NB: Over two years ago, I affirmed that I wanted to write and share more personal thoughts on my blog. Not only the professional and fully-polished things. Looking back, I haven’t really done that. Being a part-time perfectionist, I get stuck on the production value of the things I make. I feel like I have to get it just right before publishing. I have several unpublished stubs started on my blog (19 as of publishing time, to be precise). However, I have not yet overcome the hesitation of being content with a stub post just being a stub post. After all, if Wikipedia can do it, why can’t I? Furthermore, I can also write for the purpose of my own satisfaction and not the satisfaction of others.

So, here goes.

Me? Not represented? 🔗

After the Inclusion & Diversity summit ended and I returned to my hotel, I entered a thought loop. There was this uncomfortable idea stuck in my head that as a white American male, I didn’t feel represented there. Which depending on your view, either sounds very ironic or it might seem obvious (duh!). However, I did not want to suppress this uncomfortable feeling. I wanted to interrogate it, understand where it came from, and identify why I felt this way.

First, I came to see my feeling of under-representation was not (only) as a white American male—but instead as a privileged ally. Many speakers during the day called out issues in our industry, shared their work as advocates and champions in working to address these issues, or did both. But in our divided and divisive world of the 2020s, a feeling of frustration slowly overcomes me. Never all at once, but more often like the tides of the ocean—slowly rising, rising, until everything is underwater. What are my role and purpose? I care about DEI issues and I have made an effort to do what I can in the last eight years to make Open Source more diverse, more inclusive, and more equitable. I attempt to spend my privilege on others who don’t have the privilege and power that I was assigned at birth.

Noticing the white narrative. 🔗

However, at the same time, I can’t help but feel there is a narrative about people who look like me and come from where I come from. That narrative is white supremacy. The white supremacy narrative can be an integral part of identity to people who also look like me and come from places like I do. The narrative often comes from a place of anger. The narrative is often hateful. That context is understandable because the white supremacist narrative is always harmful to people who do not look like me and come from different places than I do. My daily life is least impacted by the white supremacy narrative.

However, I am not saying that white supremacy is unreal. On the contrary, Western media, news, and opinion articles quickly provide several easy affirmations that a white supremacy narrative holds real weight.

The paradox of the white narrative 🔗

Yet, I feel the narrative is also the exact problem. Does a white supremacy narrative override other narratives that a white person could relate with? I remembered a time when I took a History of Women in Science & Engineering course during my undergrad studies. While discovering hidden stories in history of accomplishments, struggles, and successes of women in STEM over hundreds of years, I was also intrigued to read about the allies who helped them. The allies I read about were white men who spent their privilege as sponsors to many of these early women innovators. They shared their own resources and enthusiasm as an act of asserting both the value of the women they supported and the work they did.

It was doubly sad to me that history relegated several of these stories to the sidelines, both the stories of these women innovators and the stories of their allies. These stories of early allies are under-represented because most often, they are simply not told.

No savior complexes. 🔗

At the same time, an alternate narrative to white supremacy must also not be a savior complex or white savior-ism narrative. True allyship does not look like a savior complex. The historical view could easily jump toward a conclusion with a savior complex narrative. There are no saviors; the only one we can truly save is ourselves. We can support, mentor, and sponsor, but there is no magic, quick solution that makes everything better.

In today’s world, I feel that healthier narratives are also not well-represented. I strongly believe in words that I attribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today in the United States, white supremacy is going more mainstream (again). It is also one of the most visible narratives of White identity. This begs a question of how do we influence the narrative and also inspire what a better, healthier “whiteness” can mean? How do we promote stories of transformative love, incredible allyship, and true compassion? There are many stories in history if you look closely. But often they are relegated to the periphery and cast aside, alongside the experiences of other white people who fit outside the societal power structure of White society. We need these stories told too, should we create a more equitable society that allows everyone to realize their innermost human potential.

Where do we go from here? 🔗

I write this without full answers. My motive to write is because this thought comes up from time to time for me. Sometimes I just long for better role models. I want a society where more white people lend their support and power for dismantling hate and destruction. I want more white people who use their privilege and power as superpowers for love and justice. A future default narrative for whiteness should not feature pain and center hate. This is in spite of what is an undeniable part of the legacy and history. Yet that is the heart of it. I want the mainstream narrative to change. I want us to take real steps toward reparation to atone for that legacy and history.

But it is like they say, “it is hard to be what you can’t see.” Sometimes I feel exasperated by the narrative staring back at me and my ancestry. My identity as a white American man is bound by nature of my birth. But perhaps instead of waiting for the right story to be written, perhaps this is my own action item. I should be better at writing my own story. The only person I have to do it for is myself.

Photo by Rishabh Dharmani on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler.

These words speak power. Their power comes in their ability to pull someone out from the busy stream of life and reach deep into their heart. As if to be plucked out of the chaos, even for just a moment. They are words that are easy to read, easy to write. But to say them with meaning, to deliver them with sincerity to another human being… it is something that many of us would struggle with. (Perhaps the bias may be toward men who typically aren’t steered by the society towards navigating these emotional waters.)

Making of the shells 🔗

It amuses and perplexes me how something that can be so positively powerful can feel out of reach for many of us. Throughout our relatively short time on this planet, it is easy (and sometimes necessary) to create a shell around ourselves. A big, hard, strong shell that protects us from the hurt, the pain, and the sadness that sometimes bubbles and oozes out from the earth. Fear of our neighbors becomes an insecurity that is targeted and exploited by the political powers of our day.

So of course, the world can feel cold. Or even dead. But those shells that we carry and build over our life can also be cold and hard themselves. When we are surrounded by coldness and hardness, it is naturally difficult to expect that compassion to flow like a river out from the world. The shells cover over our hearts with coldness and hardness, so if enough time passes inside the shell, we might conclude that the world is a cold and hard place.

Leaving the shells 🔗

But the only mistake in our human existence is to never leave the shell. Sometimes it is necessary and sometimes it is required. There are awful things that ooze out of the cracks of our fragile yet interdependent society. But if we make the shell our home, we sacrifice the warmth of the sun. We refuse the possibility of the beauty, the love, and compassion that also exists in our planet. We can find beauty in the smallest of things and most unusual of places. But if we are stuck in the shell, we are hidden from what is uncomfortable and difficult, but also what is joyful and empowering.

May we all come to know our shell, and also to know when we are in our shell. If we stay in it too long, we might forget what it is to take it off. What it feels like to feel joy. What it feels like to feel love. To accept love and give love. The most powerful, transformative, and awe-inspiring experiences on this planet called Earth will pass over us if we allow our hearts to harden.

Choose to love, not to hate.

Choose to trust, not to fear.

Always forgive, but never forget.

Follow the joyous path of light, and avoid the cynical path of darkness.

Know when to wear our shell for necessary protection, and know when to take it off for being vulnerable and human.

Breathe.

