Retreat in Esalen institute

“Thanks for visiting us. Because if you didn’t come, we wouldn’t exist.” said Joseph, the Esalen gatekeeper who just helped me check-in. The first impression set my expectations high since I was drawn to Esallen to deepen my mindfulness meditation skill. What Joseph said is a common Buddhism belief: The world only exists in your mind!

This post is a summary of my reflection during my stay there. They should be helpful to my readers.

Did Information Technology disorient us?

‘Life is so much easier when Apple and Blueberry are only fruits.’ Apparently, this is a saying when Blueberry still has users, a time itself being remembered as simple in 2021. (I bet 2021 will also be remembered as a simple time decades from now, even with Covid-19.) But did Information Technology make our lives complex?

Modern information technology(IT) — search engine, online news, social media, and gaming — is extension to our minds. With cloud storage, we don’t need to remember all details and can focus on critical strategies. With Google, we immediately know much obscure knowledge with decent depth, without the need to wait for the next visit to the library or a wise friend. With social media, we catch up with friends remotely and efficiently — a like in Facebook doesn’t carry the warmth of a handwritten letter, but it’s ten times better than nothing at all.

IT magnifies everything that’s already in us. That’s the problem. It makes everything more efficient, including our self crippling behaviors. Before the Internet, people have other ways to ruin their lives — sex, alcohol, drugs, and gambling, to name a few. Modern technology just made it easier, cheaper and faster — like it made everything we do.

Reducing stress and disorientation by cutting off from the Internet is like treating inflammation with Amputation. The problem is within ourselves. If we can’t live a good life with the help of technology, the lack thereof won’t help us either. As William Zinsser said in On Writing Well, word processors make good writers better and bad writers worse. But depriving word processors from today’s bad writers won’t make them good ones.

Be the master of Apps

Like in other aspects of life — reading, traveling, career development, family, investment — the utilization of IT needs conscious planning. I categorized Apps in the following groups, with non-comprehensive examples.

Core productivity [P]

• Google Search
• Google Doc
• Notion
• Kindle
• Calendar
• Youtube
• Coursera

UtilitIes and helpers [U]

• Grammarly
• Broker and bank Apps
• Amazon
• VSCO
• Google Map
• Smart home apps
• 1Password
• Microsoft TODO
• Short message(for authentication)

Communication [C]

• Email
• Phone
• FaceTime
• Text message
• Zoom
• WeChat chat/call
• FB messenger
• WhatsApp

Information feed [F]

• TikTok
• News(WSJ, NYT, Google News)
• LinkedIn feed
• WeChat moments
• Quora
• Zhihu

[P] and [U] and almost always used proactively; they extend the ability of our brain: we know more, memorize more, and learn easier.

[C] is the source of forced interruption, especially from seemingly urgent but unimportant stuff, like 99% of phone calls. Their notifications must be turned off and used on-demand — don’t call us, we will call you. I replace notifications by a fixed number of active checking. For example I check work related chat and Email at 11:00 AM, 2 PM, and 4 PM. Others are checked at most once a day. In the long run, the best way to migitage a crisis is due failure so that the rest of the system is not distrubed and we will learn prevention rather than habitual fire fighting.

[F] is the source of unforced distraction. 99% of the information from those Apps are noise but dopamine releaser. I will dedicate at most 10 minutes to read news headlines and another 5 minutes to read friends’ updates. It’s totally OK to miss out. I removed TikTok, because a one-minute short video is always worse than watching a 1/120th good movie or 1/15th of a high quality YouTube video, TED talk, or some lightweight Coursera lecture.

Fragmented times

Whenever I have a small amount of free time, like when a meeting that ended ten minutes earlier, I usually look for things that can be done in less than ten minutes. This is a poor standard. Most such tasks are non-essential. Instead of further fragmenting those small time slots, I should proactively divide bigger tasks to fill into them. Instead of watching five Tiktok videos, I would rather watch 1/12th of a documentary. In the first case, after several days, I would have watched thousands of Tiktok that had zero impact on my life. In the second case, I have finished two or three great movies that may result in small but meaningful improvements in my life.

The right way to rest

Speaking of Tiktok, I used to watch them for relaxation. But the result is the opposite: Everytime after watching Tiktok for more than ten minutes, I feel more tired. Yet I was driven to it by the addiction to, shadow, dopamine-releasing entertainment.

Because most of my fatigue came from information processing, switching from one type of information to another won’t relax my brain — It needs a different type of activity for a break.

On the third day of my retreat, I practiced Meditation for thirty minutes after lunch. I can’t remember being as refreshed from any lunch break for a long time. Besides meditation, I found several alternatives for a good rest: Yoga, appreciate the food, the beautiful nature, the music, or other small stuff in life, like the smell of flowers, the fall of leaves, and the warm sunshine.

The essenes of Esalen

Esalen has all essences for a magical trip.

• Magnificent ocean view with comfortable weather
• Natural hot spring bath on top of a cliff, overseeing Big Sur
• Tasty and healthy food served in buffet
• Genuinely friendly stuff
• Simple, clean, and comfortable accommodation
• Fellow visitors who are kind and open minded, trying to find peace in life
• Time and space not to do anything, thus to think about truly essential matters

Esalen excels at everything that’s essential but is rustic for the rest. After all, it’s an institute rather than a hotel. I expect people’s experience here to be polarized.

Below is a typical day during my retreat. It’s a good template for my future vocations.

6:00 AM, wake up, reading 10–20 pages of a book, write my daily journal

7:30 AM, attend a group Yoga or cardio workout

8:30 AM, breakfirst

8:45 AM, take a bath on a cliff overseeing the Pacific Ocean

9:00 AM, reading, writing, or watching a Coursera video

10:00 AM, attend a group ritual, which is my least favorite part, as I’m suspicious to all organized religious activities

11:00 AM, continue reading or writing

12:30 PM, lunch

12:45 PM, meditation for around 30 minutes

1:30 PM, a ten minutes Yoga, then reading or taking a walk around the coast

4:00 PM, attend group Yoga

5:15 PM, solve one or two Leetcode problems

6:00 PM, dinner

6:20 PM, take another hot spring bath, appreciate the beautiful sunset on the sea

7:30 PM, attend a group ritual

8:30 PM, go back to my room, watch a Coursera video

10:30 PM, sleep

The takeaway for future

• Audit Apps in the above standard
• Each quarter, dedicate one week to reflect on life directions
• Practice Yoga with dynamic stretching at meeting breaks