Letters From Nobody

I’ve been sitting on this blog for a while. Mostly because I haven’t had the motivation to actually write. I never really have. I have always dreamed of being a writer but if I’m ever going to actually accomplish that, I actually need to write. This blog has also been sitting unused for about a year because I just wasn’t sure I had any thing that mattered enough to put it out there. I think I’ve come to the realization that it just doesn’t matter? There’s no authenticity in writing what I think would appeal to other people. I could treat this as my diary, be as real and authentic as I could possibly be, and it genuinely would not matter. It might be a little cringe, unhinged, and pseudointellectual but who cares? This is my blog/diary, and I’ll be as cringe, unhinged, and pseudointellectual as I want. Fear of being either is dulling everyone’s personality anyway. It’s making us all homogenized.

So, into the void, I scream.

I am on a mission to get my life back. I feel it’s been stolen from me by modernity. I hate my phone. Over the last 15+ years it has sapped away my attention span, my intelligence, my creativity, my personality and has left me an empty husk of what I used to be. I am not sure I’m able to feel much emotion anymore. The few feelings I do notice, are dull and unidentifiable.

I’ve taken some steps to try and mitigate this. I’ve been wanting to go on this journey for a few years now and it’s always felt impossible because of the myth that you need a smartphone to be able to move through your day. I’m sure for some people that isn’t a myth. I’ve heard of landlords requiring the use of apps to pay rent and operate laundry machines. Cities requiring the use of an app to pay for parking in metropolitan areas. It’s ridiculous. It’s oppression.

At least for myself though, I can realistically take steps to save myself. First thing I’ve done that has actually helped me to break my infinite scroll habit was downloading ScreenZen, which is an app that has allowed me to block specifically the YouTube Shorts in the YouTube app without blocking myself from watching the longer form videos themselves. I like to listen to video essays while I work so I didn’t want to deprive myself of that. Though in the future I would like to try and listen to more music and audiobooks while I’m hard at work. For now though, downloading ScreenZen has been the absolute best first step I could have taken. Going from 10 hours of screentime to less than an hour isn’t going to happen overnight but at least now I’m down to under 6 hours, and as far as I can tell the bulk of that is coming from the long form videos I’m listening to while I’m at work.

Another step I’ve taken is replacing my habit of picking up my phone during downtime, for choosing to play a game on my old Nintendo 3DS or my Kindle. Both by Kindle and Nintendo 3DS are items that I’ve owned for years but they only started seeing regular use in the last few months because I’ve decided to stop letting my phone be my only source of entertainment. Sure, the Nintendo 3DS and Kindle both have screens so you could think of it as screentime but for me the difference is that when I put them down and walk away from them, I know wholeheartedly that it was entertainment that I actually enjoyed. I wasn’t being fed some hivemind bullshit. I wasn’t hearing about the world circling the drain, which I am powerless to do anything about. I wasn’t watching other people enjoy their hobbies. I was enjoying my own.

I think I’m going to go air up the tires on my bike now. It’s been sitting unused for about 3 years now so I’m going to do something about it.

Edit: It didn’t go well. I went down to the garage to get it fixed up and I couldn’t find the air pump. So I got it cleaned up as well as I could with the garden hose, fixed one of those cute little bike bells to the handlebars, and walked it to the nearest corner store so I could air up the tires. It took a while but I got the tires aired. Then the first intersection I come to someone nearly hits me because they were speeding and probably weren’t paying attention. Then about a block later the chain breaks. I ditched it in the park.