Living Unconformed Lives in the Digital Age

Is there a path to freedom? My attempts at breaking away.

A knight at the crossroads by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1878

"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind."
— C. S. Lewis

Living unconfromed lives in the digital age is an increasingly difficult enterprise. Every single day we are under pressure from external forces and bombarded with seductive stimuli the purpose of which is to shape us into something resembling less of an individual and more of a cog in the grand machine that is modern culture.

There are mainly three paths that an individual will consider treading when faced with this reality.

The first is actively following the trends by engaging in some sort of activism (i.e. political activism, LGBTQ+, cancel culture, scientific materialism, group identity etc.). This is more of a self-deleting process since the individual slowly gives up personal agency and is finally reduced into nothing but a telegraphed voice to be piled with the rest while they ceaselessly rage in favor of an uncaring culture.

The second path, a path most of us have trodden at some point, is adopting a lukewarm stance characterized by indifference. Too lazy to act, too scared to speak out. The fear of being cast aside by the tyrannical majority and the desire to get along with everyone has morphed one’s identity into a mindless and harmless ally of modern parasitical ideas.

However, some will choose the hard path of unconformity¹ and break away from the herd. This path is full of obstacles. The individual will be seen as a black sheep. Some of their closest acquaintances will perhaps become hostile since they might view this strange stance as old-fashioned, unsafe and destabilizing. They are of course correct; for this is the whole point. Those who endure and tune out the noise will breathe life into a meaningful existence not swayed by the suicidal spirit-killing herd mentality of the 21st century.

In the following sections I have presented the main ways that have proven to be a good antidote to the tendency of my mind to conform to whatever abomination modern culture spews at a given time.

I. Reject Hookup Culture

In my late teenage years and leading up to my 21st birthday (I am now 26) I was lost when it came to dating. After being single for a little over 3 years it became clear that I was either not a high quality man or that the life of the super stud was probably not going to happen for me. Eventually I got disgusted by it and consciously realized it when a couple of occasional flings turned out shallow and meaningless. Even worse they left me hollow and filled my heart with sadness. What was the point, I wondered, of sexual pleasure if love and companionship is absent?

Well, I am now 5 years into a monogamous relationship.

Nowadays, sexual immorality mostly takes the form of what we call hookup culture. The use of dating apps, having insane dating standards, nightclubbing, and worst of all pornography.

Online dating has displaced other ways of meeting and has made it extremely hard to date out of love or attraction; the commodification of love and body has turned people into products waiting to be bought. This is due to the fact that online personas are easily constructed. You can fool no one in person, but by carefully crafting, say, your tinder profile it is more than probable that you will get matches you wouldn’t otherwise get.

Modern dating is thus based on one word: lies.

This of course has devastating consequences for young adults as well as middle-aged people who wish to enter the dating world again. A huge issue stemming from this shift is body count. Crazy dating gurus will try to convince you that sexual freedom is empowering and will come up with “hacks” on keeping your body count low. The irony is truly astonishing.

Only one is the way of the unconformed, and that is to reject the trends and do it the traditional way, i.e. develop a monogamous relationship and adopt a critical stance on sexual immorality.

The Beautiful Lady Without Pity by John William Waterhouse, 1893

The pushback against this stance is going to be vicious. Modern society, in all its glory, expects you to conform. Accusations born out of fear and insecurity will be levied against you: "How dare you demand exclusivity from your partner? You are being oppressive", "You are an idiot for rejecting all those options. Can't you see how you can have all the fun you want?", "Shame on you for wanting your partner to have a low body count. You are a misogynist", "Everybody is doing it. You think you are better than everyone else?"

Do not for any reason give any real substance to these comments. They are but a coping mechanism for people too absorbed in their hedonistic lifestyles. All one can do is respectfully point out how shallow and devoid of meaning such a lifestyle is. The rest is up to them.

A good way to change your mindset and escape this pitfall is to view dating as the search for a wife/husband and a mother/father to your children. This will do three things: (i) massively increase your moral and dating standards, (ii) immensely strengthen your defenses against temptation, and (iii) drastically narrow down the dating pool while also keeping you away from online dating.

Modern dating is broken; switch to the real deal and be patient.

What, after all, is life for? If the answer is only our own self-actualization, there is no better to strive for or worse to avoid. But, if the answer is found in the goodness of creation and the ultimate purposes of God’s kingdom, dating has a context and a purpose, as does marriage, work, sex, friendship, procreation, and yes, singleness.  

Let nothing stop you from developing a monogamous relationship and a loving partnership. It is both an investment for your future self and a shield for all modern parasites².

II. Develop a Meaningful Reading Habit

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
— Haruki Murakami

In a world of instant gratification and the deterioration of values, literature is a window to the unseen. An avid reader can access this realm and expose himself to the knowledge of generations.