Background context 🔗

This reflection came after a bike ride. The rides are typically my most reflective time. There are no screens, no notifications, no distractions. It is me. The path. And my breath. After a week when I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed, this reflection came from a meditative mood and my desire to use my blog as a place to express myself better. (I think writing this post was more therapeutic than the tweet I was originally writing.)

A special thanks to Thich Nhat Hahn and this El Ten Eleven track for guiding my thoughts while writing:

While I was pondering this reflection, my employer announced layoffs a couple weeks ago. While there is a lot that could be said about that, what I will say is that a certain root was pulled; the foundation of trust built between leadership and employee was shaken. Only further action and time will show the full impact on the company and my remaining colleagues. Nonetheless, a very recent negative experience with regard to trust also expanded my perspective of how trust is defined and what its role is in a community.

Brené Brown on trust 🔗

Later, I came across a sound bite of an interview with Brené Brown about trust (and more). Toward the end of the interview, she talks about her book, Braving the Wilderness (which I haven’t read, but seems interesting). She explained what the wilderness is and a tool that we can keep with us (“BRAVING”) to stay grounded in ourselves and also what trust means.

She also had a powerful definition of belonging, which put forward the idea that belonging is internal to ourselves and even is a spiritual practice; belonging is not defined externally or given to and taken from us by others.

Below is my summary of “BRAVING” and the wilderness, together with notes and thoughts about how community leaders can act honestly and authentically, both when times are good and when times are hard.

Trust: Remember “BRAVING” 🔗

There are seven elements to building, developing, and measuring trust. Each of these seven elements are a resource for being honest, authentic, and genuine in both easy and hard times. You can remember these seven elements as an acronym: “BRAVING”.

B: Boundaries 🔗

You set boundaries. When you don’t know what they are, you ask. You are clear about what is okay and what is not.

R: Reliability 🔗

You do what you say and you say what you do. The hard thing is that you are not hustling for worthiness, so you are not completely over committing and not delivering.

A: Accountability 🔗

You don’t back channel and blame. You hold people accountable in a straightforward way.

V: “Vault” 🔗

You do not use stories that are not yours as social currency. You keep them in “the vault.” Using others’ stories as a bid for connection causes others to trust you less. This is the other side of confidentiality.

I: Integrity 🔗

You choose courage over comfort and practice your values. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, and easy. Your accomplishments stand out when you operate from a place of discomfort, or outside of your comfort zone.

N: Non-judgment 🔗

You can ask for help without feeling judged. I can ask for help without judging myself.

G: Generosity 🔗

When something happens, you assume positive intent. Give someone a chance, or the benefit of the doubt, before launching into anger.

Braving the wilderness 🔗

What is the wilderness? It is those times when we stand alone, the times when we go out on a limb, the times we walk away from what we know in our ideological bunkers and beliefs.

“BRAVING” is a tool to help us manage the wilderness. There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we’ll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, “Don’t do it. You don’t have what it takes to survive the wilderness.” This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, “I am the wilderness.”

Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler.

one, two
I fell in love with you
Caught me by surprise

three, four
My focus was on you
There was me, you, & the road

five, six
I took each breath
Felt each beat of my heart

seven, eight
I realized Your rhythm
Pulled into Your pace

nine, ten
I became my breath
Centered at Your feet

one, two

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler.

While I was saying “yes”, I was afforded opportunities that I had known only as unaffordable. I had a chance to live out and explore my heart, and the unusual circumstances that make up my life. For the time I said “yes”, I am grateful for the people and things that subtly shaped my subconscious mind and what I learned about myself in the process of learning about others.

But I was not the first one to say “no”. I found both the closure I needed after a frustrating final year, and the luck to find a better way to live according to my values through my work.

So it was surprising when the conversation restarted after so long. It caught me off-guard for a number of reasons. Of most interest to me, I had never valued my community management work in an annual salary range like that. This experience put the value of my work into perspective; the context of the “who” is also significant in this way. Not only did it change my perspective on the value of this work, but it made me aware to what the upper bounds of salary ranges may look like for those privileged few organizations with huge talent development budgets and incentive programs.

Why? 🔗

But this stroke of fate also made me question my “why”. Why do I do what I do? For what or for whom do I do it for? These are deep questions that I have a privilege of asking myself. When I looked inward and sought to understand my feelings, I knew that I measure employment offers in my ability to live with an abundant heart. The salary range is secondary.

Every day, I wake up and get to ask how my daily work and practice impacts the lives of children. While there is more complexity and metrics in play, the ultimate purpose of what I do is centered first on real human impact, not stock prices and operational profit. There is no salary in any dollar range that I would trade for what I have.

So this time, it was my turn to say no. Not out of spite, nor out of anger. But the seasons I have changed, and so have I. My old leaves have fallen and new ones are in their place. I am grateful for the mentorship and guidance I received for those years I said “yes”. As alluring as it is may be to imagine a 250% pay increase…

I’m happy to continue making good from where I am with the things I already have.

Accommodations move us closer to equality but not equity. The presence of accommodations implies a belief in an “us” and a “them”. One group benefits from default inclusion, while another group either raises a collective voice, or is de-facto excluded. Instead of designing our world for others different than ourselves, we must design our world together. It is a quicker way to achieve a more just world.

The “abled” community needs to challenge our perspectives and do our share of the learning required to see things from another perspective.

An example I saw from Twitter that made an impression on me was how someone explained the idea of combinations and permutations of the five human senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The commonly-held belief is that lacking one (or more) of these senses leaves you deprived. Without one of these senses, your potential is limited and you deserve to be pitied.

Multi-sensing > accommodations 🔗

So, what does it mean to be multi-sensing? Most of us see our five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) as a fixed state of sensory stability. These senses and basic mental stability are socially-assumed as always present. They define how we individually experience life.

Often those lacking one or more of these senses are seen as deprived. They are perceived as missing something or to have lost something they can never fully regain. The absence of a human sense comes with the added psychological burden of living in a world where you are often the afterthought, the “new use case”, the countless trials of countless beta versions of any kind of software that might help overcome the disadvantage of “missing” a sense or mental disability.

I suggest an alternative way to design for accessibility and inclusivity. A personal deviation is not written off as “missing” something, but instead as a new combination of senses gained. Designers should assume an expected and guaranteed variable of this new combination. Accessible design must be a first-class citizen in early project management planning.

To put it another way, observe the presence and lack of senses among us as a matrix of combinations, instead of large swathes of characteristics assumed to always be present. We unlock the best of our design knowledge to think in the pursuit of access to the greatest many instead of “what ticks off the box”.

Before, we saw an accommodation as when a specific feature is added to software for someone lacking one or many senses. But we must shift from accommodations to full inclusion. Accommodations are acknowledgements of disability. It assumes a fixed state where a set of critical features to guarantee usability will always lag behind for a subset of people. True equality is seeing access for those with disabilities as equal to the design of features for those with five active senses.

Featured image photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash.
Modified by Justin Wheeler.

