Life 404: Success Not Found

Chapter 9: The Total failure of a Digital Detox

Freza’s brain felt like an old PC in a suburban internet cafe that hadn't been cleaned in ten years; full of digital dust, thousands of accidentally opened tabs, and shortcut viruses that made everything look like a shortcut to insanity.

After the embarrassing incident of falling in love with a utility pole because of an AR filter, Freza reached a radical conclusion usually only made by the bored rich or environmental activists living in trees: technology is the enemy of civilization. He felt the dopamine in his brain was scorched, burned away by endless scrolling on TikTok and petty arguments about chicken porridge on T*****r.

"I have to stop, Sat. I need to return to the true nature of humans as biological beings, not algorithmic creatures," Freza said solemnly, as if he had just received a revelation from a burning bush.

Satya, who was preoccupied watching a video of someone popping pimples in macro resolution on his phone, merely grunted, "Hm, your true nature is lying around doing nothing, Fre. Don’t bring biology into this."

"I’m serious. Starting this very second, ten in the morning on Saturday until ten in the morning on Sunday, I will undergo a Total Digital Detox. No smartphone, no internet, no social media. I want to feel what it was like to be a human in the 1980s," Freza puffed out his chest.

"You weren’t even born in the 80s, idiot. You were born when the internet was already coming in through phone lines that sounded like a robot giggling," Satya replied cynically. "But okay, I’ll support you. Give me your phone; I'll keep it. Don’t cry blood tonight when you’re having withdrawals and itching for memes."

Freza handed over his phone with trembling hands. He felt like an addict surrendering his last needle to the police. As soon as the phone changed hands and went into Satya's bag, Freza felt a strange silence envelop his room. An uncomfortable silence. A silence that was... loud.

Hour One: Naive Optimism

The first hour went wonderfully. Freza felt pure. He sat on a wooden chair in front of his room, staring at the clouds with a gaze he thought was deeply philosophical. He tried to observe a sparrow pecking at leftover biscuit crumbs on the floor tiles.

"Look at that," Freza whispered. "That bird doesn't need I*******m to feel like it exists. It just eats, flies, and poops on someone’s motorcycle seat. That is true freedom."

He felt his brain beginning to defragment. He started noticing details he had previously overlooked: the color of the boarding house walls, which actually looked more like spoiled curry than cream, or the sound of water dripping from a leaky faucet, forming a minimalist musical rhythm.

"I am Thoreau in Walden Pond," Freza whispered, referring to a book he had once read the summary of on Wikipedia (before he started this detox). "I am the master of myself."

Hour Three: Boredom is Physical Torture

By the third hour, Freza’s optimism began to evaporate as fast as water in the Sahara. He was finished watching the bird (the bird had left because it felt awkward being stared at constantly). He was finished counting the cracks in the wall (there were 47 cracks, 12 of which formed a pattern resembling his cheating ex-girlfriend’s face).

Freza tried to read a book. He found an old novel titled Layar Terkembang that belonged to someone or other on the corner shelf. After reading only three pages, his head started to ache. The language was too formal, the paragraphs too long, and worst of all: there was no search button for difficult words, and no comment section to see if other readers were also bored.

He threw the book aside. He began to feel restless. His hand reflexively reached into his pocket every three minutes. Empty.

"Damn it," he cursed. "I’m experiencing Phantom Vibration Syndrome."

He felt his thigh vibrating, as if a W******p notification had just arrived. In reality, his phone was at Satya’s house, two kilometers away. His brain was playing tricks on him. His brain was so thirsty for digital stimulation that it was creating imaginary vibrations.

Hour Six: Visual Hallucinations

Hunger began to strike. Usually, Freza would just open a food delivery app, choose a meal based on the biggest discount, and wait for it to arrive while watching short videos. Now? He had to walk to the Padang restaurant at the end of the alley.

At the restaurant, Freza sat in silence. He looked at the stacks of plates in the display window. Automatically, his brain tried to "Double Tap" the plate of beef rendang to give it a like. He realized his fingers were twitching on the wooden table.

