Travelogue Day 6 - Chocolate Denied

I woke up to find a text on my phone from the chocolate farm/factory indicating that the planned tour of said farm/factory was - as expected - canceled due to unsafe weather conditions. High winds and rain are slated to pound the Hawaiian Islands for the next two days, before easing up on the day of our departure.

This news necessited some flexing of expectations and plans for the day. That being said, the morning played out in its fairly predictable and expected formula. I prepped us a breakfast of toast, cereal with fruit, and (for me) coffee. We farted around in the mid morning - Deborah reading and me catching up on podcast episodes I had gotten behind on.

Deborah proposed that we revisit the A'a Roots vegan cafe for lunch and so we prepped to foray out into the inclement weather. It was windy, but the rain had dissipated substantially since morning. We drove our rental car to the mini mall where A'a Roots was located. I ordered a vegan tofu curry bowl with veggies (the cauliflower was superb) and Deborah got a vegan bagel sandwich. We shared a vegan blueberry muffin as an appetizer and a tropical açai bowl for dessert. While eating, we noticed the cafe was selling tee shirts promoting a place called Honolua Bay. We did not buy a shirt, but we googled this particular bay and found that it was fairly close by and a popular snorkeling area. The weather was not conducive to any snorkeling, but we decided to check out the area anyway.

After stopping at the small market next to A'a Roots for some additional soy milk, we drove to Honolua Bay. It had a tiny parking area overlooking a very scenic bay and ocean view. There were some surfers braving the weather on the west side of the bay where some large waves were breaking. We snapped a few pics and then sought out a coffee shoppe, landing on the Bad Ass Coffee shoppe, where I got an oat milk latte.

We returned to the resort bungalow where Deborah turned on the Super Bowl (yawn!) peripherally, and I caught up on traveloguing and podcasts.

Then some EXTREME BOREDOM set in. I am the type of person who needs to stay physically and mentally active at the peak of the day. I can wind down and chillax in the later evening hours, but find that almost impossible to do in the early afternoon. The weather precluded doing much externally, so I was relegated to being stuck with my thoughts and it was kind of a bit of a downer.

However, I survived by making completely unnecessary culinary creations, most notably a stir fry to use up the excess tofu and veggies we had scored at Whole Foods earlier in the week. Deborah helped allay some boredom by pulling up some TV shows and movies that we watched. I also was not feeling the greatest physically. I think I picked up a respiratory bug from the snorkeling gear during our snorkeling excursion toward the start of our trip. I felt like I had "water on the lungs" and was coughing incessantly.

"Maybe we should leave a day early," I proposed to Deborah. We discussed this option and ultimately agreed to that, but did not execute until the following morning, after some email correspondence with our travel agent to ensure this was both feasible AND wise. It was...

Stay tuned!

Travelogue Day 5 - Taking it Real Easy Like

Today kicked off with no wake up alarms and no agenda items or specific goals to accomplish. When I awoke around 7 AM, Deborah and I spent some time engaging in "snuggles," before I eventually got all the way up and prepped us a breakfast of the usual toast, cereal, and fruit, embellished with some tasty kona coffee for myself (while listening to a bit of Ezra Klein's newest podcast episode on the ruining of the Internet by corporate interests).

It was raining a bit. Thus, the only foray into the outside world that I executed was a short walk to the resort's outdoor water dispensary to replenish my water bottle with osmotically purified and ionically enhanced (or whatever) water. After that, Deborah and I retired to the porch of our bungalow to read (her) and write (me) for a spell. I used this time to get caught up on these travelogue posts. After a time, the rain worsened, exacerbated by increased wind that blew raindrops into the porch area, so we retired to the interior of the bungalow to continue our respective reading and writing activities.

"Should we check out that A'a Roots Cafe place for lunch today?" I asked Deborah.

"Yeah," she replied, with no firming of details. 

So that got loosely added to the day's laid back agenda, and as noon neared, we geared up for a hopeful and positive lunch excursion.

"Let's also hit that grocery store near the cafe for some more cereal and whatever," I said. I had predicted we would encounter a shortage of morning victuals soon, and this would solve that conundrum. Deborah assented.