I don’t say that casually either. I have involuntarily found Open Source as my calling. Or my people. I contribute to Open Source because I love to collaborate and work together with other people. This challenges me. It humbles me in a way that I know I can always learn something new from someone else. For this, Open Source and Free Software have enriched my life. They have also given me, again involuntarily, an odd but productive way of coping with my own mental health issues, anxiety, and depression.

So how do I make sense of the emotions and feelings I have now? How do I untangle this complicated web of events and reactions by other people? To ignore it doesn’t seem possible. If I remove emotion, I am left with a purely rational motive to involve myself in this contemporary issue. My work, profession, and career goals are directly affected by however this discussion goes. There is no way out for me. It’s my job, so I have to care. But if you add emotions back in, to stand still and remain idle is heartbreaking. To do nothing is to commit to defeat. Resignation. The darkness.

Yet what is there to do? The only thing Stallman ever directly gave to me in life was an email explaining elegantly how there was nothing he could do for the Minecraft GPL community fiasco. At a time when I was so personally lost as I saw a community I love tear itself apart, he stood by idly as the so-called steward of these licenses that I was just too naïve to believe in. That experience to me now is amplified in the light of the much more egregious things he is accused of.

So, the Free Software Foundation welcomes Richard Matthew Stallman back to its board. Wonderful. Congratulations Mr. Stallman. I am going to pause for a moment of sadness and hurt as I contemplate the impact of this moment on our fragile movement, which has much bigger enemies today than it has in its 40 year legacy. But then…

I will move on. Because we have to. The only way is forward.

That semester, I traveled to different international FOSS conferences (before COVID-19), analyzed contemporary changes and trends in Free Software, and reflected on where I think we are going. I am sharing an edited version of my final report here, as a look into my “crystal ball” for what is coming to Free Software in the 2020s.

Preface 🔗

There are emerging challenges and changes to the Free Software status quo. Three pieces of context about me will help to understand my perspective.

First, I am a young adult who has contributed to Free Software for a third of my life. At fourteen, I landed my first Open Source contributions. In high school, I participated in Open Source communities with 100,000+ adolescents, teenagers, and young adults. Later, I led community-driven initiatives in Open Source projects older than me. Thus, these experiences are a significant part of my experience coming into the Free Software movement.

Second, I follow conversations about Open Source sustainability. I regularly collaborate with others who also care about Open Source sustainability. I participate in communities where Open Source sustainability is the key issue to address, like Sustain OSS and the CHAOSS Project.

Third, I am a white American male in my early 20s, which yields me certain privileges. I actively work to understand how my privilege constructs my worldview and experiences. I also acknowledge my freedom to participate in the global Free Software community is afforded to me in part by who I am. So, I acknowledge these biases in order to frame my perspective.

So, I propose three emerging trends in Free Software across the 2020s:

1. Sustainability of Free Software is here to stay.
2. Free Software will have its ethics interrogated.
3. More young people will stay, or leave.

Free Software sustainability is here to stay. 🔗

Sustainability has subliminal buzzword status today, yet it will not fade from our vocabulary soon. Unlike other tech buzzwords from the last decade, I suspect sustainability is here to stay.

Sustainability is broad though. This analysis begins broadly and then narrows down the definition. To start, here is the Oxford Dictionary definition of sustainability:

sus·tain·a·bil·i·ty

The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.

Oxford U.S. dictionary

From this definition, I look at two sub-types of sustainability: software sustainability and Free Software sustainability. While they do overlap, software sustainability is what we build: the technology we make and its ability to last into the future. Free Software sustainability is who and how we build: the people who comprise the Free Software movement and how they work together and collaborate.

Now, sustainability is less overlooked than five or ten years ago. However, we still have competing definitions for what sustainability means. The dictionary defines sustainability as “the ability to maintain” but there are different ways sustainability is interpreted.

The maintainer and the corporation 🔗

For example, to an Open Source software maintainer, the “ability to maintain” might mean their ability to pay for their bills, live securely and safely in their day-to-day lives, or supporting a family. On the other hand, to a corporation that depends on Open Source software for their business, the “ability to maintain” might mean the ability to make new software releases at a specific cadence. It could be lines of code added and removed, or the number of commits made. Both perspectives are valid, but they imply different expectations of what maintenance requires.

On first consideration, these competing definitions make the landscape confusing. But surprisingly, this varied interpretation does not weaken sustainability; it strengthens it. It creates more opportunities to collaborate and work together in solving common problems in new, intersectional ways. Instead of focusing on common differences, it encourages seeing common problems first. While the definitions of sustainability might be different between an independent tech freelancer and an engineering manager in a Silicon Valley tech corp, both of these people could still work together on something that benefits both of them.

While I cannot predict what sustainability will mean to us in 2030, I am confident it will not mean the same as it is today. So, I am interested to both observe and participate in the shaping of the sustainability conversation in software and Free Software communities over the next decade.

Free Software will have its ethics interrogated. 🔗

Free Software emerged in the 1970s as a social movement in an act of defiance to a global market change, when software became a commodity. Activists stood together and asserted what they believed to be essential freedoms of all computer users. So, Software Freedom as a concept was born through the GNU Project in 1983.

Today, a similar storm is on our horizon. The world is shifting again. It is not just software that is a commodity. It is data and human futures. Free Software was a bold assertion of essential freedoms about software. But those in the 1980s did not know how the world would change nearly forty years later. Today, the plot has thickened. The world is more complex. Technology impacts our lives in ways we never imagined in 1983. Software Freedom may protect us in one aspect of our digital lives, but it fails us in other ways.

Ethical Source? 🔗

Perhaps this is best understood by looking at the attitude towards the Ethical Source movement by those in the Free Software world. There are a wide range of views and opinions. It is difficult to build common consensus and understanding across these groups. Yet, somehow, we cannot move past this conversation. It persists.

One famous example is the Java programming language license that forbid its use in nuclear submarines. For this reason, Free Software activists did not consider Java as Open Source until Sun Microsystems and subsequently Oracle were challenged. To some, freedom meant the ability to do anything—with no limitations—to the original work. For others still, freedom means the freedom of all people. The “freedom to use” is a controversial freedom in respect to certain ways we use software.

“Join, or Die.” 🔗

Is there a consensus today in the Free Software or Ethical Source worlds about how we address the ethical issues of our field? No. There is not. Inside each movement, there are disagreements and differences on what is the most effective way to accomplish collective goals of building a more fair and just world. Depending on our unique perspectives and backgrounds, we have different views on the methods and means of how we address issues of ethical and unethical uses of software. I am doubtful there is a common definition of what ethical and unethical means in the narrow context of software. We have not yet clearly agreed on those definitions in global and transnational legal and judiciary systems.

It is not clear to me which way the winds will blow in the 2020s. But what is clear is that the storm is coming. Either the Free Software movement will fragment on different definitions of Freedom, or it will collectively converge around a new set of values updated to the ways the world changed so far in the 21st century (or even just 2020 alone).

