Today is a day sandwiched between two of greater importance for me, for my little life. Yesterday was Independence Day, the great 4th of July that is celebrated with fireworks and revelry here in these United States, one that feels somehow sadder this year than in any I can remember. Tomorrow, is my birthday, and I will somehow be 45 years old, halfway through my 40s, and it just doesn’t feel real.
A lot has changed in the 23 years since I began writing publicly on the internets, even more in the 14 since I began the Typewriter Series that brought most of you here. I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve changed, and I’ve allowed my priorities, my pressures, my entire outlook on this world and where it’s going, to shift. I’m not the same me that I was, and I feel more rebelliousness in spirit than ever before. In so many ways I feel like this world has become so much more tyrannical, in some ways subtle, in others overt and glaring, and, like the founding fathers before me, I feel the need to fight against it.
To declare my independence from that tyranny.
This is what that is, this is my own Personal Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of should, and have to, and the dictatorship of all things suffocating—online or off. The refusal to bow a single day longer to social media, to algorithms, to simple going along to get along. Tomorrow is my birthday, but I shall not wait until 45, I shall begin now, here, today. Here is what I declare, here are the words I shall pen:
When in the course of a single, simple human life it becomes necessary to refuse to acquiesce to the unwritten and unagreed upon contracts bestowed upon us, certain declarations of truth must be made.
I hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all human beings are created equal and as such deserve equal access to the freedom from the tyrannical rule of a life of quiet suffocation. That our worth is not earned through our exhaustion, nor defined by our output or optimization. That we not obligated to perform or curate our existence for the approval of strangers, of systems, of screens.
This freedom shall forever include the right to rest with zero guilt, to create without conformity or collusion with artificial intelligence, to speak freely without polish or perfection, to decline without apology, to choose purposefully a smaller, simpler, and more deeply connected life over a louder, fancier, emptier one.
For far too many years we have unwillingly submitted ourselves to the whims and whips, the terrifying tyranny of Should. These the relentless screeching decrees instructing us on who be, what we shall desire, what holds worth or value, and how we should appear. A thousand thousand mandates we’re given and held to by invisible strings connected to invisible hands, we the marionnettes that dance, the Pinocchios wishing to be real.
We should do more.
We should be more.
We should want more.
We should keep up.
We should surpass.
We should buy.
We should compare.
We should perform.
Years we have endured this silent dictatorship, years we’ve suffered under the endless occupation of our precious time and attention. Years we have called our hands devil’s workshops should they fall idle, years we have held ourselves to the unreachable heights of bars we set for ourselves and imagine them universal.
We have long bent the knee to algorithmic royalty, measured our humanity in metrics, convinced ourselves that visibility is value. Long we have bowed to strict posting schedules and analytics of our audiences, mistook followers for friends. We have scrolled endless scrolls and paid tribute to the false gods of the next thing to emerge before us.
We have turned ourselves, we collective group of companions weary of these ways, into mouths that speak Yes when our souls plead No. We have spread the lie that busyness of existence holds some secret to success, that people pleasing is kindness, that compassion is a commodity limited and commercially backed. We are governed by a set of rules not of our making, an urgency and chaos not of our design, and held to standards we did not set, expectations we never agreed to carry.
This is not, and never has been, Freedom.
Therefore, on this day, I declare myself independent.
Independent from the Tyranny of Should.
Independent from social media standards and pressures.
Independent from the false rule of productivity.
Independent from pressures to apply branding to a human life.
Independent from saying Yes to preserve comfort over truth.
Independent from dimming my light to protect other’s eyes.
Independent from shrinking to fit spaces I have long outgrown.
Independent from seeking validation from strangers.
Independent from going along to get along.
I shall henceforth:
Reclaim the independence of my own attention.
Reclaim and defend the borders of my precious time.
Reclaim the right to move slowly through this stunning world.
Reclaim the courage to refuse expectation.
Reclaim the quiet bravery of a very honest No.
Let it be known, let it be shared widely that I will never again trade depth for distraction and display, sacrifice presence for the promise of something more exciting, confuse the creation of noise for purpose, the static of settling for music. I will never again kneel to any system that profits from my great discomfort.
I choose only a life of directed meaning, of soul soothing harmony. I choose alignment, not algorithm, patience over productivity, peace over divide.
I choose freedom.
I pledge myself to this independence, to this clarity of inner nature, the simplicity of this truth.
I choose freedom.
Signed proudly on this day before the celebration of my birth,
I love you all.
Be good.
Tomorrow I turn 45. If you’ve read this far and felt it land, the greatest gift you could ever give me is simple: Come inside. Join the paid community. Be part of what we’re building here. Not for me, For You. This is where the Declaration becomes a conversation.
