An Analogue Life, How Would You Fare?

At the time, it was not something I considered to be anywhere near as significant or shocking, as it has since proven. Although, my embarkment into the world of what I’ve now learned from a journalist who contacted me for a chat, is called ‘digital minimalism’, did come about with a very large crash. Literally. Through the glass panel of a French door. It had been building in me for a long, long time and this wasn’t the first time either. I’d once gone without a mobile phone entirely for two whole months – discovering the extraordinarily exciting adventure of attempting to meet people you’ve said you’ll meet but without a prearranged set time or location. Pay for groceries when you’ve not transferred any funds. Contact people who’s numbers you no longer have, learn to express your feelings without emojis and my very favourite, find your way to a new location without a device that is at all times tracking your current location.

6 months ago, I could feel the saturation of my mobile phone’s grip on me, in every cell of my body. Every time I walked passed it, I’d press the home button just to see if anything had come through, even if there’d been no pings. And quite often, when the phone wasn’t placed on another surface, the surface that held it most, was my own hand. Every moment that was ‘free’ ie in the car, having a cup of tea, at the beach, at a café, there was my phone, where perhaps I had once stared dreamily out of the window, chatted with my family or read a book or a magazine. Even when I wasn’t physically looking at, I could feel its pull on me. During the many moments of life where I was wholly absorbed in something, as soon as the complete absorption had passed, thoughts of checking the phone would rush to the surface of my consciousness, like a child who has been held underwater by a playmate for longer than they felt comfortable. It was no longer my efficient servant, streamlining my life, it was my overbearing master and I its indisputable, hapless slave.

It’s important at this juncture to acknowledge that despite the above description, I was in fact quite miserly in terms of modern technology use. Through my workday, my phone must always be on ‘do not disturb’, I set all apps to no notifications and as often as possible I would leave my phone at home. But the sheer pull of it, especially if we’d had some time apart was energy that I just simply could no longer support wasting.

How it came to pass however, returning to my original confession, that I would become known as Analogue Lissie, was in the end, a spontaneous explosion of escape, in deep discussion with my husband some six months ago. With the stress mounting in this conversation about some bigger life things, my phone vibrated in my hand. All of the challenge of that discussion channelled down into this device that was, even in that most important moment, trying to yank away my attention and before I had time to acknowledge the outcome, I threw that phone with every essence of my being toward the concrete. Or so I thought. The sound of shattering glass was an immense shock to both myself and my husband, for the phone had gone instead through the glass door, sailing out into the yard in a spectacular comet of sparkly destruction.

As I swept up the shards with shame - more at my wonky aim, then the action itself – I once again felt the pull of the phone. I ignored it for some 45 minutes out there on the lawn, placing internal bets that the bloody thing had survived the crash. When I finally checked, I felt the most amazing relief, that although I smashed the door, I had at least successfully achieved the goal. The phone was cactus. And I was free.  I’d had that one particular device for two years, it was full of photos, clinic files, saved passwords the lot. The longer our relationship had extended the worse the false feeling of necessity had grown.

The search began then for a phone, that was not ‘smart’ in this modern digital sense but was utterly adequate. A phone that could make and take calls and was not registered to any gigantic conglomerate. In the Mullumbimby post office I found my dream device. A black and audaciously rose gold coloured flip phone, with gigantic numbers for those years ahead when the eyes aren’t what they used to be. A phone where texting is a fresh kind of hell and your emojis, no matter the extent of your feelings, only appear on my screen as very enigmatic and rather unemotive empty rectangles

These past six months have been the most fascinatingly revealing I’ve experienced, paralleled only by the taking up of sobriety some 8 years ago. For only in the absence of something can we really see its effect. The time that has opened up for me in my family, the countless moments of being present where before I would have been lost in a thread or an article and then all of the emotional or conversational energy that wold have been expended over that reading. The complete lack of attachment, where before there was such a holding tight. ‘Wait where is my phone?’ ‘Babe have you seen my phone?’ ‘Hold on I’ve forgotten my phone, I’ll just be a moment.’ Now, I may not even realise that I don’t have my phone until half a day has gone by and I’ve had the thought to make a call.

My laptop now bears much more of the workload than before but for the most part, in a much more efficient way. As at my desk I am focused simply to the task of working, unlike when working on my phone, which was always hazily half in the work zone and half in life. There is an enormous amount of sweet surrender, that the information required for my book club or social gatherings will make it’s way to me via other means, and if it doesn’t, well that’s one less thing on the to do list. At the end of each work day, I check how much money there is the bank account in relation to what may need to happen the next day – for no more is that quick transfer of money at the checkout. If I forget and arrive at the register empty handed – which did happen once in the first week of transition – well then, everything goes back and that moment becomes the cemented learning of a new way of living.

The onslaught of technology has been so rapid, there has not been a moment to stop and consider what it is we are really ingesting. A new more efficient app is created before we’ve even thoroughly explored the one we currently have, the G’s are moving through the numerals faster than we can count 3, 4, 5, our methods of moving through the world from banking, to shopping, to informing, to being informed have had us running to simply keep up. This time for me has been very much about stopping and considering – what is actually good for me and where am I just being swindled into yet another moment of false belief, that without, my life will be less. I can assure you, that this is not the case. Being my own master once again, is a very liberating experience. Yes, I have to carry a notebook like it’s the 20th century but that notebook is brimming with ideas, along with all of the lists to fulfil those ideas. When I open that notebook it is with purpose, it does not pull me down the rabbithole of ABC and SBS news, it doesn’t incite me with exposure to racist/homophobic/greedy/arrogant politics and people or to the minutia of other people’s lives, it is in fact a lovely place of peace. I use it as a tool, to carry me further in the direction I am needing to go, not off into 88 other meaningless directions.

Technology now needs to be examined in much the same way we must examine our food when it comes to the fundamentals of good health. If I want good health, will what I’m about to put into my mind, have a positive effect or will it contribute to poor mental health? Does it connect me or does it disconnect me? This is the question we need to be asking in relation to all of the technology that surrounds us. The answer will be different for all people, based on individual circumstances, but this is the opportunity to at least take back your own power. Remember a time when people who thought the TV and the radio were listening in and communicating with them, were classified with a mental health disorder? Now this is our reality and we allow it with full permissions. Some of this is unavoidable but just how much false synchronicity that comes when your thoughts are sold to the highest bidder, do you need?

I encourage you to just take a look. Look at the hardware, what physical devices really serve you and what are distractions? Then look at all of the software, what apps and programs do you really need? What has a truly positive effect – not the kind of positive effect we convince ourselves a donut might have because of how it makes our soul feel- but a truly positive effect for efficiency or connectivity? Try putting at the very least, your phone aside for one full day a week and simply see what rises within you. What feelings does it stir inside? Do you feel anxious or restricted in the chest? Vulnerable? If yes, then there is something that must be looked at more deeply. How have you learnt to depend on your device and where have you forgotten how to function using human connection, that you’ve replaced with your phone? All the times I’ve stopped at shops these past six months and asked for directions have lead not only to insightful interactions but even the odd, excellent snack.

At the very least, give it a try, just one day a week and see what presents for you.  See where you’ve become the slave, where you have convinced yourself you were living expansively but have in fact been all cramped up in a very small cave. Reignite all of those deeper skills that you may have long handed over to that thing in your hand and then when you’ve remembered how to function or regained your own power, delve meaningfully back in with full ownership of your own considered choices.