One path weakens us all, amid global political shifts reminiscent of 20th century nationalist politics. The other path unifies us and builds common power together for the things we can change. I just hope the Free Software movement chooses right.

Free Software will see more young people stay, or leave. 🔗

Free Software will either be more inclusive of young people and new ideas, or it will see these young people move on to something else and fragment the movement.

In my own life, there were decisions and opportunities to influence the building of my digital life. But it was a paradox of choice, whether I wanted this digital life or not. It was simply the reality of the world I grew up in.

I am a millennial. The world changed around me as a child, as I grew into this new hyper-connected digital era. I owned my first computer at four years old. My home had a (dial-up) Internet connection when I was six. In grade school, I built a community site and online forum for my class. In high school, I participated in and moderated international online communities. These experiences collectively informed my worldview as someone who grew up on the budding World Wide Web.

“The world the children made.” 🔗

Millennials were the first generation to inherit the new always-online world built by the generation before. This is true for many others my age or younger who are transitioning into global citizens. This is no small part enabled by the constant-connectivity of the Internet mixed with different social and environmental circumstances we are born into. Young people are coming, and it is an open question whether Free Software will include them. Or if it will only include a select few who subscribe to the same pre-existing value system.

It is difficult to articulate this well, but I think Free Software will face a challenge of inclusivity for my generation. Either it will encourage and foster the next generation of Free Software activists to assert and protect our basic freedoms of computers, or it will isolate and push those people away from being a part of this movement.

Will others my age, or younger, emerge as leaders in their own right in the Free Software movement? Or will young people start something new that is more welcoming and empowering to them as individuals?

What now? 🔗

Just like the Free Software activists of the 1980s and 1990s, I cannot predict precisely how the world will change. But I think it is valuable to step back from the hustle and bustle of daily life to think constructively about where we are going. We can fall into a routine of living our life comfortably because it is easy, but our comforts can cover our consciousness unless we evaluate our own views and biases for what they are.

I cannot know for sure where we are going, but I am committed to the belief that there are essential freedoms that we, as human beings, have in the context of the systems and digital worlds we create together. It is to this core belief that I bind myself, and I am excited as much as I am nervous for what changes are to come in this next decade of Free Software.

This blog post was originally written for an independent study at the Rochester Institute of Technology as a supplement for IGME-583 Legal and Business Aspect of FOSS. Special thanks goes to my faculty advisor, D. Joe, for supervising this independent study and being a sounding box for ideas, perspectives, and thoughts.

Original photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler for this blog post. Special thanks to Wilfried Hounyo, Mike Nolan, and Olivia Gallucci for reviewing.

This blog post was first written on August 28th, 2020.

Today is a sad day. Chadwick Boseman is dead. At 43 years old, he lost a terminal battle with stage IV colon cancer. As his great light dims, I am left to wonder what loss will happen next in 2020.

But like the ashes of a phoenix, we will rise. His death reminds me of the fierce urgency of now, as said by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That in the moment of darkness that follows death, a new bright light will emerge. It is just so human for us to cling to the embers of hope, in the fear that we will one day be delivered from suffering.

Boseman was a social leader and source of inspiration for many. His life and many roles championed racial equity on the Hollywood screens. Boseman was passionate about what he did. He led a committed life.

Boseman’s death caused me to reflect on the definition of Freedom in the movement I am embedded within: the Free Software movement. Yet in this community I value, there are seeds of discontent. The fierce urgency of now has revealed that systemic social injustices continue to exist in our society, as they have for centuries. The generational question we must answer as witnesses to this moment is: will we continue to tolerate the systemic faults within our society? Or must we imagine a more fair society? A more just society? I know we can because we have to.

On the origins of Software Freedom 🔗

A background on the Software Freedom movement is helpful to understand this discourse on freedom.

Free Software is a social movement born in the 1980s in North America. In the beginning, it was mostly a set of ideals and values set forth by MIT computer scientist Richard Stallman. Stallman witnessed a dramatic shift in how the free market distributed software in the 1980s. Previously to then, software was usually trivial; an afterthought. Software was freely shared between companies, universities, and individuals. Part of this is to blame on the industry’s intent focus on hardware during the Cold War. At the time, there was no standardization to hardware development, so software source would have to be rewritten to compile on different hardware architectures from competing vendors. However, this mindset eroded in the 1980s. There were a few lead architectures at the time, mostly championed by Intel. Software had to be compiled less often. Now, this freely shared source code could be repurposed much more easily.

At this point, the software industry went mainstream. Software began to receive acute focus by companies with computer science talent. Talent needs moved beyond hardware. Stallman saw all this, and believed the shift was at a great loss to the personal freedoms of the individual. So he coined “Software Freedom”, and a movement formalized.

With that background, the word “Freedom” has a specific, coded meaning to people who believe in the principles of Software Freedom. Software Freedom protects a set of digital rights that the movement leaders first advocated for in the 1980s and 1990s. The Four Freedoms (to use, to study, to share, to improve) are entrusted to the individual user of a computer system.

Freedom in 2020 🔗

However, it is 2020. Not 1985. Not 1991. 2020.

Questions about what Freedom means could never be more removed from the context of right now. Software Freedom asserts rights fully-realized by participants in the new digital society. Yet billions of people on Earth remain unconnected to the Internet. How can you realize rights that were never accessible to begin with?

Even if you are participating in digital society, freedom to read source code and make changes to it are just one of many different examples of freedom. But what other definitions exist?

The freedom to be safe asleep in your home without being gunned down by those entrusted to protect you.

The freedom that your children may live in a world where they may realize their fullest potential.

The freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In comparison, the freedom to read the source code of the web browser that keeps crashing on an unsupported device does not practical value to people who have different questions in the pursuit of freedom.

Reconciliation and intersections 🔗

But surely there is somewhere we can reconcile these different definitions of freedom. They may conflict at times but they are not in opposition to each other. There must be a way to realize both the freedoms of the individual to live a better life, and the freedoms of witting or unwitting participants in a digital world governed by increasingly invisible hands.

The intersection is surprising. Before identifying it, it is important to understand its purpose. The purpose of the intersection of these two definitions of freedom is to unify and empower people to be in control of their own destinies. Our destinies and futures are influenced but not entirely controlled by our environments. Both types of freedom believe in the right of the individual to understand the ways a system works, in order to understand how the system impacts them.

Said simply, the purpose is inclusion. The purpose is to bring together. The purpose is to empower. The purpose is give individuals the tools to shape their own destinies.

The name of this intersection is digital intersectionality.

Digital intersectionality makes inclusion a first-class citizen. It must take an intersectional approach from the outset if it is to accommodate the hyper-globalized world we live in. Albert Einstein once reflected in a letter to schoolchildren in Japan about his great delight in being able to communicate across such distances—something that was unheard of at the time. It is a cute memory, but also emphasizes the ways the world has changed since the most widely-known events of human genocide. Digital intersectionality has no borders. Its borders are decentralized; its borders may or may not have nationality. Copper wire, fiber lines, satellite receivers; these are the conduits that digital intersectionality resides in.