"Sir, what would you like to order?" the waiter asked.

"One portion of rendang, half rice, jackfruit curry, green chili... oh, and don’t forget to add the hashtags #FoodPorn and #LocalPride, okay?" Freza answered unconsciously.

The waiter stared at Freza with a 'pity, so young yet already insane' look. "What hashtags, sir? Do you want crackers with that?"

Freza snapped out of it. His face turned bright red. "I mean... yes, crackers. One white cracker."

While eating, Freza felt incredibly lonely. There were no YouTube videos to accompany his meal. There was no political news he could silently mock. He was just there, alone with the rice, the rendang, and his own thoughts. And as it turned out, his own thoughts were a very boring place to visit.

He began to see the world in the form of social media layouts. He looked at the restaurant window and imagined it was an I*******m Story frame. He watched people pass by and mentally tried to press the "Mute" button because their voices were too loud.

Hour Nine: Identity Crisis

Freza returned to his room. Late afternoon was the hardest time. Sunset was usually the most "content-able" moment. He watched the sky turn a beautiful shade of reddish-orange.

"Man, if I took a photo of this with the 'Lark' filter and added a melancholic song, it would definitely get so many likes," he muttered.

He raised his hands, forming a frame with his index fingers and thumbs, and stared at the sky through the hole. He tried to recall the most poetic sunset quote. But without G****e's help, all he could remember was: "The sunset is red, my heart is hot, my wallet is shot."

He felt his existence was under threat. If he saw a beautiful sunset but didn't upload it to the internet, did the sunset actually happen? If nobody knew he was doing a digital detox, did the detox have any value?

"Who am I if nobody likes my posts?" Freza began to wonder. "I’m just a lump of meat sitting on a wooden chair scratching my leg. I have no branding. I have no engagement. I... I don't exist."

He started talking to the wall. "Wall, do you know I’m detoxing? Pretty great, right? I’m strong, aren’t I?"

The wall didn't answer. The wall just stood there, letting a lizard scurry past arrogantly.

Hour Twelve: Digital Withdrawal

Night fell. The darkness made everything ten times harder. Freza usually spent his nights doomscrolling until his eyes stung and he fell asleep from mental exhaustion. Now, he just stared at a flickering neon light.

He began to experience severe withdrawal symptoms. His head throbbed. He was dying to know what was happening in the world. Did some celebrity get divorced? Was another politician caught in a corruption scandal? Was there a new meme about a talking cat?

He felt disconnected from the global flow of information. He felt like a primitive human abandoned in the middle of a concrete jungle.

"I need a hit of dopamine," Freza moaned while rolling around on his mattress. "Just one scroll. Just to check what time it is."

He knew it was a lie. He knew that if he held a phone, one minute would turn into four hours.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Freza jumped with joy. Maybe it's Satya taking pity on me and returning my phone!

He opened the door excitedly. It was his landlady.

"Freza! Pay the water bill! You're three weeks behind!" the landlady shouted without preamble.

Freza was stunned. In the real world, there was no "Block" button for the landlady. There was no "Restrict" feature to silence her words. Freza had to face the landlady’s anger live, in high definition, and without a beauty filter.

"Yes, ma'am... tomorrow, okay... I’m doing a digital detox, so I can’t check my mobile banking balance," Freza gave a nonsensical excuse.

"Detox my foot! Pay with money, not excuses! If you don't pay tomorrow, I’ll detox your water tap—meaning I’ll cut it off!" The landlady stomped away.

Freza closed the door. He felt utterly exhausted. It turned out the real world was much more aggressive and lacked manners compared to even the most toxic comment section.

Hour Eighteen: The Peak of Absurdity

Sunday morning. Freza woke up with a sense of emptiness. He had survived for 18 hours. He felt he had achieved the patience level of a monk. He decided to leave the house to get some fresh air at the city park.

At the park, he saw something extraordinary. There was a wild monkey (heaven knows where it came from) wearing a visitor's sunglasses, sitting on the hood of a luxury car while holding a bottle of soda. It was the most golden comedic moment Freza had ever seen in his life.