We farted around a little more and then at about noon, we donned rain gear (I wore a rain slicker and wrapped a resort beach towel around my waste to keep my shorts dry) and headed out. We drove the rental car to the nearby strip mall that housed the A'a Roots Cafe. The A'a Roots Cafe turned out to be 100% all vegan, not just vegan friendly. This filled us with glee and we ordered a bunch of tasty food...probably too much...and ate it at the cafe, which had a number of small tables and other seating in the small space. I had a delicious strawberry scone that I shared with Deborah and she shared a blueberry muffin with me. My main meal was a tofu scramble bowl, embellished with black rice and a side salad. I believe Deborah had a huge black bean tostada dish. Before leaving A'a Roots, I got a healthy smoothie and a cold brewed coffee, and Deborah got a freshly baked s'mores cookie, all of it to go.

I left Deborah in the car to eat her s'mores cookie as I went into the small grocery store in the mini mall to get a few things, including some cereal and granola, bananas, vegan ice cream, Triscuits, and an onion (for a future planned stir fry).

When I returned to the car, Deborah was "sugar sick" from eating the s'mores cookie on top of her giant lunch. I drove us back to the resort where she promptly collapsed on the bed to digest via power nap. I listened to podcasts and wrote a bit more, until I started to get bored.

"What do you think about going to the fitness room?" I asked Deborah when she woke up. She was on the fence, but leaning toward yes. So, we went to the fitness room and did a short 30 minute workout. They had Peloton bike trainers there, so I spent my 30 minutes on that, whilst Deborah split her time between bike and core work using an exercise ball.

When we got back to the bungalow after exercising, I realized I forgot my phone in the fitness room, so I jogged back over there and - thankfully - found it where I had left it in one of the water bottle cages on the bike. I was relieved.

Dinner was leftover salad. We chillaxed watching some TV before bed.

Tomorrow is slated to comprise a midday tour of a chocolate farm and factory, but the weather is slated to comprise high winds and rain, so we think the tour might get canceled by the purveyors of it. If we don't do the chocolate excursion, we will probably revisit the vegan A'a Roots Cafe for some vegan eats, because they were really good.

Stay tuned!

Travelogue Day 4 - A Whale of a Time

There was no urgency to wake up at any particular time today. Our only agenda item was a "sunset" whale watching excursion back at the Pacific Whale Foundation (PWF) where we had had our snorkeling outing yesterday.

After a breakfast of vegan cereal, fruit, and toast (and some fresh brewed kona coffee for me), Deborah and I walked the "beach walk" path in the opposite direction from that which we had walked yesterday. This southerly course was much less rewarding, as the view of the sea was obscured by large hotel buildings. But it was still exercise and ended up being about 1.75 miles in total.

We farted around most of the morning, incorporating some more beach lounging and vitamin D production (via tropical Hawaiian sun exposure). Getting a bit stir crazy around lunchtime, I suggested that we depart for the PWF about an hour earlier than planned and posited that we could get beverages at the Starbucks close to the PWF (that we had observed yesterday) if we got there early. It turned out to be fortuitous that we departed early, because there was a considerable traffic jam on the main highway from our resort to the PWF. This delayed us a bit, but we still had time to hit the Starbucks before checking in at the PWF for our whale watching tour.

The weather had begun to deteriorate and the sky was gray and overcast, so I already knew there was unlikely to be any observable sunset on the "sunset" whale watching cruise. The boat was a stylish catamaran and I always enjoy a good boat ride, regardless. After exiting the harbor under fossil fuel power, the boat's crew put up the catamaran's sails (mainsail and jib) and cut power to the engines, allowing the boat to proceed more quietly and fuel efficiently through the sea, tacking occasionally in search of the best whale observing vicinities.

We saw a few whales at a distance, though nothing super close to the boat or especially exciting. Still...whales are cool and I am perfectly fine with not needing to ogle them; just letting them go about their business of baleening krill and small fish and blowholing all over the place.

It started to rain. We were fairly well prepared for this wearing layered and somewhat water resistant clothing. It did not make for much quality photography though. This boat crew didn't devote nearly as much attention to offering vegan fare as did the crew on the snorkeling expedition yesterday, but we had planned to get pizza for dinner after the cruise at the Point Break pizza joint next to the PWF anyway, so not a big deal. I had a couple of complimentary Hawaiian branded cans of IPA beer, early in the cruise. By the end of the cruise, I was ready for it to be over. There were a number of annoying passengers on the boat, most of them white and privileged. In retrospect, the handful of minority passengers on the sloop catamaran were much more pleasant and modest, the way all humans ought to be in my opinion.

