Ghosting the Internet
and My Self-Shredding Banksy Project
Your support helped make The Rewilded Soul a Featured Substack Publication! Thank you! 🙏 If you enjoy my work, please consider clicking ❤️ or 🔄 on this post so even more people can discover it.Back in 2019, my social media fatigue reached a critical point. I had spent over a decade in entertainment management and marketing, helping famous people become famouser, and I had grown tired of it all. So I went thermonuclear with my online presence, deleted everything, and became a virtual ghost.
As I suspected, no one noticed, which bothered me far less than I expected. It felt strangely satisfying and liberating to wipe out my digital footprints. To not have to be somebody.
What I didn’t miss during my Ghost Years was the caustic noise of echo chambers and ads. What I did miss, however, was the simple joy of creating something for the sake of it and, with a click, releasing it into the wild just because I could.
That joy is something Substack has once again opened up for me. Because it did, I also recently did the unthinkable and started an Instagram account as an experiment and way to set some ideas loose in the wild again.
To be honest, I’m not sure how long I’ll stick around Instagram. Probably only until it stops being fun. I’m not trying to build a brand or become an influencer. I’m creating for the sake of it. I see it as a kind of “pop up” shop or art installation that will be around until it’s not—kind of like that self-shredding Banksy painting.
If you’re on the Gram, as the young kids say these days, feel free to look me up (@kevinkaiser.co). If you’re not, I’ll also be sharing through Substack Notes. Either way, I want to share a few of the ideas I’ve been sharing over there in case they encourage you, which is what all this is about anyway.
Also, I invite you to share your own thoughts and wisdom in the comments. What lessons or insights would you put on a Time’s Square billboard if you could?
Here are some of mine:
You will outgrow a lot of people when you start doing what’s best for you instead of what makes them feel comfortable.
We learn nothing from being right. All the good stuff comes from failure. So take risks like vitamins. Color outside the lines. Live a story worth telling.
Just because others are lost in the Comparison Game doesn’t mean you have to be. Measuring your life with someone else’s ruler has always been optional.
Spirituality in all of its forms and expressions isn’t about escaping our humanness. It’s about plunging more deeply into it.
You’re allowed to recreate, redefine, and reimagine your self as often as you’d like. In fact, you must. It’s why you’re here.
Knowledge is learning new, useful ideas. Wisdom is unlearning old, useless ones.
The only way to be truly happy in a relationship is for both people to first know how to be happy alone. Then the relationship is about sharing happiness rather than demanding it from each other.
You’re under no obligation to believe your thoughts. In fact, most of the time, you’re better off not getting involved with them at all.
The more you fit into modern society, the less free you actually are.
Trying to control life is like trying to empty the ocean using a paper cup. The ocean won’t mind, but you’ll end up ruining a perfectly good cup.
Learn to be okay with being disliked and you’ll never make yourself a prisoner of others’ opinions again.
How to be happier today: Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.
No one has ever judged you. They’ve only judged their own ideas and stories about you, which have nothing to do with you. It’s their stuff, not yours unless you make it yours.
We’re all living intentional lives. The only difference is whose intentions we’re living by—our own or others’.
The next time you’re triggered by a person or situation, remember: this is life’s way of revealing the limiting stories and beliefs that keep sabotaging you from within. Everything is a mirror. What you do with what you see is up to you.
Our lives take the shape of our questions. If you want a small existence, ask small questions or no questions at all. If adventure is what you want, you must ask dangerous questions.
Relax. No one really knows what they’re doing. We’re all just making this stuff up as we go.
All spirituality is about what we do with our pain.
Peace is the natural result of recognizing that you don’t have to believe any of your thoughts.
You can only find your voice by using it.
How you love yourself is how you will love others. It’s impossible to give to others what you request to give yourself.
Unhappiness is guaranteed when you demand life be different than it is. Peace is inevitable when you stop fighting life and go into total cooperation with Reality.
One day you’ll realize you trust yourself fully and are no longer living with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake.
Happiness is the absence of the pursuit of happiness.
If you live each day as if it were your last, one day you’ll be right. So live full out.
Awareness is freedom. What you are aware of, you can control. What you are not aware of is in control of you.
Relationships are the ultimate growth opportunity for becoming our best self. Lean into uncomfortable moments, because the people who trigger you the most are often revealing the internal stories that no longer serve you.
When you stop measuring the day by how productive you were (or weren’t) and shift instead to how much presence you experienced, you’ll begin freeing yourself from the story of not being enough.
Over time, we train those we’re in relationship with how we want them to treat us. We decide our own boundaries. Ultimately, we have the relationships we want.
Life is a dance. If someone keeps steeping on your feet, it’s okay to find someone else to dance with. You can be kind and still hold your own space. Finding your voice and speaking up for yourself are always the right choice.
Descartes famously said, “I think, therefore, I am.” From the perspective o Being, the opposite is true: “I am, therefore, I think.”
Happiness is an inside job. Look closely and you’ll discover the situation you believe is your prison is locked from the inside and the key is in your pocket, where it has always been. The only thing keeping you there is your own need to punish yourself.
Intimacy is the compound interest of consistent, courageous connection. No one ever hit the intimacy Powerball. True connection with your Self and others unfolds with time and a willingness to be seen and known. The secret is hidden in the word “intimacy” itself: Into me see.
Never confuse your True Self with who you think you are, or who you think others think you are. You simply are. Everything beyond that is an opinion.
P.S. My good friend, Jeff Goins (Creator of The Ghost) and I are co-hosting a live call on November 21 about what it means to intentionally become a ghost in your life—to withdraw from the pressures and demands of the world to find a deeper truth.
This is an open call to everyone (paid and free subs alike). The details are below. I’ll send a reminder beforehand, but please save all this info.
Date & Time: November 21, 2023 at 3:30 Central Time (find your local time here).
Location: Zoom (recording will be available to paid subs only). Make sure you save this link and show up on time. You can also dial in (here’s a list of local numbers to use).
URL (this is the link above, but if it’s easier to copy and paste, you can do that): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81229756377?pwd=TzlaZlM4VGRKRXhldndxL0VZU3R4QT09
Meeting ID: 812 2975 6377
Passcode: ghost
"When you stop measuring the day by how productive you were (or weren’t) and shift instead to how much presence you experienced, you’ll begin freeing yourself from the story of not being enough." this was my favourite - thank you Kevin 💖
Yes, I loved it too. I saw a Clint Eastwood movie once, at least 40 years ago, and always remembered this line: "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one".