The modern man is obsessed with rabidly consuming information. Mindlessly scrolling on Instagram or X and quoting internet personalities on issues of culture, science and human psychology - while it is admittedly very entertaining - is by no means knowledge; it is only the parroting of facts which you know nothing about.

On the literature front cliche historical dramas, sexually explicit and vulgar romance novels, parodies of superhero stories etc., dominate the bookshelves. When I told some friends that I was reading C. S. Lewis, Dostoevsky, Orwell, and others, I was met with a series of wide-eyed faces holding back laughter. For some reason they thought it was a waste of time.

Classical literature however is anything but that. The reason that Notes From Underground is far superior than anything anyone says on X about the nature of suffering and malice is not just the drama. It is rather the deep insight it provides. Layers upon layers of insight on human psychology masterfully laid out on every page. The reader enters an endless world of exploration and discovery.

Another fascinating benefit of a well-written book is actively participating in the unfolding and sharing of ideas, be it in a story or a philosophical text. This is the basis of knowledge and, through what is called participatory knowing³, one can experience profound states of flow. A big part of childhood wonder, now so easily lost due to the banality of adulthood, is that deep involvement in stories and new knowledge.

By allowing what you read to penetrate your being, your eyes will be opened to a new world like the gradual appearance of patterns when a dim light shines on a grand mosaic. That world was always there, you were just missing a piece of the puzzle.

III. Habits that Will Make a Difference

Springtime by Henryk Weyssenhoff, 1911

A habit is an action repeated over a period of time that eventually becomes automatic. In order to successfully break away from the doom and gloom that modern society is inevitably walking towards, we have to adopt daily habits that detoxify the soul and imbue it with meaning.

I decided to break them down into categories to make them more easily accessible. These are habits that I struggle with every day and when adopted full-time have provided a much needed and eyeopening sense of interconnectedness⁴.

Feel free to add your own.

Mind and Body

• Have a cold shower every morning

• Eat a healthy breakfast that you enjoy

• Daily exercise - gym or otherwise

• Daily phone-free walks - helps the mind reboot plus insight is more probable then

• Write down your goals - morning and evening

• Listen to classical music

• Reject the modern music industry

• Reject the modern film industry

• Fill your empty time with an audiobook

• Set a daily writing goal

• Quit alcohol

• Quit fast food

• Quit energy drinks

• Read classical literature

Christianity

• Read the Bible

• Pray

• Go to church

Beautify

• Clean your room

• Make up your bed every morning

• Invest in quality furniture

• Decorate your rooms with plants

• Hang paintings on your walls

• Buy beautiful bookmarks

• Buy classy notebooks

• Choose beautiful covers for your favourite books

• Dress classically - try variations of suits/dresses

• Never buy polyester clothes again - linen is the way to go

• Invest in quality coffee

Physical, not Digital

• Deactivate all notifications from your phone

• When working, leave your phone in another room

• Learn to enjoy your meals without a screen in front of you

• Buy vinyls

• Read a physical book daily

• Uninstall useless apps

• Uninstall dating apps

• Journaling - write with a pencil

• Use a film or Polaroid camera

Socialize

• Call, don’t text

• Reach out to friends you haven’t heard from in a while

• Tell your parents you love them

• Communicate with your parents daily

• Contact family members who live far away

• Ask every person offering a service (vendor, taxi driver, waiter etc.) how they’re doing

• Don’t flirt on social media

• Forget nightclubs

• Dare to ask people deep questions

• Do not get into aggressive political discussions

• Be polite and always tell the truth

• Cook at home

• Learn to dance

• Learn to sing

• Pick up a musical instrument

Nature

• Go on hikes

• Swim in the sea as often as possible

• Travel as often as possible

• Go for picnics with friends

• Walk over short distances or use a bike instead of commuting

• Wake up before sunrise

• Get some morning sunlight in your eyes the instant you wake up

• Walk barefoot whenever possible

• Watch the sunset every night

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Antibes, the Pink Cloud by Paul Signac, 1916

In conclusion, I have found that the above practices have helped me shake off the feeling of estrangement that the modern age so brutally enforces on us. Freedom is just an arms reach away. It’s time to welcome reality back into our lives and abandon digital comfort and the supposed freedoms it provides; for they are but illusions and their true nature is slavery into an artificial and ultimately non-existent world.

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1. This essay was inspired by a call from

Ruth Gaskovski

’s brilliant publication.

2. The Case for Monogamy

3

Participatory knowing refers to knowing how to act in the “agent-arena” environment. It is simultaneously one of the most basic and most profound kinds of knowing. One way to think about participatory knowledge is to consider the difference between being in a state of confusion versus a state of flow. Flow is when you are in a groove and feel a natural “dance” between your actions and the environment, and an example of participatory knowledge.

4. Interconnectedness refers to the worldview that sees all things as one; a sensation of oneness and the absence of separation. To the interested reader I highly recommend John Vervaeke’s work.