After leaving the boat, we did in fact enjoy a pizza dinner at the Point Break pizza joint. Then we endured a stressful drive back to the resort in low visibility dark and rainy conditions. I was not in a great mood when we got back to our bungalow, but I intentionally practiced mindfulness to restore my inner Zen and we watched a bit of TV on Deborah's tablet before retiring.

Tomorrow was slated to be a day free from obligations, and I was looking forward to chilling out and disconnecting, ideally with some sunshine. However, according to the Weather Bug weather app on my phone, the remainder of our tropical Hawaiian vacation is slated to be full of more rain and considerable wind (Sunday and Monday). That being said, our one remaining planned tropical excursion is a tour of a Hawaiian chocolate farm/factory two days hence, and weather is not a significant concern for this outing, in my mind. I am hopeful and confident that the chocolate farmers agree and welcome us to their world on Sunday (today is Friday).

I would much rather be experiencing Hawaiian "bad weather" than Wisconsonian "bad weather," as they are two very different animals, with the latter being far more miserable, generally. In the grander big picture scheme of things, I have determined that an intentional life goal and aspiration is to live somewhere more tropical that does not experience sub-freezing temperatures nor snow. Ideally, this place would be Melbourne Australia, where I was born. However, I may need to temper that "ideal" somewhat to accommodate Deborah's needs and life ambitions. She has said she is open to "snow birding" once we retire from the workforce in a few years, as her mom currently does - enjoying the mild and pleasant summers of Wisconsin and the mild and pleasant winters of Florida. I hope she is sincere in that regard. I am not a huge fan of Florida, but living half of the year there to avoid Wisconsin winters does fall within the acceptable parameters of the aforementioned life goal and aspiration. I shall begin the process of restructuring the Cosmos to that end forthwith!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's travelogue!

Travelogue Day 3 - Snorkeling Misadventure

Getting up at the butt crack of dawn was not as hard as I had expected, and I attribute this to the time zone difference between Hawaii and Wisconsin. Hawaii is four hours earlier than Wisconsin, and so 4:30 AM in Maui (when I got up) equated to 8:30 AM in Madison WI (later than I would typically get up). My jet lag was slowly recalibrating to the new time zone, but had not yet fully stabilized, which worked in my favor for getting up a bit earlier than Deborah to prep a quick bungalow breakfast before we headed out at 5:30 AM toward the Pacific Whale Foundation (PWF) enterprise that would facilitate a couple rounds of snorkeling on Hawaiian "reefs" today.

I would recount the excursion in more detail, if it had exceeded expectations. But it did not, despite me setting those expectations very low. I would give the total endeavor about a C or C+ (with the plus being for the fact that they attempted to accommodate our vegan diet). We signed in at the PWF establishment and then boarded a small ferry that would transit us to the snorkeling sites. The first "reef" site had a plethora of colorful fish, but the waters there were choppy and rough, and there were too many people in the water - notwithstanding the "small group" snorkeling activity that it was marketed to be - making it cumbersome to get about. There had been some promises made by the PWF and boat crew of potential green turtle sightings at the second snorkel site, which we proceeded to in short order, but these promises were shattered when the turtles decided not to show up. The waters were calmer at the second snorkel site, but there was very little to see, even fewer colorful fish.

Back at the PWF establishment, after exiting the boat, we bought a few overpriced souvenirs at their gift shoppe, in lieu of tipping the staff (since tip worthy services had not been rendered to our expectations, in my view, and staff had over sold it). When we left the parking area of the PWF, we discovered a parking ticket on the windshield, indicating that we had parked illegally without paying some sort of parking fee. I was infuriated by this, because there had been no observable signage about this in the lot (I determined later that there was signage, but it was not "observable" at the dark, pre-dawn time of our arrival). But we paid the $21 fine regardless, because refusing to do so would purportedly, according to the fine print of the ticket, bring down a world of pain on us if we ever parked in that lot ever again EVER (which we were slated to do tomorrow, for a whale watching excursion led by the PWF).

The snorkeling had ended around noon, and we had driven back to the resort, where we spent the afternoon once again lounging by the beach and going on a short two mile walk along down the same beach path I had explored yesterday.

I made us a dinner of salad (again) and a leftover arepas bowl before we watched some entertaining shows on Deborah's tablet and then retired.

Tomorrow would theoretically comprise a morning and early afternoon of idle tropical lounging before returning to the PWF for said whale watching tour. I set my expectations lower still for the whale watching, if it were to be anything like the snorkeling, and hoped for the best.

