As someone just getting older, I often think about what was cool in the past. Or, what’s crappier now. There’s a lot of crappier things now and that’s really a drag. But there’s one thing in the past that I can actually still kinda sorta still have, but not really: a life before phones and the distracting consumption that comes with it.
We can’t really go back. But I think I can try to create it. At least some of it. Sometimes.
I need to just get this phone out of my face, and set limits to it. I’ve said it before too, be busy. I want to do it again. It happened last night while I was watching a YouTube video about this. Ironically the algorithm is now sending me a feed about brain rot. That’s how arrogant it is. Just flaunting it. Mocking me.
Anyways, this ‘tuber was talking about his thoughts on the exact same thing. And something in me just snapped and said: I should just be creating all the time. It wasn’t that the video said anything insightful, it’s just that I felt like I had enough about hearing it and decided to just do something about it.
I know I can’t get rid of my phone and computers. And I don’t want to. I just want to get back into being creative and being bored and getting so bored I decide to do something else other than look at my phone. The catch of course is the convenience of it. It’s easy to fall down into the hole, even when I wanted to do something creative like photography.
Treat my phone as a landline. That’s how we are going to try this. I dont want to turn it off. What if there’s an emergency and someone is trying to reach me. Well, in the past, the phone was stationary and it would ring. So I’m going to leave my phone on my desk. But what if it rings and I’m upstairs? That gave me an idea to build an app or device to emulate that. Something that would alert me anywhere in the house. It’s a cool idea, and I like that, but I realize my watch will capture any and all alerts. Including distracting crap, so the key will be to just look at it but then move on. I raise my desk to standing position as a reminder not to sit there.
Blogging is ok too of course. In fact, one of the reasons I do blog is because I miss the internet of old.