Digital intersectionality must be about inclusion. Digital intersectionality by definition must always be intersectional. Digital intersectionality must always consider the role of the individual in contributing to healthy, collective society. Digital intersectionality must embrace love.

What now? 🔗

Chadwick Boseman is gone. But we are not.

We are in the same world. Breathing the same air. Living under the same sun, and the same stars. As I see the void and grief left behind in his wake, as I look around me in a global pandemic that places the heaviest burdens on those with the most to bear, as I continue to see the effects of unjust systems perpetuate, I am thinking more about my own role in shaping the world we must create.

So I will continue to advocate and celebrate both freedoms, software freedom and inner freedom, under the mutual banner of digital intersectionality.

Special thanks to my early editors!

Grief is a strange emotion. One text message read early in the morning can send your day into a long walk down the beach of your own memories. Memories flood back, making us conscious that these lost moments of time were never really lost to us, but locked under deep layers of interlocking memories and contexts that only had to be connected back together, like a broken circuit. Today, my memories and heart are on my former summer camp roommate and friend Hannah/Honor Loeb. (I knew her as Hannah in her life, but at time of death, she identified as Honor, so that is the name I will use for this post.)

When I think of you, Honor, a mixed spectrum of emotions comes over me.

First, I feel selfish for making a post that is probably as much for me as it is for you. A great irony in death are the many interpretations of an explanation it brings. It is impossible to know exactly how the deceased would wish for their death to be remembered, because they are not present. Yet those who were connected to the deceased also experience their own spectrum of emotions. Perhaps it is human for us to make the death of someone else about ourselves, where we become included in the attention that death brings. But perhaps it is also the natural experience of how we process grief and trauma, in that making someone else’s death about us, it affords us the privilege and opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their life, and how we will continue to live our life in light of their absence.

Second, I feel happiness and joy. I remember my first experience living together with you as roommates at the Duke University Talent Identification Program at the University of Georgia. I remember the trips from Georgia to Alabama to visit and stay with your family. I remember the time you showed me Battlestar Galactica for the first time, and staying up with me to watch episode after episode. Even though you had probably seen these episodes countless times before. I remember the warm sunny mornings in Montgomery when we would go out for breakfast and we would talk about life. I remember when at the end of every meal out, I never had a choice of whether I would pay for myself or not.

Third, I feel guilt and shame. I remember being afraid to invite you to my home in Georgia, because my home was not a safe place then. I remember when you drove from Ithaca to visit me in Rochester, and you let me interview you as a member of the trans community for a class assignment. Then, months later, I remember not replying to your texts, missing your calls, and always putting off invitations to meet. I remember seeing our lives slowly drift apart, and how I felt powerless to do anything about it. Even if the powerlessness was imagined. I remember not knowing how to help you with your emotional burdens when I was still figuring out how to carry my own experiences and traumas. I remember the random times in my life where you did come across my mind, unprompted. In those moments, I thought of all I learned from you and how you lived in life. In those moments, I remember hoping you were well, but I also remember my fear and hesitation about reaching out to you after so long. I remember consciously deciding not to try the phone number or the email I had saved for you from 2013. Maybe your contact info changed eventually. But maybe it didn’t. I’ll never know.

Today, I learned that you passed away. You are dead. I will never get to see your smile, I will never get to hear your voice, and I will never get to have a warm hug with you again. These are all hard truths that I must acknowledge. Like I said, grief is a strange emotion. We all handle and process grief in unique, personalized ways that reflect our life experiences. For me, I have to define and understand the losses of this experience in order to practice gratitude and appreciation for the positive moments and experiences we shared.

The end of a life is never black-and-white. As you always exemplified in being a powerful trans voice from the socially-conservative state of Alabama, a binary understanding of complex social issues is rarely sufficient. Experiencing my grief from the end of your life is a wide spectrum of emotions because your life spanned several different emotions. Instead of categorizing my different emotions into their categorical boxes, I am allowing them to all wash over me. The happiness, the joy, the sadness, the anger, the selfishness, the guilt, and the shame. I know I cannot deny any of these emotions because they are all a part of you.

I have to accept these emotions as feedback to what your life means to me in this moment. I appreciate the great ways you expanded my mind and taught me to see the world differently. I lament the ways I let our connection fade and sputter, and that the last significant moment I have to connect with you is in your death. From what you taught me as a teenager, I began to see beyond the binary belief instilled in me from my youth. From what you taught me as a young adult, I know that how we carry our relationships, friendships, and love throughout life is always in some part our own responsibility.

When reading the news of your death, I have to be honest with myself. A part of me was not surprised or entirely shocked by this news. In a world where queer and trans folk are often treated as second-class humans, the pandemic of mental illness and suicide are undeniable in LGBTQ+ communities. I don’t understand how I feel even now to learn that your death was from a “non-COVID infection”. You fell sick. To what degree this infection inflicted pain upon you, I don’t know. All I know is, the path in life I followed brings me to this point where the first thing I hear about you in a number of years is your death.

Part of me knows I cannot assign myself blame for these circumstances. I know I alone cannot wear all blame because we live in an interdependent world, where every effect and outcome is linked by several smaller causes. But if only for myself, I have to acknowledge what my role is in your life and how I will choose to continue my life in the knowledge that yours ended too soon. I acknowledge that I probably played differing roles in your life, sometimes a loving friend, and sometimes an apathetic jerk. But again, life is often not so binary, not in life nor in death. I only hope that if you had the opportunity to read this, you would be able to forgive me for the ways I wronged you in your living life, and for you to know how much I really did love you.

Why does this matter? 🔗

This exploration and thought experiment is important to understand when revisiting social movements in technology in the current day. In the FOSDEM 2020 talk Mike and I gave, we presented three possible digital “freedoms” for artificial intelligence. The rights-based approach we presented at FOSDEM 2020 was inspired by the origin of the Free Software movement.

But to understand how we got to today with thousands of contributors to the Linux project, billions of dollars in open source company buyouts, and the words “open source” used on mainstream cable news channels, we have to start from the beginning, in 1983.

27 Sept. 1983: GNU Project announced 🔗

On 27 September 1983, the GNU Project was announced by Richard Stallman. The GNU Project was a collection of Free Software tools for building a free operating system. But it was also more than that. The GNU Project came with a vision to give computer users freedom and control of their use of computers. To do this, the GNU Project advocated for four fundamental freedoms:

• Run software in any way desired
• Copy and distribute the software
• Study it (i.e. reading the source code)
• Modify it and make changes

Today, we call these the Four Freedoms.

So, the GNU Project was founded with these fundamental freedoms as the motivation for why they did what they did. It was more than shipping code for code’s sake, but to lead by example in how software could be developed without sacrificing the rights of users.