Stay tuned!

Travelogue Day 2 - Getting Oriented

Day two in Maui kicked off with me eating/drinking a breakfast of a peanut butter and jelly (PBJ) sandwich, chased by sh*tty hotel coffee in our resort bungalow. Despite the cheap assed coffee, the coffee maker itself was pretty nice - decently large, with a 10 cup stainless steel pot, and quick to brew a batch of kickstarter fluid. I made a full pot, combining a filter bag of caffeinated coffee grounds with a filter bag of decaf for a richer, darker brew, despite a potentially diluted caffeine content. The PBJ sammie was one leftover from our travels the day prior, and it needed to be consumed. It was, as the saying goes, a "breakfast of champions."

Once Deborah was awake and abluted, we actually then visited the resort's main restaurant to assess its vegan offerings. As expected and predicted, there were very few and those were overpriced. Deborah had a $20 acai + granola + fruit bowl and I had $16 inflated dollars worth of fresh fruit (to be fair, it was high quality fruit, especially the pineapple).

"We should go to Safeway [a grocery store we knew was nearby because we had seen it on our drive to the resort from the airport] and get some actual meal fixings," I suggested. Deborah agreed. Our bungalow, as I believe I said in the prior Day One post, was equipped with a functional - albeit basic - kitchenette [stove/oven, fridge, sink, and a modest inventory of plates, bowls, and cutlery], and we'd likely save a bundle on meals by prepping our own food rather than eating out all the time.

After leaving the restaurant, we did a short walk on the beach and then reposited ourselves on some reclining beach chairs near the sea, after obtaining some beach towels from the resort's beachside towel station, to relax.

After a time, I asked Deborah, "Do you care if I go on a longer walk?" She did not care, nor did she care to join me. So, in due course, I set off on foot in what I believed to be a north-northwesterly direction along the beach. The surf was pretty active in the Pacific Ocean today, occasionally launching itself up the beach far enough to soak my feet and calves in brine. I was wearing "water sport" shoes, so this was not a problem in and of itself, but said water sport shoes did begin to take on a not insignificant load of sand. The surf activity was also amenable to surfing and I saw a number of surf boarders doing this activity farther up the beach from the resort.

Far ahead of me, I could see that the beach curved away to the right (north). My intent was to make it to a large building that appeared to demarcate this curvature, and in due course I achieved this. However, as I navigated my about face and return journey to the resort, I became a little bit lost, as I sought what I believed to be a paved "beach walk" behind the dunes that had - for the better part of my ambulations - paralled my trek up the beach. As it turned out, the beach walk path had apparently "petered out" at some point and did not appear to extend to where I was currently located, so after a bit of futile wandering around a labyrinth of hotel and resort areas, I eventually found my way back to said beach path and power walked back to where Deborah was still lounging by the beach. I had texted her to let her know I had gotten lost and was on my way back, so she would not worry, and she apparently had not worried, as a result.

Our intent for lunch was to find a vegan friendly cafe called the A'a Cafe, in a nearby strip mall, that our vegan friendly travel agent had suggested on our travel itinerary. We drove our rental car there and found it to be...closed on Wednesdays (the day of the week it just so happened to be). Luckily, we already had established a backup plan, and proceeded to another purportedly vegan friendly eatery called Miss Arepa, serving plant based (and conventional) Venezuelan arepas (by way of a quick stop at a coffee shoppe, where we scored a bag of fresh ground kona coffee beans for the aforementioned bungalow coffee maker, as well as chai and vanilla lattes for Deborah and me, respectively). Arepas are some sort of crispy fried corn fritter enclosing a variety of savory fillings, in our case pulled jackfruit (plant based "pulled pork"), rice, beans, mushrooms, plantains, and probably some other stuff. These were accompanied by both mild and hot sauces, in jars, to augment the flavorful foodstuffs. Indeed, it was very tasty grub, albeit a little too salty and oily. 

We hit the Safeway after that and procured some additional foodstuffs for our dietary needs for the rest of the week, including some Beyond brand vegan burgers and faux chicken patties.

The remainder of the day comprised more beach rest and relaxation, during which we saw some humpbacked whales out in the bay, jumping and blowholing joyfully (presumably).

