Or: forty-seven years of pointless wars, one broken nervous system, and a very unexpected peace treaty.

I have never experienced this kind of intense self-discipline. I may even say, torture. But as the little framed quotes in every abusive boss’s office say, the harder the work, the sweeter the victory.

It felt like an open war with three different battlefields, three different disciplines, and a magical result in changing how I experience life. Something I don’t remember ever experiencing before — except maybe when I was a baby, not yet aware of all the drugs and desires this life has to offer. The last innocent time, before my mum introduced me to pizza. Three disciplines: one by force, another by choice, and the story of how I slowed down enough to see. The three disciplines are meditation, coffee, and the internet — and I had to lose all three before I could find myself.

Not my first time doing meditation, but as simple as it is, it’s actually hard — maybe because it’s too simple? We don’t really see results quickly or any dramatic change? I spent the last 17 years convincing myself to keep doing it, but I always failed. Or to be more precise, I only managed to stick to it for short periods before it got lost in the long list of to-dos, behind losing weight and buying a dog to pick up chicks. There were times I couldn’t manage even a two-minute meditation. Those two minutes felt like an eternity. Two minutes only, and I couldn’t sit still. My mind was processing a waterfall of thoughts — a combination of over-analysing, regretting the past, and worrying about the future, but never in the now. On my recent trip to India, a four-week yoga program was easier, as always, but it only worked there. Once back home, I was back in the loop of cancelling or postponing planned meditations. Even worse, quitting mid-session. Everything that I tried to avoid thinking about comes rushing back — even remembering the most embarrassing things from my childhood, like that one time I was forced to play the role of the groom in a wedding game by my cousin, who desperately wanted to play the bride, and whose fierce eyes left me no choice. It seems my mind refuses to sit quietly so much that it punishes me every time I try. Specifically, the last three years were hard for meditation. There was something else. Something was happening that made it extra difficult. I did find out, and things changed dramatically, with a very surprising result. It seems there were other factors I had abandoned. Like a father who went out for a cigarette and never came back.

Meanwhile, after three years of suffering from mysterious dizziness — which kept me in bed for two or three days at a time, and when less severe, still prevented me from enjoying my days — I finally found out what was wrong with me. A dysfunction in the Autonomic Nervous System, the part that regulates blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature. It also caused fogginess, memory loss, and vertigo. It forced me into a specific and very limited lifestyle. Maybe that’s why it was hard to focus on meditation? So for three years I didn’t know what the issue was, but I finally found out. And now it required me to give up all stimulants, including coffee. Coffee — the biggest capitalist, colonialist scam humanity has ever been fooled by. I was fooled by it myself, believing I needed it. It’s a must, they say. You need it to reach your potential, be happy, and be productive, they say. I would wake up every morning in the worst mood. Ready to kill anyone who smiles at me too early, too happy. And before a sip of water, brushing my teeth, or a shower, I would go to the coffee machine and do the whole ritual of preparing my divine cup of that liquid that holds the secrets to my success. To hold that cup closer to my nose, to smell the aroma of the gods, as I am the chosen one, and the only one who will lead life to its full potential. And then slowly — sometimes in one shot like tequila, depending on how depressed I am — I would drink it. And slowly I feel life coming back to me. Colors start fading in, in a brain that woke up black and white. I see the red, the yellow, and the blue, all in a dance of ecstasy. I am alive again and ready for the day. That’s us every morning, pumping our veins with the black liquid — the caffeine — which plants produce primarily as a chemical weapon: a natural pesticide that poisons insects, suppresses competing plants, and even manipulates the behavior of pollinators. Neither the productivity nor the happiness was real. The withdrawal of coffee created the depression, and having it back gives us that feeling of happiness, making us believe that coffee makes us happy, while we forgot that it took that happiness away from us in the first place. A classic illusion and a trap for a cliché addiction. Pumping the body with adrenaline and cortisol doesn’t deliver the magic promised by a society that pushes you to go faster, to win the race. It’s the illusion of energy, born from noticing the mind moving faster. Oh, I so enjoyed that illusion. Going to work feeling like a general on a battlefield, giving commands to my officers, analysing the situation and finding quick solutions. Being rough, tough, and pushy. Poor guys, they had to deal with me — but hey, they were on the same drug. Plus cigarettes, obviously.

