Where’s my phone?

How many times a day honestly do you say to yourself, often in a panicked way ‘where’s my phone?’.

I used to do it often, maybe I was the only one, but I somehow doubt it.

Then how many times do you say the same thing about other items? Like ‘where’s my toothbrush?’ or ‘where’s my ..’. There are no others items whose whereabouts we care about to anywhere near the same degree as our phone.

When was the last time you did not have your phone within a metre radius of you? When did you last leave your house without it? When did you last go a day without your phone? When did you last go more than an hour without checking something on it?

The thing is we have become attached to our phones like nothing else ever before in the history of the human race. I see people almost cradling their phones, hugging them, I would not be surprised to see people kissing them, making like dolls house furniture for them, perhaps even a bedside table bed for them, so they can tuck them in at night.

Yet most of what we do on our phones really doesn’t add that much value to our lives, most of it is shallow, habitual activity, often in search of worthiness, to fit in, to be liked, to feel important.

I no longer want to live a life where I am dependent on a lump of plastic that sucks me into a vortex of shallow, often quite depressing emotional turmoil and angst. We have become enslaved by them and their Apps.

Freedom lies away from them.

Try one week without your phone, or even a day. Try switching off the notifications. Try having it in another room.

See how you feel. Odd, is how you will feel.

But the oddness goes and is replaced by more meaningful things.

Deep life is what we all could enjoy if we weren’t worried about where our phones were.

Beyond digital

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For maybe two decades or less, the human race has marvelled, become addicted to, all consumed by, worshipped a digital virtual world.
We are and will realise that a digital world can never replace the true magic of the real thing, a real life, in the moment, with real people.

Sure an ebook is more efficient, but feeling the pages of a real book is something hard to replace. Getting everything delivered in an instant means we consume more and appreciate nothing. Going shopping in real shops, touching real things, socialising, spending time with our families, even the odd disagreement is much more of an experience than clicking ‘buy’ on Amazon.

Meeting up with and talking to a few real friends has been lost into a vortex of massive virtual ‘friendships’ via the 2 inches by 4 inches glass touch screen of our handheld device of disconnection from humanity and loneliness.

We can fill our days with more, but sadly do and achieve less of any real meaningfulness.

We have sacrificed real experiences and replaced them with soulless efficiency, mass consumption, instant everything and attention to nothing.

We miss boredom, it was a time to reflect, daydream, appreciate more the moments of excitement. We had to imagine more, we had to create more, now it can all be done for us. Where is the magic and pleasure in easy?

The human race will move on from the digital world, when? who knows? But it will happen and perhaps sooner than we realise.

What will we do beyond digital?