When I found out my phone had been stolen in Reno, Nevada, I was pretty mad. Almost mad enough to chase down the offender myself! What I didn’t know at that moment was that an excursion away from society without a phone holding me back would transform me into a hardened warrior against technology.

It was during Presidents’ Week break, and I was with my family on our way to go skiing in Tahoe. We’d just grabbed lunch after our flight, and were halfway to the mountain in our rental car when I realized I’d left my phone behind. After  hastily checking Life 360, we saw that it was no longer in the diner we’d eaten at. And apparently, my device was driving around the Nevadan city at 60 miles per hour in the vehicle of some petty criminal. Personally, I was outraged and advocated for a ruthless search for the criminal until we found the phone and delivered justice. Unfortunately, my family members weren’t interested in embarking on that chase, so we went on with the trip and just hoped the offender would miraculously return my phone to the restaurant. (Surprise, that never happened.)

I was pissed off. No phone? Yeah right! As if I’m some book-toting loser! So I spent those few days with little contact to the outside world amidst a backdrop of snowy isolation that I unfortunately mostly ignored, fretting over the consequences of spending a period of time away from my oh-so-important digital news feed. How would I ever manage?

Two days later, I was snowboarding down the last run of the afternoon, feeling energized by my athletic performance. I was ahead of my fellow snowboarding brother and skiing mother by some distance, and had made my way down the mountain speedily, planning to meet them at our predetermined ending location. As I arrived at the gondola that was our sole ticket down the mountain, I began to wait. Then I began to grow worried as they didn’t show up (not for their safety, but for the sake of not looking like a fool standing around with no objective, of course).

Twenty minutes later, I was certain one of them had either been hurt or had gone to the wrong location, and the gondola line was queuing up for the last few trips back to civilization. If I didn’t get down there before the gondola closed, I would be abandoned, basically in the middle of the woods! I cursed the absence of my phone, knowing there was no way to contact my family and make myself look and feel better. So I had to think strategically. Thanks to my outstanding brain, I determined that whatever had happened to my family members, I was in no position to help them. I had to choose a worthy hill to fight on, and that meant prioritizing getting myself to safety in order to escape the dire situation.

I steeled myself, finding the inner courage to be momentarily at peace and emboldened, and got in line to ride the gondola alone. I boarded the moving vehicle with six strangers and got ready to wait. My sole consolation was that two of the skiers had matching unicorn horns protruding from their helmets, which admittedly roused a chuckle from me. As we reached the halfway point of the ride, the descent became extremely steep. The new angle revealed a full view of Lake Tahoe amidst the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I could see for miles, and I couldn’t help but stare raptly at the gorgeous glassy lake and white mountain caps all around that seemed to belong in some romantic 19th century painting. I looked at the person sitting by my side, thinking I mustn’t be alone in my rapture, but was dismayed to see them staring at Snapchat and missing possibly one of the most beautiful views known to man. I began to feel immense relief that I did not have my phone, lest I exhibit the same dreadfully ignorant behaviors.

I exited the gondola with my snowboard once we touched down, and began trudging through the snow into the town of South Lake Tahoe. I didn’t see any sign of my family, so I carried on like a brave soldier. I vaguely knew the street name where our hotel resided, so armed with my board and room key, I headed off towards the homeland by way of traditional navigation—intuition. It took a weary 20 minutes and several wrong turns during which I found the strength to carry on. As I walked, I realized that I barely even wanted to be reunited with my family. Being alone on a beautiful snowy day was exhilarating, and without my phone to distract me, I was alive with the pleasures of a primitive existence. I eventually found our hotel, and once I entered the room, I retrieved my laptop to send a message to my family letting them know I was alive. It couldn’t hurt, I suppose.

No harm had been done to either my mother or brother—they’d only missed a turn and ended up on another side of the mountain, where my dad had picked them up in our rental car. But the takeaway for me was not a sense of relief that they were okay, nor joy at being reunited with them. Instead I was astonished at my own resilience, quick-wittedness, and navigational prowess that had all my life gone unrealized until I was stranded without a phone to guide me. That day, I found my calling as a fighter. My journey proved to me a fact clear as glass: the phone is a vehicle for stupidity, and an innovation that must be abandoned if we are to realize our fullest primitive potential.

Imagine a life where you survive every day solely due to your own strength, intelligence and adaptability. Forget the internet, forget your pitiful social media account that never gets enough interaction anyways, and forget the digital map that renders you ignorant of the path you take. We need to end all of this, out of respect to ourselves.

I found myself in the woods in a state of stoic serenity much like the classic naturalists once did. Thoreau retreated to Walden Pond to “put to rout all that was not life.”  Kaczynski retreated to his Montana cabin to cook up some anti-industrial explosives. A whole host of other individualistic (perhaps socially inept) white men also retreated to a remote corner of the American wilderness to ponder their plans for a less technologically-driven society.

Although not a man, I too experienced that bliss of the vast wilderness at my toes and no tethers to pesky modern society (other than a very modern gondola) holding me back on my fateful mountain adventure. I had accomplished it all of my own accord. Except for the help of a few scheduled dinners, a paid-for ski lift ticket, and a supportive family, of course. But I digress.

This is the path we must take forward. You’re either with me, or you’re my enemy. No, I did not steal that line from Star Wars. I don’t even know what that is. As you may recall, I’ve surrendered all knowledge of popular culture. The time of reckoning has come, and we must abandon our cell phones in order to proceed into the light of a brighter tomorrow, or else all shall fall into irreparable ruin! And, maybe then, we can appreciate the simple beauty of nature all around us, too.