I believe I may have prepped a salad for dinner, which was no easy task without the kitchen amenities I am used to (and spoiled by) at home - like a salad spinner and a large stainless steal mixing bowl). Despite the limitations, the salad turned out well, repleat with wholesome ingredients, including greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, apples, vegan feta cheese, bowtie pasta, bell pepper, and perhaps a couple other ingredients I am forgetting right now. I dressed my bowl of salad with Brianna's vegan poppy seed dressing, whilst Deborah ate hers plain.

We got an early night, because on the morrow we would be getting up at the butt crack of dawn for a snorkeling excursion our travel agent had booked for us during pre-trip planning. Stay tuned for that travelogue post tomorrow!

Travelogue Day 1 - In Transit

"Gina!" I chirped, my voice cutting through the gentle din of Gate 6 at the Madison airport as I tested my hypothesis that the woman who had just entered the gate area with a younger female traveling companion was, in fact, a long time acquaintance and past band mate, one Gina Rehm.

The woman looked up and over at us at the sound of my voice, confirming my surmise, and a look of recognition spread across her face as she took in the visages of Deborah and me.

"Oh, my gosh...HI!" said Gina.

"Wow, you know everyone," said Gina's traveling companion.

"Oh, I know, honey, it's OK," Gina said, patting her companion on the shoulder before heading toward us.

Gina bantered with us a spell. She was also flying to Denver on the same flight as us, en route to Sacramento for the unfortunate funeral of the grandfather of her traveling companion, who turned out to be Gina's niece, who we'll call Samantha for lack of recall of her actual name and perhaps to anonymize the innocent.

It should be noted at this point that I almost never see people I know at the airport, despite Madison Wisconsin being a fairly small city, as city sizes go.

This episode punctuated the initial stages of the tropical adventure for which this travelogue is intended to document AND also set the general tone of laid back ease that I hoped to manifest for the entire week ahead. Prior to the random encounter with Gina our morning had proceeded as most mornings preambling air travel typically do. We woke up earlier than we normally would have on most weekdays (this being a Tuesday), abluted, dressed, and downed whatever sustenance we deemed necessary for burling through the cumbersome American air transportation system.

We were bound for Maui Hawaii, via Denver. Once through the anxiety stage of TSA Security - which was fairly minimal as state-sponsored anxieties go - and immersed in the relative safety of the airport concourse, we relaxed somewhat.

"Can we choose to live in the universe in which everything goes perfectly smoothly on this trip?" I asked Deborah. She nodded her acceptance of the proposal and, mentally, we set about structurally reorienting the Cosmos to our desires. We filled our water bottles and I procured a cup of coffee from the overpriced Ancora coffee shoppe in the airport concourse, slowly sipping it as we awaited our departure.

Both flights were on time and proceeded smoothly and without incident. So anxiety-free was I that I didn't even notice the first flight had landed until the plane's wheels touched down on the tarmac at Denver International. In fact, when it did, I thought initially it was just unexpected turbulence. But there you go!

We had about a two hour layover in Denver before boarding the flight to Kaluhui on Maui in Hawaii. En route from Concourse A (where we landed) to Concourse B (where our second flight would depart from), we passed a smoothie place that we had researched ahead of time and hoped to stumble upon without too much effort, per our earlier intentional prayer to the Cosmos. We procured a couple fruit smoothies and sipped the wholesomeness of them into our bodies at the departure gate.

I'm not gonna lie, the seven hour flight from Denver to Maui was a marathon of patience. I spent the time listening to audio books, reading an actual book, and formulating the initial paragraphs of this post. We were served a vegan meal on this flight, per our request during booking of the United Airlines flights. As modern society has not embraced the awesomeness of veganism yet, it was sparse and average quality fare (but I commend their effort). Anticipating this, however, we had packed some snacks and PB&J sammies in our carry on bags, the latter of which we consumed to supplement our nutritional needs.

The landing in Maui was smooth and upon exiting the plane, Deborah and I changed into climate-appropriate attire (shorts, tee shirts, and sandals) that we had also had the foresight to stash in our carry ons. We scored our suitcases from baggage claim and mosied over to the rental car station to get our transportation for the week, a Chevy something-or-other midsized sedan from Enterprise. On the way out of Kaluhui, we stopped at a Whole Foods grocery store and secured a stash of...well...whole foods. We would be staying in a bungalow at a resort in Lahaina Maui HI (the Royal Lahaina Resort and Bungalows, in fact) about 45 minutes drive from the airport, and said bungalow was (we were told) equipped with a full kitchenette. We planned to make some of our own meals during the vacation week, to ensure vegan fare and also cut costs on dining out (point of fact: bowl of assorted fruit at the resort restaurant = $16!!!). We got some stir fry and salad fixings, as well as some fruit, cereal, and snacks.