Everyone in the park crowded around the monkey, laughing, and of course... recording it with their phones.

Freza stood there, his hand automatically reaching into his pocket. Empty. He couldn't record it. He couldn't share it. He could only see the moment with his own eyes—a concept that felt incredibly primitive to him.

"Hey! Look at that! That’s hilarious!" Freza shouted to the person next to him.

The person glanced at Freza briefly, then focused back on their phone screen to ensure the camera focus was perfect. "Yeah, man. Funny. Hang on, I’m gonna upload this to TikTok so it goes viral."

Freza felt alienated. He was the only person there actually "seeing" the monkey with his own eyes, yet he felt like the most powerless person present. He felt the moment would be lost forever if it wasn't saved in digital form.

"I can’t take it anymore," Freza whispered. "The real world without memes and cameras is... too real. I can't handle it."

Hour Twenty-One: Total Failure

Freza ran to Satya’s house. To hell with the 24-hour promise. To hell with human nature. He needed his phone. He needed the charging cable for his soul.

He arrived at Satya’s house and pounded on the door like a madman.

"Sat! Give me back my phone! I give up! I don’t want to be a caveman anymore!"

Satya opened the door while yawning, holding Freza’s phone. "Hey, it’s only seven in the morning, Fre. You still have three hours left."

"I don't care! Give it!" Freza snatched his phone.

He pressed the power button. The manufacturer's logo appeared. Freza felt his heart racing, faster than when he met a crush. As soon as the lock screen opened, a flood of notifications immediately attacked.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!

There were 456 W******p messages (all from irrelevant family and alumni groups), 12 missed calls (mostly from insurance and predatory loan telemarketers), and 89 I*******m notifications.

Freza began to scroll. He read the news. He looked at memes. He looked at his friends' posts bragging about their breakfast. And within five minutes, the sense of peace he had briefly felt during the detox vanished completely. He felt anxious again, felt like he was falling behind again, and felt inferior again.

"So, Fre? How was it?" Satya asked, watching Freza whose eyes were already starting to turn red from staring at the screen.

"I swear, Sat," Freza said without looking up from the screen. "The real world is so boring. It’s just an angry landlady, pooping sparrows, and a monkey with sunglasses that I can’t show anyone."

"But didn't you say you wanted to return to your true nature?"

"My true nature is being a slave to the algorithm, Sat. At least here, I can choose what I want to see. In the real world, I can't skip the landlady's debt-collection ads."

Freza sat on Satya’s porch, head down, back hunched, forming the perfect silhouette of a modern human: a college graduate powerless without a glowing box in his hand.

He realized his digital detox was a total failure not because he lacked willpower, but because the world he lived in was no longer designed for unconnected humans. Without a phone, he lost access to his money, his friends, his entertainment, and even his own identity.

"I failed, didn't I, Sat?"

"Big time. You didn't even make it to 24 hours. Your record is only 21 hours."

Freza took a long breath. He opened the I*******m app, took a photo of himself looking disheveled on Satya’s porch, and uploaded it with the caption:

"Just finished a 24-hour Digital Detox (almost). It feels amazing to reconnect with nature and myself. Humans really need time to unplug. #DigitalDetox #Mindfulness #BackToNature #SelfCare"

He hit the 'Share' button and sat there waiting.

One minute later, a like came in. Then two. Then ten.

Dopamine began flowing back into his brain. His anxiety slowly faded, replaced by a fake yet soothing sense of validation. Freza smiled slightly. He had returned to his true home: a virtual world where suffering can be turned into content, and failure can be polished into inspiration.

The status quo returned: Freza remained poor, remained unemployed, remained confused, and now he realized he was a digital addict with no hope for recovery.

He continued scrolling his screen, searching for the video of the monkey in sunglasses from earlier, hoping someone else had uploaded it so he could give it a like and feel like part of a moment that he had actually witnessed himself but failed to truly possess.