How to Unplug Yourself from the Matrix

I recently listened to a Google Talk with Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens. Here was my biggest takeaway:

We are close to the point where big tech companies will know and understand more about you than you do yourself, and they will play more of a role in shaping your sense of self than you do. Therefore, the only truly free people will be those people whose self-awareness continues to expand at a rate that outpaces the data gathering and the data insertion of these companies.

In other words, higher consciousness will be the only way to remain truly free.

What this means is that every moment in which we are mindlessly clicking around on our phone—each click donating more data about our interests and preferences, opinions and beliefs, loves and hates, fears and pleasures—rather than paying attention to our own inner world—becoming aware of it, learning to love it, and expressing it in relationship or vocation—we are falling behind in the race to decide what we do with our lives. When we get into bed at night, we aren’t just choosing to scroll Instagram in lieu of meditation, contemplation, prayer, gratitude or any other centering practice; we’re contributing to a data file that will be used to take advantage of us, while we become less and less aware of it and of ourselves.

Yesterday, CNN ran a headline about a “mysterious doughnut” discovered on the surface of Mars. I clicked. What was the actual thesis of the article? From a scientific perspective, it was merely a meaningless rock, weathered by long ago forces on the planet. Scientists have found hundreds of them on Mars. The folks at NASA were so uninterested they steered the rover in a different direction. The article itself was uninteresting, and that was pretty much the purpose of it.

It was a bait and switch…

Because now I’m on a webpage with a dozen advertisements, and one—thanks to a cookie on my MacBook—is for a piece of furniture I’ve been thinking about buying. I move the cursor toward it, in the kind of stupor that characterizes most internet browsing, and I almost click on it. Almost. Then, awareness kicks in, and I have the following thought:

“You, CNN, used the word mysterious to tap into my natural human wonder and curiosity and to use it so I would spend some time on a page where you are running advertisements that I might also click on. Both the type of article I clicked on and the advertisements I click on will be added to a data file that will shape what you present to me the next time I go to your website.”

Followed by:

“So, CNN, I’m not going to your website anymore, because you are using me instead of informing me, and you’ve lost my trust.”

Now, of course, the hard work of awareness begins, because every time I’m about to engage in the habit of going to their website for a little bit of doom scrolling, I’m going to have to be aware of it, hold space for the urge, learn from it, and do something else instead. Maybe go for a walk. Notice that summer breezes still rustle the treetops. The birds still chirp all day. The heat of the season still has an odor all its own.

Those are data points the big tech companies have no access to, and it’s how you can unplug yourself from the Matrix, elevate your consciousness, and remain free a little while longer.