4 Oct. 1985: Free Software Foundation founded 🔗

Next, skip ahead to 4 October 1985. Two years after the launch of GNU, the Free Software Foundation (F.S.F.) is founded to support and sustain GNU and the Free Software movement. The values of the GNU Project were important and valuable, but it wasn’t enough to leave them out in the world on their own.

At first, the F.S.F. focused on employing software developers to work on Free Software and the GNU Project. Later, the F.S.F. transitioned to legal and structural issues to support the Free Software community.

So, it is one thing to have your values and ethics out there, but they need to be protected and respected by the rest of the world too. The F.S.F. represented the sustainability of protecting these rights and beliefs, originally put forth by GNU.

While the F.S.F. does help sustain those rights, how does a nonprofit foundation actually enforce these rights in practice?

25 Feb. 1989: GNU General Public License created 🔗

Finally, we skip ahead four more years to 25 February 1989: the first version of the GNU Public License (G.P.L.) is created. This is the license that gave “copyleft” a name. It was written and released for the GNU Project, but the license itself was stewarded by the F.S.F.

The G.P.L. put power in the hands of individual people and activists to shape how others used their software. Thus, copyleft is put into a practical legal policy. In a sense, the G.P.L. allowed software developers to place the Four Freedoms at the core of their code.

Although enforcement of copyleft licenses has a blemished history, it was still the “teeth” in translating these values and values to the rest of the world. It took inspiration from how copyright was not something often considered when distributing software until the early 1980s.

And thus, copyleft becomes a radical invention in software with the proliferation of the G.P.L., especially in its adoption in prominent projects like the Linux kernel.

Is the past relevant to social movements today? 🔗

So this was a lot of history. Is the past relevant to where we are today? First, consider how the early Free Software movement responded to these emerging societal issues in the 1980s.

Free Software was a response to the changing ecosystem of software distribution. Software became more valued because of a standardization on hardware that didn’t exist previously. There were simply fewer architectures to compile for!

Suddenly, the value of software increased. It became a commodity.

Before this commodification of software, the Four Freedoms were, in a sense, the default way of distributing and sharing software. After commodification, this was no longer true. The Four Freedoms were rooted in a belief that there are essential rights that belong to all users of computers and computer systems. Stallman observed this change directly at the MIT Media Lab in the 1970s and early 1980s. This motivated him and many others to stand up for Software Freedom by asserting these freedoms.

To respond to commodification of software, Free Software took a freedom-based approach to established their values, as the Four Freedoms. So, looking back 40 years ago, is it possible to extend and make the past relevant again in today’s changing world?

Before we can answer that, we have to first ask. How has the world changed?

Your future is the new commodity. 🔗

The history of Free Software overlaps with what is happening now.

Today the world is about predictions: predictions about human futures. This is accomplished by the combination of software and data. Human futures are a simple formula: Data + Software. Or, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But how are human futures becoming a commodity? In the 1980s, software became the thing we “sold”. It had inherent value. Today, the ability to predict what you are doing to do next is valuable. This makes both your and my future the new commodity. Where will we go next? What will we buy next? Who have we contacted recently?

But data is only one piece of this big puzzle. It is the enabling force for determining our futures. Third-party organizations collect the world’s data on a massive, centralized scale. Your data is what allows companies to sell your future.

To add a metaphor, data is like oil, not gold. You consume the input (data) to sell the output (human futures).

Where are we today? 🔗

So, how have we responded to our changing world?

There have been some successful resistance to the new value of user data and human futures. The privacy movement and legislation like G.D.P.R. are representative of this.

However, data privacy is only one part of the big picture. Focusing on individual empowerment does not protect us from societal effects. Consider predictive policing and court rulings as two examples.

Ultimately, the data privacy movement has been a key factor in combating the effects of surveillance capitalism, but there are still gaps. Mike and I noticed we need to approach topics like artificial intelligence not in pieces, but as a whole.

And some organizations have recognized this challenge and are working to address it. “Working groups” and reports with non-mandatory recommendations are on the rise. However, these groups are not effective on moving forward ways of ensuring people are effectively protected from the unforeseen harms of AI systems. “Light self-regulation” works on an opt-in model, and it is against the interest of some actors to opt in.

So, if we are in the middle of this societal shift from software as a commodity to human futures as a commodity, where do we go from here? Do we choose chaos or community?

At time of publication, I am still wrestling with these questions. As are a lot of people! To get a wider picture of what is on my mind in 2020, read my event reports from my pre-coronavirus 2020 travels.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash.

I never intend to adjust myself to injustice.

“I’m proud to be maladjusted.” https://t.co/TFBiWBy6Xc

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) December 12, 2019

Where Byfield was accurate 🔗

While I don’t agree with all of Byfield’s sentiments, he identified some key challenges that still hold truth today: a predisposition to focus on differences and not similarities, an outreach approach centered on ethics and not software, and the importance of opportunities for intersectional interaction.

Predisposition towards difference 🔗

First, Byfield notes the differing age groups of the activist communities and the tendency for viewing others by their differences first, not their similarities. He seems to attribute the tendency to view others by differences first as a characteristic of older generations; however, this is not necessarily the full truth.

As a member of the young activist community, this explanation is too simplistic of the underlying cause. There is also a political motivation by established power to sow division among the population of a nation-state. It makes community organizing more difficult and presents diversity as an issue to “solve” instead of a source of greater unity and common strength.

This is exemplified by the social media algorithms of today that reward sensational content (judged on likes, views, clicks, or other user feedback) and share it widely across a huge platform. In 2006, it was difficult to imagine the relationship social media would have in the lives of an everyday person; today, a great deal of social power is granted to those who understand how to leverage social media, either for good (e.g. social activism) or harm (e.g. deceptively persuading large parts of a nation-state’s population leading up to a national election).

The politics of division are within the fabric of our political systems; this is a challenge for modern-day activism and community organizing to overcome. In identifying this as a challenge, Byfield is correct that a differences-first approach makes it harder to share and spread the importance of FOSS in other activism circles, especially as technology becomes an increasingly relevant way of how we experience our lives and how our systems of law and justice are enforced.

Outreach on ethics, not software 🔗

Second, Byfield suggests an ethics-based approach to outreach is more effective than a software-based approach. This is also correctly noted, even if perhaps overemphasized. The jargon and language of the technology world is not accessible to the large majority of the global population. While some degree of technology literacy might be expected in some populations, much of the existing FOSS community is deeply rooted in technology. Sometimes this limited perspective is counterproductive.

This revisits the rebranding of “Free Software” as “open source” in 1997. For many subsets of the wider open source community in 2019, the default approach to open source software is merely a secondary thought for how to collaboratively work on technology. This is part of the outcome of the Open Source Initiative’s gamble in 1997 by beginning to emphasize the business sensibility and practicality of open source, and de-emphasize the social roots of Free Software (or rather, try and position itself as some sort of translator between these two “worlds”, as if they cannot be spoken of together in the same room).

