In The Ordinary Sacred, Joan Westenberg examines the alternative to a hyper-connected and ultra-performative lifestyle:

We live under systems—economic, cultural, digital—that demand we strive to be impressive. Inspirational. Aspirational. Permanently visible. Permanently performing. Eternally, achingly unsatisfied. We’re trained to ask, before doing anything: Will this make good content? Will this signal something useful? Will this get me closer to who I’m “supposed” to be?

I feel this sentiment in my bones. In my core. It’s a tension I feel pulling at me in surprising moments. Joan’s piece is a longer read, but worthy and relevant one – for me, and I suppose some of you who think similarly about digital culture.

This post is part of the February 2025 Indieweb Carnival, where Joe Crawford invited us to share personal affirmations - the sayings and mantras that help guide our lives.

Be Here Now. Three simple words that have carried me through the darkest valleys and highest peaks, both literally and figuratively. This mantra, popularized by Ram Dass, has been my companion through unthinkable loss, through ultra-distance runs, and increasingly, through our algorithm-infused world.

I first encountered these words during a period of profound grief, when the weight of loss made both past and future unbearable. The past was too painful to revisit, the future too uncertain to contemplate. Be Here Now became my anchor, a reminder that this moment - just this one - was all I needed to handle. It didn’t make the grief disappear, but it made it manageable, one present moment at a time.

Years later, I found myself returning to these words in a different context: ultra-running. When you’re 40 miles into an ultra, your mind becomes your greatest adversary. It wants to complain about every ache, project how much worse they’ll feel in 10 miles, replay every training run you missed, question every life choice that led you here. But none of that serves you. The only thing that matters is this stride, this breath, this moment. Putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward. Be Here Now. The mantra becomes a rhythm, a meditation in motion, carrying you through the pain cave one step at a time.

Lately, I’ve found new meaning in these words as I navigate what the internet has become. The constant pull of notifications, the endless doomscrolling, the quantified metrics of our lives - they all conspire to pull us away from the present moment. They fragment our attention and scatter our consciousness, leaving us somehow both overstimulated and undernourished.

This led me to make significant changes: deleting corporate social media accounts, self-hosting my online presence, removing my fitness tracker after nearly two decades. Each change was a choice to Be Here Now, to experience life directly rather than through the lens of algorithms and analytics.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sharing these thoughts on a digital platform. But there’s a profound difference between using technology mindfully and letting it use us. The IndieWeb movement itself embodies this distinction - it’s about being present and intentional in our digital lives, rather than passively consuming the algorithmic firehose.

Be Here Now isn’t about rejecting the past or ignoring the future. It’s about recognizing that the present moment is where life actually happens, where we have the power to act, to heal, and to grow. Whether I’m processing grief, pushing through physical or mental limits, or choosing how to engage with technology, these three words remind me to return to the only moment I can truly inhabit.

In a world that increasingly pulls our attention in a thousand directions, being here now is both a challenge and a radical act of self-preservation. It’s an affirmation I return to daily, a compass that always points to this moment, this breath, this now.

In the shifting landscape of our digital commons, the words the leaders of these corporate social platforms use have become shapeshifters, their meanings bending like light through murky water. As we witness the transformation of our shared online spaces, I find myself creating a new dictionary for these times—a translation guide for what remains unsaid.

When they say “free expression,” I want you to hear “the end of community care.”

When they say “algorithmic neutrality,” I want you to hear “the automation of amplified harm.”

When they say “marketplace of ideas,” I want you to hear “a colosseum where truth wrestles with virality.”

When they say “content-neutral platform,” I want you to hear “we’ve chosen profit over protection.”

When they say “open dialogue,” I want you to hear “we’ve removed the guardrails.”

When they say “reduced content moderation,” I want you to hear “we’ve dismissed the digital gardeners.”

When they say “user empowerment,” I want you to hear “you’re on your own now.”

When they say “engagement metrics,” I want you to hear “behavior we can monetize.”

When they say “democratic discourse,” I want you to hear “the loudest voices win.”

When they say “digital town square,” I want you to hear “unmoderated chaos.”

These aren’t just semantic games—they’re the architecture of our new digital reality. Each phrase is another layer between what we’re told and what we experience, between the promise of connection and the practice of division.

I find myself returning to the early dreams of the web, when we imagined digital spaces as gardens to be tended, not markets to be exploited. It’s time to reclaim not just our platforms, but our very language—to speak plainly about what we’re building, what we’re breaking, and what we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of unconstrained growth.

The web I want to inhabit still has gardeners. It still has carpenters and caretakers. It still believes in the power of boundaries to create safety, and the strength of moderation to cultivate community. Most importantly, it still understands that true freedom comes not from the absence of constraints, but from the presence of care.

After two decades of religiously tracking every step, every mile, and every heartbeat, I’ve decided to take off my fitness tracker. My health metrics tracking journey began in the aughts with a Jawbone (remember those?), then evolved to a Fitbit, an early generation Apple Watch, and then most recently to a COROS Apex as I got more serious in my endurance pursuits. The journey has been enlightening, but perhaps not in the way these devices’ makers intended.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve been a dedicated member of the quantified self movement. Most mornings began with checking my sleep quality, each run or ride was meticulously recorded and posted to Strava, and most days ended with a review of my stats. The progression through devices—from the simple step counting of early Fitbits to the comprehensive health suite of the Apple Watch and the endurance-focused metrics of the COROS—reflected my growing appetite for more data, more insights, and more control.