I don’t remember the first time I had coffee, no matter how hard I try to recall — and I really tried before writing this. That’s how long ago it was. I only remember not having it as a child, but when the switch happened, I have no idea. I do remember the first time I tried to quit, which was two years ago, at the age of 45. Just so you know, I drank a lot. Really a lot. I mean, a lot. So much so that when I announced I was quitting, I got those “yeah, right” smirks, which felt more insulting than doubting my capability to cook an authentic, good Indonesian Nasi Goreng. We’re talking five to six espresso shots a day. That was the norm, the average, on a relatively low-stress workday. So when I decided to overcome my wounded ego and start quitting, I managed to lower it to two espressos — but stopping completely was the hardest thing I’d ever experienced. Cutting it out suddenly brought me the worst headaches I’ve ever had. I felt as if my head was going to explode, like an elephant was squeezing it. I found out later that there’s an explanation for this: caffeine physically constricts the blood vessels in your brain. Stop suddenly, and they all expand at once — flooding your brain with blood, pressuring the surrounding nerves. Your head doesn’t just feel like it’s exploding. In a sense, it is. And even worse than that, the depression hit me like a train. So much so that I had thoughts of ending my life. Life stopped having meaning. There was no longer a reason to go on. My dramatic Arab side, maybe overreacting — but hey, even food didn’t taste good, and that says a lot coming from that Arab side. So I stopped quitting. I got back to coffee and restrategized to quit gradually — less coffee, until I reached one espresso a day. Then I switched to black tea, and reduced that too. When I reached one cup, I switched to green tea, and when I reached one of those, I finally stopped completely. No coffee, no black tea, no green tea, no chocolate. No caffeine. A method that a few friends and family have tried with a 100% success rate — well, actually 50%, but I still want to convince you to try. But hey, still a better success rate than my diets.

I did quit completely for four months before eventually drifting back to five espressos a day. Now, on my second attempt, already 60 days in, I’m reminded of how surprised I was the first time. The full effect doesn’t come quickly — the body and nervous system need 21–30 days to reset — but already by the 14th day without caffeine, the magic begins. Less anxiety, fewer worries — and that alone is a big deal. The neck and shoulder muscles relax. The cheeks less tense. And a general ease in the air. By now I have the best sleep of my life and the best focus. I can concentrate on a single task for hours. The mind no longer drifts into side quests. Without caffeine, if you’re on idea, task, or thought A, you stay with it, finish it, and move to B. Finish it, then C. No more jumping from A to B to C and back to A within five seconds. I can listen to a podcast or read a book without my mind constantly wandering. This feels like a superpower — an underrated one that’s more important than flying. And of course, it rapidly reduced my dizziness — which was the first goal to begin with. So basically I am no longer the warrior on the battlefield fighting unnecessary wars. I am the exhausted one with his shield down, gardening. Not as a break, but a complete shift in perspective on life. Or more realistically, a guy who has a job and a few tasks to finish — but hey, the Arab in me.

Now imagine how this changed my meditation sessions. I could finally do more than five minutes. Slowly to seven, then ten, and on a good day, fifteen minutes. Not yet fully present — I still drifted quite a bit — but it was a huge achievement to sit still for that long. I laugh at it now, after starting my third discipline, which was much, much harder than those two combined. As for the drifting, that’s the norm in meditation, but I’ll leave that to another blog post.

The third discipline. The first time I realized its danger was around 2007, but I managed to quit and deactivate my Facebook account in 2009. It lasted six months before I was back. What bothered me most was how I became a different version of myself — posting ideas, topics, and jokes not to express myself but to get liked by my “friends.” Remember, back then, there were no reels to swipe, and smartphones with front cameras were only just emerging — the front camera that single-handedly created an entitled generation of half-naked duck faces, and gave us men flexing in wife-beaters and sports cars, both offering life and relationship advice, their entire profiles built to clickbait.

Beyond the damage social media has done to society, my personal issues were with focus, dopamine addiction, and emotional numbness — the result of swiping through 30-second videos of cute kids, then a funny dog, then a mother holding her freshly murdered baby in Gaza, then an OnlyFans model in a yoga pose because my algorithm says yoga. But there is a deeper issue. Something that gets a total grip on the mind. It is the constant connection.

When you subconsciously know you are connected to the world beyond your physical location, your mind must wander there. And it goes both ways — people, family, and work all expect you to reply to their emails and messages, adding pressure to an already pressured mind. Remember: the body is what exists in space and time, containing yourself, everything within the edge of your skin. The mind is the other side of the self — it has no fixed space or time. My mom, who lives 4,000 km away from me, went to her annual check-up. I worry. My nephew has exams — the family WhatsApp group has reported. Where is my shipment? Do I have enough money for rent, or should I borrow again? I hope my boss won’t message me after hours today. I bet they’re making fun of my dress at my cousin’s wedding last week. On and on and on. The never-stopping flow of thought makes you jump around. Us having that phone means I can check on those ideas, I can text, look, check, update, and follow up. Because I can do so, my mind is wired to do so. Dozens of thoughts on a daily basis, constantly pulling you from the local to the global. The mind can reach the edge of the world, but never where you actually are.