As such, those who work on open source software projects are not necessarily predisposed to assume the role of an activist. Truly if Free Software is to take root outside of technology, then those who see the ethical values of Free Software need to better organize and promote the values of FOSS externally. This will contribute to the diversity of Free Software activism by helping non-technology activists add FOSS as a tool to their existing work.

Intersectional movement building is the future 🔗

Thirdly and finally, and perhaps most importantly, Byfield suggests the importance of intersectional interactions between Free Software communities and other activist communities. This is a fundamental requirement for the growth of Free Software as a social movement. Those of us in Free Software see the world around us informed by a background informed by technology; this background is emphasized in a world that is generating new, advanced technology at an unprecedented rate. However, while software and technology are important parts of the world around us, they are not the world around us. They are one part of a greater picture of fighting for a common good and welfare for all people. There are others in similar niches who have a deep understanding of their problem space and how they want to approach a challenge.

“One group may be working against child poverty, another for recycling, but the people in these organizations can almost be transferred from one to the next.”

Peter T. Brown, Free Software Foundation Executive Director (2006)

Just like a healthy garden, cross-pollination of these niches is vital to help others understand how we can help each other in accomplishing our mutual goals (this also feeds into why the politics of division explained above is so pervasive and difficult). Bringing Free Software technologists to activist communities where there is not an overwhelming Free Software background (and vice versa) is vital to building an intersectional social movement that strengthens the social impact of Free Software, not just open source.

Where Byfield didn’t go far enough 🔗

Byfield made one assumption on how activists have “their own share of insularity” and that the presence of connections between two movements does not mean they could immediately connect their existing beliefs with new ones. Fioretti’s challenge was in others understanding why they should listen to him; there was a lack of foundational knowledge of open source and technology that is normally assumed of someone who works as a software engineer.

Indeed, attention is a currency in the world of an activist. It is not enough for a FOSS advocate to expect others to listen to you on an appeal of technology. Part of the work in sharing is understanding who you are sharing with; if FOSS wants to take deeper roots in the activist community, it needs to understand the backgrounds of activist communities and be creative in how to appeal the mission of FOSS to the mission of their work. Where you can build in-roads together with others through common initiatives is the beginning of grassroots community organizing. So, while Byfield is right that there is an almost competitive nature of ideas in activism, it is not enough to write insularity off as a fixed aspect of nature. To not acknowledge this is to deny the influence of capitalist power structures in the humanitarian sector as they pertain to sustainable funding.

What are today’s challenges? 🔗

Some of today’s challenges are about inclusion and power.

Inclusion builds power 🔗

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) are important but poorly understood; not only are D&I about including people of different identities in technology, but also people with backgrounds outside of technology. FOSS stands to benefit by including more people who do not necessarily have a strong technology or engineering background. The goal is to inspire different perspectives to contribute in meaningful ways to build sustainable technology.

Instead of seeing diversity and inclusion initiatives as problematic or unneeded, D&I groups in FOSS communities stand to be the most effective people at building community and influence.

Power and governance 🔗

In the activist / humanitarian / non-profit world, there is a power struggle for sustainability as it pertains to funding. Funding models in non-profit work (usually sustained by grants, sponsors, and donors) encourage solutions that get funded, not necessarily solve problems the most effective way. Many organizations struggle with how to achieve sustainable funding without being so dependent on the expiration date of a grant’s funding.

We need more representative governance models in open source communities that reflect the interests of the communities around them, not necessarily an individual, a company, or group of companies. Building governance models that empower people within a community to make decisions and reduce the corrosive influence of money from humanitarian work.

Where do we go from here? 🔗

This blog post is an active reflection of my own thoughts and perspectives of Free Software, activism, and humanitarian work. If you are interested in pushing this conversation further, find me in Brussels, Belgium for any of the following three conferences and let’s chat further:

• 30 January 2020: Sustain Summit
• 31 January 2020: CHAOSScon
• 1-2 February 2020: FOSDEM

If you want to discuss this further, you can also drop a line in our online discussion community, fossrit.community.

Photo by Walid Berrazeg on Unsplash

The entry is lifted out of my journal with minimum edits. I thought about fully revising it or updating it before publishing. Many parts I would write in a different way now, but I decided to let it be. It reflects my perspective at that particular moment and time at 19 years old. It is more personal than other posts I’ve published and maybe it’s a little uncomfortable for me to share, but I felt like it was worth doing anyways.

entry002: 2017-02-12 🔗

Picking up the pen to write in this is always difficult because it feels like there’s too much to say. Part of the problem is that I don’t write frequently enough, which I’ll try to improve. Not everything worth saying needs to be publicly lambasted.

I left the apartment for coffee after again reading the story of Seth Vidal, a founding developer of YUM and a one-time Fedora superstar. Seth was killed in a hit-and-run accident while cycling in 2013.

What strikes me so much about Seth isn’t just the work or code he left behind, but his legacy. There is no shortage of blog posts dedicated in his memory, with many written by folks I see regularly in Fedora. He is held in a high respect and regard not only because of his work, but how he worked with people. He was clearly a sincere friend of many in the community and always knew how to use and share his brilliance to bring out the same brilliance of those he worked with. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but he always did so courteously and in a way where there was a next step or improvement. As one memoir quoted him as saying with a cocked head and a smile, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

It’s odd for me to read about Seth and how connected to him I feel, despite his death occurring well before I was anywhere near where I am now. Maybe it’s because I, like [thousands] of others, use his software. But more likely is because I see the type of impact and legacy is something I wish to share. Not having so many people write memoirs of my passing, but more about how many lives, communities, and people he touched. I see a man you could approach with anything, whether he knew you or not, and he would give you his honest opinion to help drive or motivate you to success. It may not be what you want to hear, but it will be what you need to hear. Again, delivery of that message is critical, and Seth seemed to be pretty good at it.

I may not know Seth, nor will I ever, but his legacy gives me a strong reminder about what I hold important and how I want to carry out my presence in the projects I’m involved with. If more people want more Seth Vidal’s in the world, then we need to [understand] his values, compare them to our own, and build those values into our own being. This is part of the idea of actively shaping and adapting our values, and never settling with the way we are because we think we know these things. If the mind is open and willing, we are always learning, and thus, always changing.

In summary? Seth’s light fades out and burns into embers, but it never dies. His legacy will always be there, for friends to remember and strangers to learn from. Amidst all of this panicked writing I have to do after DevConf and FOSDEM, Seth’s legacy levels me and reminds me of what’s important. Sometimes what’s really important is logging off and going for a bike ride, or a coffee with notebook and pen, or sharing precious time with loved ones. Seth, you may be gone and have no memory of me, but I have your memory, and I hope you are with me too.

Justin Wheeler

This article explains changes I made to how I use social media and my smart phone since deleting my accounts. Hopefully you find these tips useful too.

1. Social media on-the-go is a no 🔗

Today’s world is full of content. Videos, friend requests, likes, comments, memes, notifications. We are always connected and online. An endless amount of media, pop culture, and content is at our fingertips. Sometimes this is helpful and convenient, like a quick message to a friend.

