The Way: What Is a Low Tech Monk?

Five Symbols

The low tech monk uses five symbols to re-imagine our relationship to technology.

• Fire means purpose, human experience, and the source of warmth and meaning.
• Circle means family, friendship, community, and the relationships that hold a life together.
• Tool means a technology or instrument we use. In the product interface, we use tools as the plain-language term. In the essays, the older poetic image of the knife may still appear.
• Stone means a memory that grounds us, a marker shaped by time and trust.
• Song means a practice that expresses our values through word, ritual, celebration, and repeated action.

Plain Definitions

When these images appear in the application, they should be read plainly:

• Songs are practices that express our values.
• Stones are memories that ground us.
• Tools are tools and technologies we use.

The symbolic language remains part of the wider Low Tech Monk writing, but the product should not make people guess what the images mean.

Five Practices

The low tech monk follows five practices to grow cyber wisdom.

• Digital Rest: Embrace the pleasure of habitual disconnection. Avoid digital fatigue and burnout.
• Digital Initiation: Embrace technology incrementally. Avoid mindless wholesale adoption.
• Digital Purity: Embrace single-purpose technology usage. Avoid multipurpose sprawl as a norm.
• Digital Openness: Embrace ongoing conversations about technology. Avoid assumptions and uncertainty.
• Digital Balance: Embrace a digital wisdom framework. Avoid making tech-savviness the goal.

The Hard Part

You will have to think, and to do that you will have to slow down.

You will have to ask questions, and to do that you will have to listen.

You will have to be honest, and to do that you will have to be vulnerable.

Are you ready?

Begin the Practice

If this way makes sense to you, the next step is not only to agree with it. It is to see what it looks like in practice. Build your circle in the app, begin with Flames, and return here when you want to reflect on what the symbols mean.