I’ll admit it. Sometimes, sitting at dinner with friends, someone is telling me a fascinating story, and I’m only half present — because of a message I read before leaving home. I am constantly informed. My mind knows it can reach anything, anywhere, anytime, and so it is now wired to roam to the furthest edges of the world. There are no limits. This enhances the speed of its shifting and the range of its wandering. 

Over 19 years of quitting and returning to social media — more times than I can count, everything from Twitter to Instagram to deleting the YouTube app — I even deleted WhatsApp once. But it never lasted. I always came back, and it always felt worse. It showed me my dependency and weakness. They talk about the walk of shame, but worse is the download-the-app-again shame, thinking of that friend who will say “I told you so.” But I learned a lot, and most importantly, I learned I had the wrong approach. Quitting is not the solution. The solution is to compress all internet use to an extreme minimum. I no longer have Wi-Fi at home — only a SIM card inserted in a basic Nokia phone. My smartphone is no longer connected to the internet. I’ve told everyone that if they need me, they should call. No messages, no DMs. Twice a day, for 30–45 minutes each time, I take my smartphone and laptop and go to a café with Wi-Fi — once in the morning, once in the late afternoon. During those windows only, I connect. It sends all the emails and messages I wrote offline, syncs my Google Drive documents, and downloads new ones I can work on at home offline. I even prepare what I want to post on social media while offline and publish it only when I’m at the café — no time to scroll through what others are posting. I now use an A6 notebook for my to-do list, schedule, thoughts, and ideas. And let me tell you: I have never experienced such clarity in my life. The first three days were the worst — intense anxiety and fear of being uninformed, especially with the war in the region, as my mind was on constant high alert, which made the stress far worse. Like the world leaders were waiting for me before making their decisions. Or maybe I was waiting for a bomb to drop and wanted to plan my escape route, as my mind truly imagined the worst. But every time I did connect, nothing. Just normal life. The globe functions without me? What a surprise. After those three days, it felt like the clouds had cleared. The sun was coming through. I could finally see blue sky — just a little of it, but enough to make me want more, and fight the urge to put the SIM back in my smartphone. Oh, how I fear that tricky urge. I see it peeking from the other corner every now and then.

Neither meditation nor quitting coffee had as strong an impact on my mindfulness as quitting the internet. So, how damaged is our brain? And is it reversible?

I’m now on day 28 since I moved the SIM, and I’m better than ever. No more food delivery, yes, but now I have the free time to go get it myself and interact with other humans. Which surprised me that there were other humans in the first place. I now write more, read more, walk more, cook more. I am aware of my breath and my body. I walk with full awareness of my surroundings — I’ve even noticed small stones on streets I walk every day that I had never seen before. It’s like seeing life, real life, again. It reminds me of childhood, or being on holiday. Food tastes richer, birdsong is louder, and focus is sharper. And I’ve extended my morning meditation from 10 to 20 to 30 and now 60 minutes — unguided, first thing in the morning. Yes, I’m shocked I can sit still that long, when there was a time I couldn’t manage two minutes. The father has returned with his cigarettes. His favorite brand was just hard to find.

The quietness of the mind is trainable after all. This speaks to me on many levels. What we often think of as being wired differently is a myth. An excuse. There was also a time when I preferred faster-paced yoga and used it as an excuse that I can’t sit still — that I am just wired differently. I did not understand that when a tooth is in pain, you go fix it. When the mind is in a constant hurry, that’s pain too. It needs fixing too. Meditation and yoga are like going to the gym — they require a lot of discipline and a long fight to make the mind even a little slower. And that very restlessness is exactly the reason to keep training, not to use it as a reason to choose something faster. After all, the mat is just the training ground. Life is the actual practice.

In my case, whether yoga or not, there are other elements in daily life — our lifestyle, how we approach things, what we eat, how long we sleep, whether we’re morning people or night owls. Ironically, we need better awareness and mindfulness skills, but to do so we need to quiet the mind first. The best approach is to start somewhere. One step. One habit, and just stick to it. No matter what. It’s the rope that will eventually pull us up out of the hole, to then discover the rest. And like months and years at the gym, you will notice the reward. The body is hard to train, but the mind is harder — and the reward is even bigger.

As for me, I will go back to my morning meditation, sip water only, and be proud to be the owner of a Nokia that can survive a nuclear bomb blast and has a battery life longer than my last relationship.