But a constant connection can be a drug too. When a convenient escape from a moment always exists in your pocket, this encourages a default reaction of opening the phone and scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or anything that offers a momentary distraction or something “more interesting” than whatever we are currently doing. Ultimately, we turn to social media on our smartphones for a short blast of dopamine.

Remove the “convenience” factor 🔗

I took two steps to break this habit. First, acknowledge there are negative effects to social media usage. I also had to acknowledge that self-discipline and self-moderation is hard. I knew the negative effects of social media usage, but despite knowing this, it was still hard to avoid. So, the second step is to make the self-discipline easier: drop the apps from your phone.

When I deleted Facebook and eventually Instagram apps from my phone, they were no longer convenient. To check either one, I had to use a mobile web app or a computer. The mobile web apps were tedious and slow, and a computer was not always accessible. When the “convenience” factor was gone, it became easier to disconnect from the online world because it simply wasn’t there.

Anything that required me to use social media could wait until it was convenient – usually when I am sitting down at a computer.

Soup is on, phone is off 🔗

I also took steps to increase my awareness of my usage. If having a dinner with friends or colleagues, I turned my phone off before entering the restaurant or meeting the group. My phone is off at the moments I turn to it at the dinner table. Powering it back on is inconvenient. Whatever distraction I was looking for would have to wait five minutes for the phone to boot.

“Right, it’s off for a reason,” I would think as I slipped the phone back into my pocket.

2. Data-driven observations: Scientific method for phones 🔗

After deleting my social media accounts, I wanted to understand: how often do I use my phone? What applications steal most of my attention? How much is too much? I decided to take a scientific approach and run an experiment.

I took a quantitative approach. I measured my usage by application to understand how much time I spent on different apps. I discovered QualityTime, an application that met my requirements. QualityTime measures your total daily screen usage, how much time you use on all applications, and how many times you unlock your phone screen in a day. [Note: Since this article was written, both iOS and Android introduced phone usage metrics. No app is required for this anymore, but QualityTime still offers some useful features.]

After installing QualityTime, I used the default quota of two and a half hours a day as the suggested maximum daily use. I was surprised I came close to or past 2.5 hours every day. Now, I see what applications take most of my time. Then, I make adjustments based on the feedback I see. I started to think things like…

Is this application worth the two hours a day? What am I getting out of this?

I need to cut back here, over four hours is way too much.

Now, I had data to inform my lifestyle changes or alert me when I need to make changes. When I saw my daily usage by the numbers, I better understood my own habits. It increased my awareness into how I use my phone and manage my digital life.

And often, awareness is the best foundation for making incremental changes to our life and how we manage our time.

3. What you see is what you find 🔗

What and who do you allow in your social media life? Your “feed”, for any application or app, is powerful. Your feed is a daily dose of perspective and thoughts delivered directly to your phone. What you see in social media is what you will find reflected back in the world around you.

In my case, I still use Twitter as my primary social media presence. Since deleting my Facebook and Instagram, I also become more aware of my Twitter timeline. I never followed many people by some standards – 200 people or so. First, I realized I missed content from half of those people because of how Twitter tailors what I see. Second, I become more aware of the actual content from the people I followed.

Change configuration settings of your mood 🔗

Since the November 2016 elections, social media is a “black box”. You will find many different things. You find empowering optimism, cynical pessimism, and some things between the two. As I found out, content on my timeline has a tangible, noticeable effect on my daily perspective. If someone I follow launches a cynical Twitter thread about a current event, that cynicism translates into my own view.

We cannot pretend that what we read on the screen has no effect on our real lives.

Less is more 🔗

So, I became a “jerk”. I reduced who I followed on Twitter to about 50 people. Then I sought out people from various aspects of my life—technology, spirituality, friends and family—that have a positive impact to my daily outlook. I put a filter on what I filter in my feed: I looked for inspirational wisdom, people who would motivate me to enlightened action. I turned away from anger, angst, hate, and cynicism.

However, there is a balance between naïvety and cynicism. We can choose optimism without being naïve. Additionally, we can choose skepticism without being cynical. The point is not to drown out reality or hide away in a bubble. We must be realistic about what is happening in the world and stay hopeful. To stay motivated. To not wake up, read through your feed, and curl back depressed into bed.

My best advice is be conscious of what you filter in your social media feed. Your feed is close and personal. It is powerful. And what you see digitally is often what you find reflected back at you in non-digital life.

Considering Facebook deletion? 🔗

Considering to cut the plug? Check out this excellent article from Recode about how to responsibly cut down on Facebook. Even if full deletion is not what you are after, it suggests helpful tips on spending less time there.

Good luck! 🔗

These lessons are fundamental to me and changed how I manage my digital life. Beyond the digital world, I notice the beginnings of change. I am more present in the things I do and spend my time with. Now, when I go out with friends and family, I appreciate the time spent with them without a hole burning in my pocket.

I hope these lessons are also helpful to you too. Additionally, if you have any other tips or comments for others, please drop a comment below!

Featured image arranged by Justin Wheeler.

friends by Ilaria. Bernareggi, thumbs up by mikicon, Facebook by Saloni Sinha, and more by Ilaria Bernareggi from the Noun Project.

Yet, he stands and watches for perhaps five or ten minutes, before taking his leave. During his observation, he was never interrupted by a digital device. Only the ever-present world filled that moment for him. The moment, like many others, is preserved into the mind as a scientist meticulously stores his laboratory materials.

Smart phone world 🔗

The world of digital devices alters modern experience of reality. Time no longer asserts priority or influence over a moment. In a moment, a smart phone takes a picture of something nice, and preserves it in electrons. At any moment in the future, you spend that moment reflecting back on the captured moment. It will never leave you, as you preserved a digital replica.

But the missed point is the relationship between analog and digital. Analog is the pure format – there is no conversion. All digitized items suffer from quality loss when converted from analog to digital, and back to analog. Sound, colors, brightness, warmth… all factors that lack in a digital form.

Humans may invent experiences for ourselves to simulate and re-live a moment or some time, but it will only ever be a simulation. Without the ability to access time as a dimension, there is no way anything will ever be but a simulation created or influenced by modern-day humans.

Lossy compression of memory 🔗

So the smart phone age of the information era deteriorates time’s hold on capturing your attention. Just like a digital song starts analog, goes digital, and comes out analog again, we down-scale our memories on the conversion scale. It’s a lossy compression. We hold a moment in our hands, measured by pixels, over a connection and passion that comes from remembering the full power of a moment.

But the solution isn’t to abandon the digital world and cast the device aside. The solution is to promote and encourage better balance between the digital and analog worlds. Compact lenses capture a moment, but the act of capturing doesn’t have to end the moment. If your digital world is ever gnawing at your back, find time to pull out into the analog world a bit.

Featured image by Justin Wheeler. Uses content by Iris Li from the Noun Project.