It's funny how "off the grid" to your generation is the "high school" of my generation. I didn't have a cell phone until I was 30 - and it was essentially the 2nd smartphone you could buy. "Off the grid" to my generation means "up in a cabin with no water, power, sewer, phone or television hookups." Take it from me - it can be done.

But it's boring.

The goal of traditional "off the grid" living is self-sufficiency, frugality and ascetic purity. It sounds like the goal of your "off the grid" is simply to reclaim some of your mental real estate. You're being distracted to death. You aren't alone. You're at a disadvantage - you've had it all in your face since you could walk, probably, which means you aren't inoculated against it. You'll have to build up immunity the hard way. It can be done, though.

Up until 2002 I said "I don't carry a cell phone because people don't have phone numbers, places do. I'm not a place. If you need to get ahold of me, you can call me where my phones are." Life made that rough but I gotta tell ya - I get maybe two calls a day. If we cut out the ones from my wife, I get maybe five calls a week. I check Facebook maybe twice a week, I don't tweet, i don't snapchat, I don't do any of that shit. And my life doesn't lack it.

To the contrary - I solved a sticky professional situation today. The problem had been generated by email etiquette. I fixed it by inviting the guy to lunch. SORTED. But you have to make that choice, and you have to make the people who matter to you understand that choice.

You don't have to answer your phone. You don't have to check your email. You don't have to log in all the fucking time. You choose to. You're conditioned to, everything about your life tells you to, your social network demands it of you. But it's still a choice.

Want something to do? Buy a Kindle. Not a Fire, not an HDX, a gray one that sucks for everything but books. Buy a book or two. You're conditioned to looking at a screen and you're conditioned to having a million songs in your pocket and having a dozen books will suit you. You can save things, your place doesn't get lost, and it'll sync to your phone. And the difference between "reading Facebook on the bus" and "reading a goddamn book on the bus" is night and day.

Buddy of mine has six motorcycles. We both ride in LA traffic every day. We independently came to the same conclusion - riding a motorcycle in LA traffic is the only way to be truly mindful, to be truly present in this city. If you're driving, you're tuned out (and probably stoned - you would not believe what the 405 smells like at rush hour). If you're a passenger, you're elsewhere. But on a motorcycle? "pay fucking attention to everything that is going on around you or you might die." That choice - to commute in a dangerous and high-attention way - is one of the few things that actually keeps you present.

There's a phrase in one of my bar books: "Alcohol is an excellent servant but a terrible master." Technology is the same. If you're letting your gadgets pistol-whip you into doing things you don't want to do, the solution is to sack up and take some initiative in your life. Yeah, you can downgrade all your stuff so it's less of a temptation… but in the end, if you don't learn how to deal with it you'll be a slave as soon as your girlfriend leaves her iPhone at your house.

You don't have to go "off the grid." You simply have to choose not to have the grid on you.