “Your first 10,000 hours on the Net are all about push. The next, an edit.”[Make sure to provide a reference!] The first few months developing your digital bodymind are going to be focused on content creation. It’s true that delivering quality content will always be first and foremost in your bodymind’s thoughts; however, it is even more critical when constructing the framework of your digital bodymind. But how is this accomplished without spending a lot of time on the Internet in low-value, low-priority activities? To hack a quote from Chris Guillebeau, “Most of your online presence will be built offline.”
One tip that Everett states will help you manage the online-offline balance is that you should connect to your bodymind’s stream only when you want to. The time you want to spend developing the bodymind will not necessarily be all online, and you don’t want to spend hours a day responding to Facebook requests (for instance). By connecting to the stream when you want to, you are honoring your physical and mental bodymind’s space in the moment. Honoring that space is important because the time you spend on the internet in that aware, honoring state will be high value. You won’t be so inclined to go off into the far reaches of the Internet or spend time passively watching the digital day go by. You’ll be using the time to create within the Internet framework instead of performing operations against it.
The second thing to consider in balancing the online-offline connectivity is what you are doing to balance the online-offline dichotomy. It does no good if all of your offline time is spent being bored, at work, or sleeping; you’ll get the urge to connect to defeat boredom and end up throwing the online-offline balance off kilter. For Everett, he balances his online presence by doing lots of yoga; one hour of yoga to one hour of Twitter was one example he gave. Anything you can do to balance the online-offline presence is essential, especially when first constructing your digital bodymind. I wouldn’t include work as part of your offline balancing function, but anything recreational that you enjoy is considered part of the balance. The bonus of ensuring you have an active offline presence is that it will help your digital bodymind by giving it more “hard data” and perspectives to consider while you are creating your content.
One of the things that Everett and I suggest that you do is to always spend time contributing to your community and your networks, be it offline or online. The methods are obviously different in their implementation. You may want to re-tweet something from a trusted friend or someone you’re following. Both Everett and I suggest that you are available in one form or another to answer questions from those who follow and want to identify with your digital bodymind. Yet it is important in the world we live in now to be focused on contribution, regardless if the request comes from the Internet or your neighbor next door. The next revision of the Internet is going to be steeped in contribution, and its participants will be expected to be authentic and charitable instead of being passive and an energy drain on the system.
There are a couple of final tips about balance that Everett hasn’t specifically covered in writing, but are important to note. First, please be comfortable with the notion of making mistakes when you’re building your digital bodymind. They are bound to happen, and nobody is immune to having a bad day or being in a negative emotional state. Instead, be authentic with your emotions and think of your digital bodymind as something that is evolving as you are in your other structures. Your physical body is hardly a static structure, so also consider this when you are building your online presence. This is even more appropriate advice if your digital bodymind exists to create art and to push the perceived boundaries of what is possible, such as Everett is doing. Personally, I’ve had to reconsider Everett not as a blogger, but as an artist pushing the edge. The only difference in this worldview is that I don’t have something to hang on a wall like I would if he was still a photographer.
The other tip about balance considers the presence of multiple digital bodyminds. At one point, Everett was playing with the idea of creating multiple digital bodyminds. In the Internet space where anonymity is ubiquitous, it is possible to develop multiple bodyminds on the Internet. However, what I have found (and most others) is that multiple presences increase the pleasure and exponentially increase the upkeep and the pain associated with those bodyminds. Just like having a fractured physical presence, similar to a jack-of-all-trades, at some point the cost of context and persona switching is going to catch up to you. While it may be okay to interact with various social groups differently in the physical plane, everyone on the Internet can see your digital bodyminds. Thus it is best, especially at the beginning, to consider developing one authentic, consistent voice. It’s true that you may have different things you wish to share with others, and both Everett and I hope you do share these things. However, it doesn’t take multiple bodyminds to do it – only you will do.