But somewhere along the way, something changed.

I started noticing how the numbers were shaping my behavior, and not always for the better. A relaxed-pace run wasn’t just a chance to enjoy fresh air and sunshine—it was a disappointing pace stat. A rest day wasn’t a conscious choice for recovery—it was an unfortunate break in my activity streak. The quantified self had become my qualified self, where the value of my activities was determined by what my watch thought about them.

The irony wasn’t lost on me: tools that were supposed to help me become more in tune with my body had actually created a layer of digital abstraction between me and my physical experience. I was no longer running to feel good, riding for the freedom and wind in my face or climbing for enjoyment—I was doing these things to feed the algorithms.

This realization led me to question the role of tracking in my life. Was I measuring to help me improve or was I becoming digitally dependent on the metrics? The constant stream of data had overshadowed the simple joy of movement, the natural rhythm of rest and activity, and the intuitive understanding of my body’s needs.

The decision to stop tracking wasn’t easy. My COROS was a loyal companion. It was with me through countless miles, crazy adventures, my first ultra, and with each new bouldering grade. It witnessed my growth as a runner, cyclist and climber, and provided the data that fueled my progress. But sometimes, progress means letting go of the tools that got you here.

Now, when I head out for a run, it’s just me, my breath, and the trail ahead. There’s no GPS track being drawn, no pace alerts buzzing on my wrist, no stats to upload and analyze afterward. It feels both foreign and familiar—like running to a home you’d forgotten you had.

I don’t think this is a total rejection of tracking technology or the quantified self movement. These tools can be incredibly valuable, especially when working toward specific goals or managing health conditions. But perhaps their greatest value lies in teaching us to eventually listen to ourselves again.

As I adjust to this new, untracked existence, I’m rediscovering something that no algorithm could quantify: the simple pleasure of moving through the world, unchanged by sensors and unmediated by screens. It turns out that sometimes the best way to move forward is to leave the numbers behind.

Beck Tench is a designer and researcher who studies the way technology impacts our lives at Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving. Her mission is simple: begin to understand what it means for young people to thrive in this increasingly digital and connected world.

I’ve been a fan of Beck’s work since we initially crossed paths more than a decade ago, when we both focused on building compelling digital experiences for museums. I worked primarily with art museums and she worked primarily with science museums. We both brought a healthy sense of skepticism to the task of infusing cultural experiences with technology, and held a high regard of professional respect for each other’s approach to digital mindfulness. In fact, we collaborated twice (1, 2) and each conversation ranks as a personal highlight during my time in the museum sector.

While we haven’t kept in touch, I’ve been following Beck’s professional journey through her newsletter, Making Thriving Visible. And while everything she writes is interesting to me, I found her most recent update to be extremely profound. In it, Beck uses the analogy of a tiger named Mohini – who was conditioned by zookeepers to exist within an uncaged 12’ x 12’ space – to explain the way digitally-enabled grind culture was negatively impacting her mindset and happiness.

Through likening her situation to Mohini’s experience, Beck came to the realization that she was not thriving. She made some impactful changes and now considers the definition of thriving in a whole new light:

I am beginning to see thriving, digitally or otherwise, as a practice. It’s not a destination. It isn’t static. We can be thriving and things can change. We can change. If Mohini had ventured out of her 12x12 self-imposed cage… if she had explored the trees and hills and plants and pond, would she have started to notice the exhibit fence? Would she have wondered what was on the other side?

Thriving as a practice. I can get behind that, and I think to some extent I’m subconsciously working on it. The mindful changes I’ve made in my digital and professional footprint are evidence, but after reading Beck’s piece I am going formalize my thriving practice by creating a reflection and future visioning routine.

If you’re interested in digital mindfulness, I highly recommend Beck’s newsletter. You can subscribe via Substack, or via RSS (like I do) to avoid any surveillance capitalism that may be associated with the delivery platform.

A couple months ago, my GPS watch stopped syncing with Strava. For whatever reason at the time, I was unable to restore the connection. I was also not in a position to spend $$$ on a new GPS watch, so since this disconnect was introduced my activities have no longer been pushing out to the popular social network for endurance athletes. As an active daily user who dished out boku kudos, I was initially quite bummed. And because I wasn’t posting to Strava, I stopped opening the app and reviewing what my friends were doing.

In the days since, I’ve noticed my mindset has been much healthier with respect to my exercise activities. So much of my time spent in Strava was me comparing my stats, paces and distances to others’. This resulted (subconsciously) in feeling pressure to always push harder, faster and further. I was losing the joy associated with getting outside and moving my body through the natural world.

In recent weeks, it’s been refreshing to get out for runs, rides and climbs simply for my own personal enjoyment, rather than feeding the ego associated with throwing down something epic for the kudos. It’s funny how this small technical hiccup has allowed me to recenter on my love for movement outside instead of the dopamine that came from the likes after the fact.