Whenever I go travelling, I have a strong desire to not lug a laptop around with me.
In the early days of the internet, which for me was 1998, the idea of mobility and location independence was exciting.
Finally liberated from being chained to a desktop computer, I could travel the world working from anywhere. Initially, that felt good.
I’ve streamed faster in the forests of Laos than I have in central London.
The reason being that London telecommunications infrastructure is like an old creaking plumbing system. Everything gets bolted on top of it.
In Laos, they were building new from the ground up. So everything was hyper-optimised and super fast.
Then it occurred to me: Why in God’s name do I want to lug a laptop into the middle of a south east asian forest?
Surely it is better to take a pencil and notepad and simply record my thoughts and observations while being immersed in the panorama of nature.
The screens became a prison cell, locked me in a digital glowing box, closed off my perception, my awareness, and my cognition.
And so now as I head towards Morocco, I’ve stripped everything back again.
I take a pen and notepad. I have my iPhone and a lavalier mic (just in case). That’s it.
Can I run my life with these simple tools?
I did went I last went into the interior of India.
I watched what the smart folk (basically that’s most people) in India were doing to drag themselves out of poverty.
Not that I am
poor. But these peeps are super adaptable, unlike the whiney privileged English.
When you aient got a safety net, you quickly figure shit out or die.
As soon as I have to move most activities to a laptop, I realise my life has become cluttered.
To wander with pencil and paper. That would be the ideal preference.
But I live in a techno-feudal society where I can’t pass borders without a barcode, I can’t book hotels without planning weeks in advance.
I have tried, but the option of sleeping on a sack on the floor because I didn’t plan ahead, just does not have quite the same appeal as it used to.
Yer gotta love getting older.
In some of the more remote places, I can usually rock up. No planning required.
But in cultures that are modernising, the ubiquitous digital light box, the symbol of servitude to tech bros with more money than they could ever spend in a thousand lifetimes.
Well, nowadays I have to lug this shiny handheld trinket that requires electricity to work and enriches these overlords every time I use it.
Life on life’s terms, eh?
To be continued (maybe).