On the drive to Lahaina, I was surprised to see that one can see the neighboring islands of Lanai and Moloka'i from Maui. I did not realize they were so close or so visible. And perhaps they aren't that close...but they are mountainous and thus rise well above the horizon established by the curvature of the Earth, appearing - perhaps deceptively - to be nearby.

We found the resort on the west coast of Maui with minimal difficulty and checked in. Our bungalow was some distance from the main entrance to the resort. So we had to park the rental car in the guest parking lot near the entrance and then a bellhop drove us, our bags, and our groceries to our bungalow in a large golf cart. The bellhop pointed out some of the various resort amenities that typical resort guests care about, en route. As atypical guests, we made note of the ice machine and water dispenser, and paid less heed to the bars and live music options. Live music and bars are totally fine and sometimes even good and desirable, but they were not our priorities on this tropical vacation. Our priorities were primarily relaxation, sunshine, and more relaxation, punctuated by some good plant based eats from time to time, and of course HYDRATION. We also prioritized beach walks by the Pacific Ocean (a large body of water that is hard to miss no matter where you are in Hawaii). Beach walks would likely be my main source of exercise on this trip.

Once in our bungalow, we unpacked and put the groceries away. Deborah was pretty pooped from all the day's travel and relaxed on the bed. Marginally more motivated and energized, I set about making a small dinner of sauteed tofu and potatoes, which we ate before retiring for a deep and restful sleep. It was only about 9 pm Hawaii time when we got done with the meal. But that equates to 1 am and FAR PAST OUR BEDTIME in the time zone of Wisconsin, from whence we came.

That being said, I woke up at about 6 am Hawaii time (10 am Wisconsin time) the next morning, feeling very well rejuvenated and (hopefully) jet lag free. The adventures of our first FULL DAY in Hawaii will be recounted in tomorrow's installment of this travelogue.

Stay tuned!

Boycott Time

There is an effective solution to all the chaos and toxicity going on in the world right now. It's not an easy solution, but it's very doable if you are passionate, purposeful, and motivated to create change.

It's time for those of us who want the world to be better, more joyous, and positive to BOYCOTT ALL SOCIAL AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA. Just turn it off for a few weeks or months. You can pop in on it from time to time, but don't stay engaged with it in any meaningful or indeterminate way. We now know that ATTENTION is inversely correlated with CREDIBLE INFORMATION. The more attention grabbing social media information is, the less credible it is. Fact.

The reason this kind of mass boycott can work to change the world - if enough people do it - is that in our electronically connected (and often addicted) world, ATTENTION is a valuable commodity. Huge corporate profits are made by keeping YOUR eyeballs on screens. It may not seem like it when you are in it...but consider WHY IS MOST SOCIAL MEDIA FREE? Someone's paying for it. But not you. Because...and this is true...YOU ARE THE PRODUCT BEING BOUGHT AND SOLD (or more precisely your attention is being bought and sold). Advertisers are paying the social media platforms and underwriting their tech because they know that can get your eyeballs locked onto the very screens that bring them profits. They don't actually care about the validity or credibility of the information you are seeing on social media. They just want you to relentlessly consume it.

If 25% of the population suddenly WITHHELD its attention (the profitable commodity we are all the fungible tokens of), these technology corporations would feel the hit financially. They would then complain to their political policy makers and demand changes to end the boycott.

The main obstacle to this solution is ADDICTION. Social media (and to some extent mainstream media) are ridiculously addictive and hard to quit. But people quit addictions all the time...usually because they have a WHY.

If you knew for certain that intentionally boycotting social and mainstream media could affect positive change, would you do it? Well, it can. So do it.

It might be good to have your WHY in mind, and it helps if your WHY is shared with a lot of other people. My WHY is to keep toxic grievance and vitriol out of my life and since I have eliminated social and mainstream media from my life, 99.9% of all that negativity is OUT OF MY LIFE. I am not going to consume social and mainstream media until those media do a better job at detoxifying themselves.

I encourage you to go 100% media free for a minimum of two weeks and ideally one month. You'll be shocked and pleasantly surprised how much more positive, happy, and smart you become when the "fake news" is out of your life.

The End.