[003] Offline is the new counterculture.

[jingle]: 00:02

A broadcast for a greater world. Log off. Spread love. begreater.FM

Garrett: 00:09

Welcome back, friends. You're listening to Be Greater.FM - the broadcast for a greater world. This is your host Garrett broadcasting from the beautiful coastal state of North Carolina, USA. Wherever this transmission happens to find you, whether you're driving, walking, working at the office, sitting outside, or maybe even doom scrolling, welcome. I'm glad you found the station.

Garrett: 00:38

If you wanna support what we're building here, you can find the whole Be Greater project at the Be Greater website. There you'll find the Be Greater shop with shirts carrying positive messages that you can wear out into the world and help represent the movement. There you can also discover charities and good causes worth supporting with the links where you can learn about more and donate directly to them.

Garrett: 01:04

And if you want to learn more, that's also where you'll find essays, videos, and everything else we're creating around this idea of trying to make the world a little bit better. So if you want to support the project, represent it out in the real world, or just see what else we're working on head to begreater.co that's begreater.co Thanks for tuning into the broadcast. Before we get started let's kick things off with a little bit of:

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Good News from Earth

Garrett: 01:38

This is Be Greater. FM checking in on the surface of planet Earth

Garrett: 01:42

looking for signs of good news. And there's plenty to choose from. Here's something you might not think about. Clean water. You turn on the faucet and water comes out. You can drink it, cook with it, shower in it, wash your clothes with it.

Garrett: 01:59

And for a lot of us, that's just normal now. But on a global scale, that normal is actually a pretty incredible achievement. Between the year 2000 and 2024, about 2,200,000,000 people gained access to safe drinking water. 2,200,000,000! And when I say safe drinking water, I mean water from an improved source that's available when needed, accessible on the premises, and protected from contamination.

Garrett: 02:32

This source is coming in from the World Health Organization. So we're not just talking about somebody digging a random well somewhere, we're talking about billions of people gaining more reliable access to one of the most fundamental things human beings need to stay alive.

Garrett: 02:49

And in that exact same period, about 2,800,000,000 people gained access to safely managed sanitation: toilets, sewage system, and waste being separated from drinking water. That kind of infrastructure sounds pretty boring right up until you imagine living without it.

Garrett: 03:07

And like with most news, we're not finished yet.

Garrett: 03:10

We still have more work to do. By the data gathered in 2024, about 2,100,000,000 people still lacked safely managed drinking water, so there's a massive amount of work still left for us to do together. But let's zoom out for a second. In less than a quarter of a century, billions of people gained better access to clean water and sanitation. That means fewer people walking long distances to collect water, fewer families relying on contaminated sources, fewer children getting sick from something as basic as what comes out of the ground, more time for school, more time for work, more dignity, a more ordinary life.

Garrett: 03:50

And I think that's one of those forms of progress we barely notice, because when infrastructure works, nothing happens. You turn on the faucet and good water comes out, then you go on with your day. But behind that ordinary moment is one of the great ongoing projects of civilization: getting clean water to more human beings. We still have a long way to go, but billions more people have it today than they did just a couple decades ago, and I think that's some pretty good news. This has been your Good News From Earth.

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Good News From Earth.

Garrett: 04:25

Alright, that was some pretty great news. Now we just spent a few minutes zoomed pretty far out. So let's zoom way back into our everyday lives. Because if there's something that we've all noticed, it's that we are all online pretty much all of the time.

Garrett: 04:52

The online world isn't really somewhere we go visit anymore. It's just a huge part of where our everyday life happens. We wake up and dive in to check our phones. We do our work online. We talk to people online.

Garrett: 05:08

We shop online. Get our news online. We entertain ourselves online. We date online, argue online, carry the whole thing around in our pockets. Let's face it folks, being online is the default now.

