The Analog Life

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything that isn’t for work. Years, actually. And my life has been crazy during that time, with copious change, uprooting, chaos, instability, sadness, stress, sleeplessness…and also (happily) a strengthening of my bond with my husband.

But my latest shift has nothing to do with turmoil and moving again and sick parents; it has everything to do with time.

I suppose I’d started hitting a wall right around the election. Or maybe it was closer to Inauguration Day? I’m not sure really, but it’s 100% related to the transition that began in November and that accelerated in the past few months. And that wall was simply this: I was sick of it all.

I was sick of the barrage of news slapping me in the face (from my pocket or desk or sofa) multiple times a day. I was exhausted by the dismay I experienced constantly over this, and that, and also this, and also that. And the incredulity of nobody stepping in to “save the day” as it were. And also the realization that the only thing I can control, now and actually most of the time, is just me.

This means how I spend my time. How I focus my energy. How I react to things like stressful news or stressful diagnoses. It means how I choose to approach my life, what I choose to let into my world, and what I actively work to block out.

——

Late last week, I took my hubby to the airport so he could do what he needed to do. And then I came home and just sat there, looking around at this still somewhat blank apartment that has sheltered me for 6 months while also becoming a thorn in my side.

I started to observe a shift within myself that felt more strong than the copycats of the past. Part of that shift was a reminder that I cannot control anything. Not anymore, if I thought I could, and not ever, if I still had delusional aspirations of my own grandeur. But more than that, I realized I can no longer stomach all the noise. The noise of the past decade, the noise of the past year, the noise of the past few months.

All magnified and constantly thrust upon me by technology.

My phone.

Screens. Scrolling. Blips of this and vomits of that.

Sound bytes. Alarmism. Defeatism.

The crippling of my attention span and the theft of my time.

So last weekend, while I was home alone (in a state where I literally don’t know anyone, and therefore have come to depend too much on technology to fill the gaps), I decided to instead pursue a more analog existence. I was going to disallow myself to continue using technology in the same way as I had been. I would reject 2025, and the way our lives have gone since about 2012 with the invention of the smartphone, and I would seek out a more familiar way of living that kept me going through hard times over the decades prior to the iPhone.

This new way of living? It’s based on books, music, art, crafts, plants, animals, journaling, and watching my favorite old tv shows and movies in a non-byte, non-scrolling format. It’s the way I used to live, back when I had time in my life (and space in my brain) to do things like write this post.

I honestly don’t really care if anyone reads what I write now. I used to. I used to think I could change the world and that I was meant to do something big, and that writing was the way that I might do it.

Silly me. Not all of us are meant to do big things. Some of us are simply meant to be good people in a world dominated by negative energy and sleepwalkers.

And I can’t be a present human if my eyes are glued to a scroll that never ends. To videos that play one after another. To nasty arguments on Discord or Reddit between those aforementioned sleepwalkers.

I honestly thought I’d fail at this again, because I’d tried multiple times over many years to curb my use of technology. But maybe, while living in both political and personal chaos, I finally have the ammo to severely demote the smartphone and relegate it to normal usage. Or to assistive usage instead of dependency.

My life circumstances have not actually gotten any easier in the last week, and the world continues to metaphorically go down in flames around me, and yet everything has somehow become more peaceful now that I’m left to my analog outlets, the space in my brain, and the puffy clouds outside my window.