This post is also available in Russian 🐻
I’ve been off the social grid for quite a while now. I’d say it’s been well over a year since I stopped checking the feeds regularly or out of boredom. I still take a peek every once in a while, but it’s rather never than often. And so what?
Nothing, really. No sudden revelations, no drastic quality of life upgrades, no unlimited spare time or energy. Life is much the same — just a little less.
Less is not a good-or-bad category; it’s neither subjective nor objective. Less is mathematical, but it doesn’t require mathematical precision. Less is less.
It’s all the other parts of an expression that set coordinates, measure distance, swap and transform stuff. Less simply establishes relationships between things.
So, I deliberately chose to have less relationships with certain stuff, like social media, which doesn’t necessarily lead to having more space for other stuff.
Sure, the absence of something means a void — an empty space waiting to be filled. But the absence of something that was once present is actually less than zero.
Negative quantities represent negative existence — the presence of something that is absent. It’s not a void, but a placeholder for something that’s missing.
The square root of the problem is that you can’t remove negative existence. Even if you manage to find a perfect fit for the placeholder, the absence is still present.
Better yet, absence tends to mimic presence — in its qualities, quantities, and forms. Hence, dozens of vertical photos with little to no artistic value 🤷♂️
After all, the ultimate destination of a negative state is the reverse of its opposite. Present stuff moves toward absence, and absent things strive to spring back.
Sometimes, that’s alright. Other times, you have to accept less as its own form of existence — less cluttered with qualities. No matter good or bad, just less.
My point is, whenever you quit anything — no matter how healthy or beneficial — the outcome is never good, bad, or even neutral. It is always mathematically negative.
Let’s say, I quit alcohol, nicotine, and social media. That leaves me with three less things I used to enjoy. Good or bad, harmful or beneficial — it’s still a negative three.
Now, if I cared enough to find three new things to enjoy, would that bring the balance back to zero? No — it would create a separate expression equal to a positive three.
Better yet, each of the three absent things would contain its own subset of absences — and trying to fill all those gaps would be a never-ending, ever-losing battle.
But if you’re alright with having less, there doesn’t have to be a battle at all.
