time spent offline

Category: Attention

On routine and noticing

Yesterday, the sun was still out at 5:06pm.

My weather app showed me earlier that the sun will be setting by 5:34pm, so I knew, but noticing the sun and feeling its last bits of warmth on my skin as I locked the door and walked into the street filled me with hope. I was leaving for the gym, just like I have been doing most Mondays all winter long. By December, as the days got shorter and the overhead lights replaced the sun naturally illuminating the workout studio, I knew what was coming. One ordinary day, as I was rushing out my door for class, I realized it was already dark.

It filled me with dread and hopelessness; I had no choice but to surrender to another winter- it’s seemingly endless cold, gloomy, dark days. To self-soothe, I complained to anyone who would listen that I couldn’t believe we do this every year, and their knowing nods, understanding words made me feel better: I wasn’t alone. And it would have been easy to use the darkness as an excuse to cancel my membership and hibernate all winter: Who wouldn’t understand? But it didn’t even occur to me that was an option. By then, I was too deep into my Monday routine and the sweat-drenched class has become my saving grace from my Monday blues. Every Monday, I would patiently bid my time all day, feeling anxious and restless, until I got to sweat out whatever ill the weekend prior brought on; the bad decisions, another weekend wasted on everything else but, the loneliness that reared its ugly head every Sunday night.
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2023-02-07
Chasing the dragon

Why stop at the wolves?

And I’m just thinking out loud, last minute musings, late night rants, cursing the internet— no, not this internet— for changing so fast, so quick, so suddenly; abandoning me, leaving without warning, and for leaving me no choice but to leave too, and because I only write what I feel like writing about, and sometimes I don’t feel like it until the night before. If it gets hard to follow, maybe it doesn’t make sense, too many grammatical errors, and maybe I may be completely wrong, but in any case thank you for indulging me, and apologies in advance. I need to say it.
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2023-01-24
Another year (mostly) spent offline

2022 beat my ass. I aged ten years in two weeks, what did you accomplish? Getting offline won’t save you from yourself, that’s lesson one. Nothing will save your from yourself, except maybe death, but then it won’t matter anyway. In the meantime, getting (mostly) offline has made life much better. Compared to what? I can’t say, but it feels better. It is truly the gift that keeps on giving and I’m excited to see where this journey, this little adventure of mine, will take me. There is no going back now.
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2022-12-20
Kill your phone

I love my smartphone.

It’s functional, practical, convenient, and compact; smart too. It connects, entertains, gets me places. There is not a thing I have owned prior, nor in the present and probably in the future, that could claim half of what this tiny device is able to accomplish. I wouldn’t die without a smartphone, granted, but I would miss this tiny miracle if, for one reason or another, it was no longer in my possession. It began as a love story; the youthful and the new, shiny technology synched together in curiosity, awe, and admiration. But the honeymoon phase inevitably came to an end and the awe and admiration soon turned into resentment. I noticed, despite myself, how the now no longer new, shiny technology, fitting snuggly in my hands, taking very little physical space, controlled so much of my time, attention, life. In the beginning, I enjoyed spending most of my time getting lost in its trance; everyone was there anyway. Then the new became old, the old was lost, and I realized I have made a bad bargain. Despite my best efforts to negotiate, compromise, and at times make threats, my smartphone with its convenient functionality and irresistible distractibility continued to invade my attention and occupy all my time.
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2022-10-18
Be careful what you wish for

This past Saturday, I was on the streetcar on my way to meet a friend. Enjoying a crisp, sunny October afternoon while engrossed in my thoughts, it occurred to me I was happy with my life-tech balance. My phone was on dumb mode, I have spent the morning commuting, reading, and sweating at FitPop, and I was on my way to spend time with a human being; in real time, face to face, and I knew I would thoroughly enjoy our time spent together. As I reflected on my day up until that point, which was only 2 in the afternoon by then, it felt good how effortlessly offline my day has been. I felt freed from the years of fight I have put up to take my time, attention, and energy back from the digital noise. In 2016, many lifetimes ago, I resolved to put up a good fight against the attention economy.
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2022-10-04
In a perfect world

I recently got an email from a reader asking, in a perfect world, what does your relationship with technology look like?

I like this question a lot because it gave me the chance to envision an ideal world, at least for myself, in which I don’t feel controlled, oppressed, constrained, manipulated, trapped, undermined, and demeaned by the devices, screens, and notifications of the digital world. The email continues, “I often find myself wishing for all the screens and noise around to disappear. Every other month I feel a now-familiar urge to just drop my phone in the bin and run away.” I sympathize. There was a time, when I was much younger, idealistic, and radical, I tried flushing my phone down the toilet. I wanted to be freed from the obsessive, compulsive, and hopeless dependency I felt on my phone. That was over a decade ago, and our obsessive, compulsive, hopeless dependency on technology has only gotten worse— and now there is even an app for that.
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2022-09-27
Capturing the moment

We often interrupt moments with a need to capture it. The reasons are plenty. We want to share the moment with others on social media, with family and friends, and sometimes simply for memory sake. Since quitting social media, my desire to capture moments has mostly gone away. It now feels tedious and pointless to take a picture or a video of an experience; I don’t have a platform to share it on so I don’t bother. Usually, I only capture a moment if I want to share it with someone specific that I know would appreciate it. Otherwise, I try and be in the moment and enjoy it. Somehow, I still have 1,522 videos on my phone.
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2022-09-06
“What are you reading?”

(Not about reading)

Kids have a certain kind of straightforwardness, honesty, that often comes off as brutal, unnecessarily truthful; cruel even- “Omg! I didn’t know you were that old,” they say to me. As we grow, we learn politeness; whether real, phony, bogus- “Oh, please. You are so young,” the adults lie all the time. For these reasons, and more, I thoroughly enjoy spending time with kids, always trying to out-play, out-goof, out-kid them. And since they still have to respect me as the adult in the room, we tend to have a good time together: We play, they tell me things without forced politeness and adulthood lies, which I appreciate, and I make sure they don’t get kidnapped. It’s all good. This time, I’m hanging out with a 10-year-old.
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2022-08-23
Life gets in the way

I feel time more accurately now.

Its passing, getting away, from me— what has been, what could have been, and what is yet to come, all wrapped up in time and its nonchalant passing. Part growing older, part paying more attention to time. When time finally runs out, I wonder, would I be okay with how it run out? How I let it run out? I can’t save time but I am hoping time can save me. I need to download an app for work so I turn my dumb smartphone smart again. Time spent scrolling creeps up. My phone and I become reacquainted again. My phone is with me constantly. I could just you know… but I won’t. It’s fun to lose time— lose mind, on mindless, endless content. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Ignore the voice saying— begging, pleading— ‘but it is so much better paying attention to life.’ Yeah, but it’s not as fun. I can’t believe it has been over a decade of trying to unplug, disconnect, get offline, and I am still here. Thank god, I am not where I used to be, but how am I still here? Knowing is half the battle, perfection is the enemy of progress, etc. Whatever.
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2022-07-26
When you have nothing to say

It’s okay to say nothing.

I write when I feel I have something to say, something important hopefully. Inspiration comes through living: A quote from a book, a long bike ride, watching a child play. As a thought arises, I try to focus on it, contemplate it, and when the time is right, I write about it. I don’t always have something to say. Sometimes it’s because I am not living enough; not enough input to inspire output. These past couple of weeks however, despite many hours spent offline, biking, playing, soaking up the sun, I simply couldn’t think of something important I wanted say. What I thought I could share, I felt I have already said. What if I didn’t have anything to say?
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2022-06-13