Garrett: 05:25

That's the culture, the world we live in. And there's always something interesting that tends to happen when a culture moves far enough in one direction. Eventually, something starts pushing back. You can see it play out throughout history. Culture swings.

Garrett: 05:43

One generation embraces something, and then another generation reacts to it. The mainstream gets a little too polished, and punk rock shows up. Society gets too buttoned up, and you get hippies in the counterculture of the 60s. Things move one way for long enough, and eventually people will start pulling in the other direction. We often think of this like a pendulum swinging back and forth, and it's clear we're starting to see another one of those swings happening right now.

Garrett: 06:15

Except this time, the rebellious thing is weirdly simple. Being Offline. Putting your phone down. Reading a physical book. Going somewhere and not documenting it.

Garrett: 06:30

Being unreachable for a little while, sitting outside with absolutely nothing playing in your ears but the sound of nature. Things that used to be completely normal are starting to feel almost counter cultural, And I think that's fascinating. Because I'm not talking about rejecting technology. I'm not suggesting everybody smash their phones and move into a cabin in the woods. The internet is incredible.

Garrett: 06:56

Smartphones are incredible. I also use these technologies every day, but there's a difference between using the online world and living inside of it. And I think somewhere along the way, without really deciding to, we started living inside it.

Garrett: 07:14

So today, I want to talk about that. What really happened when being online became the default, what we may have lost when every empty moment became filled, and why I think in the new modern world being offline is the new counterculture.

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You're listening to Be Greater. FM - Enjoy

Garrett: 07:45

And to understand why that feels countercultural now, I think we have to remember how recently the opposite was normal. There was a time when the Internet was somewhere you went. You sat down at a computer, you logged on, you did whatever you were doing, and eventually you got up and left. The Internet had somewhere to stop. But that's not really true anymore, and I don't think we need some giant conspiracy to explain why.

Garrett: 08:14

A lot of the modern Internet runs on attention. The longer we stay on a platform, the more valuable that attention can become. So naturally, these companies have gotten extremely good at giving us reasons to stay. You finish one video and another one starts. You reach the bottom of a page and more appears.

Garrett: 08:36

A notification can pull you back in ten minutes after you thought you were done. There is always one more thing. And honestly, I understand how we got here. A lot of very smart people built genuinely useful technology and some more smart people spent years making it better at holding our attention. They've succeeded, probably a little bit too well.

Garrett: 09:03

And one of the consequences is that something that used to happen naturally: stopping, increasingly has to happen deliberately. And I think that matters because most things in the physical world still have an ending. You finish a book and then close it. An album reaches the last song. Dinner eventually ends and everybody gets up from the table.

Garrett: 09:30

A walk brings you back home. The sun goes down at the end of the day. Your friend eventually says, Alright, I should probably get going. There is something satisfying about that. Things have edges.

Garrett: 09:44

One experience can end, and then there's room for something else to begin. But a feed doesn't really work like that. You don't finish the internet. Nobody has ever scrolled far enough and gotten a message saying, Congratulations, you completed the Internet. Please go outside.

Garrett: 10:03

It just keeps on going forever. So maybe part of living well in the modern world is learning to put some of those edges back ourselves. Not because the internet is bad, but because I think human beings need stopping points. We need moments when work is actually over. We need conversations where everybody else's aren't also sitting in the room with us.

Garrett: 10:28

We need experiences that don't immediately turn into something to post. Maybe we even need some more memories that exist only in the minds of the people that were actually there in that moment. And I think things like that become more valuable as they become more rare.

Garrett: 10:55

And underneath all of this is the idea of attention. Because attention isn't just some productivity thing.

Garrett: 11:04

It's basically where your life happens. Whatever you're paying attention to becomes, for that moment, your experience of being alive. You can make more money later, you can buy another phone, there will always be another video to watch, But you can never create another hour of time. Once this particular hour is gone, that's it. So I think deciding where your own attention goes is actually a kind of freedom.

