Introduction
Note: This article is based on a Friday voice note where I caught myself red-handed—cycling through apps, filling every five-second gap with my phone, despite knowing better.
What you’re about to read is the refined insight. The full podcast captures the moment of self-awareness, the realization that this isn’t about willpower but about a lost capacity, and the complete framework for understanding silent time as divine conversation time.
If you want the raw exploration—including the connection to parallel cities and the practical steps for relearning silence—become a paid subscriber to access the complete podcast archive.
For now, here’s the truth: Silent time isn’t empty time. It’s where God speaks. And we’ve forgotten how to listen.
Greetings! This is Franklin O’Kanu here, and welcome to Unorthodox Perspectives.
In this voice note, I want to explore an idea that’s been on my mind—something I’ve noticed repeatedly today. I don’t know what’s going on, but I keep quickly defaulting to checking notifications, rapidly cycling between Substack, Instagram, Threads, and so forth.
So I’m having a conversation with myself. What’s going on today that’s different than other days?
Well, it’s Friday. Things are lighter, things are looser. We’ve had a pretty busy week, so we’re in a space to relax—but we’re not all the way relaxing because there’s still work to do. But why the quick, ‘Okay, I have five seconds. Let’s go to the device’?
One thought that comes to mind is the obvious one: if you start your day on the phone, you’re more easily drawn back to it throughout the day. I don’t necessarily begin my day on the phone—it’s actually after a couple of hours of being up that I go to social media—but I think that might be a factor.
But there’s another possibility, and this is the one I really wanted to focus on: in this digital, technocratic world, we forget how to be alone.
We forget how to sit in silence. It’s become incredibly hard to do.
The Lost Art of Silence
What’s interesting about this is that—me, knowing about everything that I’ve written about, from ‘Help, I Can’t Get Off My Phone’ to ‘Instagram: The Tool For People Without A Purpose,’ to all this stuff, I still find myself struggling with it.
This is coming from a millennial who’s actively working, who gets intense focus but has breaks. So what am I doing in those breaks? I can’t do anything super intense, so I should relax. But where’s my phone? And there you go.
The idea here is that it’s really entrenching society. One of the issues is that when I look to read articles, I have to go into the phone, which then leads to scrolls, and we go down into this whole tumble.
The core concept that I have here is this: we have forgotten how to sit in silence. In this world of emails and beeps and notifications, it’s like we almost crave some kind of notification. We crave stimuli. We crave an impression upon the consciousness.
And the idea that’s come to mind is this—all this silent time that you have is time that you can talk with the Divine.
This is the time that you can focus.
Even in conversations where you just want to grab the phone, a) you should probably move the phone away from the room, but b) look at God in this moment. What is happening? What is whoever is talking saying with their words? Where do we need to go with this? What do they need your help with?
Instead of essentially thinking, ‘Okay, this is gonna be a while here, let me just grab my phone,’ listen to the passages, the content, and see—where is God in here and where can you be of assistance?
We don’t know how to do that. I don’t know if we necessarily know how to be quiet.
A Possible Solution
Ultimately, the solution is to listen to the voice of reason, because that is the voice of the Divine. There’s more I want to explore on this topic, but I don’t have my thoughts together yet, so I’m hesitant to go deeper.
In all honesty, the core question is: Why do I just grab the phone? And the answer is—in this tech world, I don’t know how to sit in silence.
I need to relearn how to sit in silence. I need to relearn how to let my mind wander.
So maybe what I do is this: if I have 30 minutes, or 25, how much of that time should be dedicated to silence? How much of that should be dedicated to reflection? Because if that’s the case, then we can say we’ve done the reflection.
Ultimately, it’s just about being human in this technocratic world. We are in the technocratic world—this is the world that’s been warned of, and it’s snuck up before our very eyes. And so little tidbits like this help us regain humanity, regain our nature, regain all that in this world that we live in.
So ultimately, if we choose to stay in the technocratic cities, we can. But if we choose to create cities where we can live fruitful lives, we can go there as well.
Just an observation and a deficiency, but this ties into other ideas such as parallel cities, which I will explore in another podcast.
As always, thank you for the time and the attention. Have a great and wonderful day.
—Ashe,
Franklin O’Kanu
If you enjoyed this work and gained value from it, support more work like this by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month
If you’re already aware but want to take a step toward becoming the best human you can be, you can check out my guide.
11 Insights for Being The Best Human This 50-page guide is the clearest map I’ve created for navigating the madness of modern life. It blends ancient wisdom, spiritual clarity, and grounded daily ritual — helping you remember who you are and why you’re here.
If the world feels off, this guide will confirm why — and help you take back control.
Related Content
The Divine Conversation: When Logic Becomes Prayer
What if the divine has been speaking to you every single day—not through burning bushes or angelic visitations, but through the:
3 Human Behaviors You Lost Due to Industrialization
In my book, “An Unorthodox Truth,” I explore how humanity, especially in America, has been transformed by the shift from pre-industrialization to post-industrialization.
Help — I Want To Get Off My Phone But I Can’t!
The other day, after a flurry of meetings and projects, I was depleted—physically and mentally drained. My day was almost over, but I still had some items to clean up. However, I had roughly 10 minutes or so to myself.
Support Unorthodoxy!
If this article opened your eyes, there’s more behind the paywall. Exclusive, in-depth pieces that go deeper, challenge more, and reveal the truths they don’t want us to see.
🔑 Become a paid member and gain access to premium and archived articles, exclusive podcasts, and thought-provoking chats you won’t find anywhere else.
📖 Prefer a comprehensive take? My book, An Unorthodox Truth, is a fact-based journey through 200 years of deception—a must-read for those seeking clarity in a manipulated world.
☕ Feeling generous? Leave a simple tip to support this work—every bit helps me continue creating meaningful content.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Unorthodoxy to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