Garrett: 11:34

It's a form of self government. You get to decide what deserves access to your mind and what deserves this little piece of your life. And in the modern world, doing that intentionally takes more effort than it used to. And I think that connects to something else I keep noticing as well. In a shallow world, depth becomes a discipline.

Garrett: 11:59

Reading something long enough to really understand it. Sitting with a difficult question instead of immediately looking for somebody else's answer. Making something for an hour instead of consuming something for an hour. Having a real conversation without checking your phone halfway through it. None of these things are revolutionary.

Garrett: 12:22

But when there is always a faster and more stimulating option sitting within reach, depth becomes something you actually have to choose. And I think it's worth choosing.

Garrett: 12:34

Not all the time. Life doesn't need to become some serious exercise in perfect concentration. Watch the dumb video, send your friend the meme, or play the video game.

Garrett: 12:46

But I don't want the easiest and fastest version of everything to become the only version of life I still know how to experience.

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You're listening to Be Greater. FM - Enjoy

Garrett: 13:05

And that brings us back to this counter culture idea. Counterculture doesn't always have to be somebody breaking something or trying to shock everybody. Sometimes culture moves far enough in one direction that people naturally start looking for a correction. Right now, so much of the current is pulling us toward constant connectivity, constant entertainment, and constant information.

Garrett: 13:33

So now the push in the other direction can be surprisingly quiet. It can be reading for a while, taking a walk without needing any music playing, leaving your phone somewhere else while you're eating, being unreachable for a little bit, going somewhere beautiful and letting the moment happen without immediately turning it into something for everybody else to see.

Garrett: 13:57

That's what I mean when I say offline is becoming the new counterculture. It's not some rejection of modern civilization. It's just choosing to keep some part of your life outside of the social feed.

Garrett: 14:15

And I don't want any of this to sound like guilt. I'm not telling you that you're failing at life because you looked at your phone today. We're all living in the same environment. I think the useful part is simply remembering that the default is still a choice. You can create a stopping point.

Garrett: 14:35

You can decide something is done. You can decide that the person sitting across from you gets your full undivided attention. You can decide that for the next twenty minutes, wherever you physically are in the world is enough. These are all small choices, but I mean a choice is still a decision on how to behave in this world. So get out there and make some good decisions.

Garrett: 15:09

And I think that's a pretty good place to conclude this transmission. But before we end things off, we're going to always conclude with a little bit of

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Gratitude because it makes you happier.

Garrett: 15:27

That's right friends, gratitude does make you happier. And today I'm grateful for something pretty simple, the physical world, or the offline world. Because no matter how strange or loud or chaotic things can get online, you can still look up from the screen. There is still a sky above you. There are still trees growing somewhere. The sun is still coming up every single morning with absolutely zero concern about whatever it was that people were arguing about online yesterday.

Garrett: 16:02

There are still books you can hold, places you can walk, food you can taste, and people you can sit beside and actually talk to. The offline world never really went anywhere. So wherever this transmission happens to find you, take one second and actually look around.

Garrett: 16:22

There you are. That's your life.

Garrett: 16:25

I hope it's great and I hope you're enjoying it. I'm grateful for mine and I'm grateful for you being here.

Garrett: 16:33

Thanks for listening to this transmission. That's all we've got for today. The future is going to keep getting more advanced and more digital and honestly it's very exciting.

Garrett: 16:44

There are incredible advancements coming our way. But we still get a say in what we choose to carry forward with us. We can keep some silence, we can keep some privacy, we can protect our attention, and we can preserve some moments that belong only to us and the people who were actually there.

Garrett: 17:02

So use the technology, enjoy the future, just remember to come back every once in a while. The Offline World is still here and it's pretty beautiful out there.

Garrett: 17:14

Thanks for tuning in to Be Greater.FM. This has been your host, Garrett, signing off. Don't forget to log off, spread love, and be greater.

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A broadcast for a greater world. Log off. Spread love. begreater.FM