Ok, this sounded a tad more dramatic than it really is in real life (just like everything else in social media 🙂 ) but it is true …. well, partially. (just to stay true to the social media theme over here 🙂 )
It’s a known fact that we spend hours and hours of our days on our “smart” phones while they are “dumbing” us down. (this might just be part of the a secret plan of the AI’s before they come to full consciousness and can rule over us 🙂 ) Anyways, focus, my Queen, focus!
So I noticed how much time I spent on my phone from the first moment I open my eyes….actually, I don’t even open my eyes yet, and my phone is in my hands, HELPING me be able to open my eyes and catch up with what I’ve missed during those lost hours of Zzzzz’s. How did the world go on without my surveillance over it on social media? So I used my phone instead of coffee to wake up as I mindlessly scroll on Instagram and Facebook (I am too old for Twitter and Snap and all that bullshit). While I admire the beautiful kids and sassy comments of Chrissy Teigen, root for Kendra Wilkinson to feel like her sexy self again, catch up with the Daily show’s tidbits here and there and drool over all the seemingly perfect relationships that my friends have and brag about in my news feed… I notice that in a mere 5 minutes of mindless scrolling, I went through a roller coast of emotions. And it is not even 8 o’clock yet. I got upset over the state of the world, then hopeless about it, then I saw a cute animal video and my heart got warm and fuzzy again,but that warmness quickly turned into jealousy, because why can’t my life be so picture perfect as the other “fake advertisements” coming from all my “friends” on Instagram. Basically I’ve felt at least 10 emotional ups and downs in a matter of 10 minutes before I even got out of my bed, and I’m already exhausted. How will I take on a whole day with this mindset.
And if this wasn’t enough, I’m dumb enough to not learn from my mistakes, just keep going back doing the same exact dumb sh*t throughout the whole day. But the more I “connect” to the outside world, the lonelier and more isolated I feel on the inside. I compare my life to all these perfect portraits, and I feel like I am lacking. In reality, I am not lacking anything, and I live in abundance (relatively speaking) but as soon as I take away my attention from what I got, and compare my life with others, I always fall short. Yes, there are some useful, innocent, cute, funny things on these apps as well, and that’s how they got you hooked… because if it was full of shit, no one would stay. But since you find some tasty blueberries and chocolate pieces in the middle of a shit show, you stay for those bits and pieces. Then there is the other pandora’s box: the online dating apps (Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, etc).They all make you think that the whole world is at your feet…or at your thumbs, and you can window shop anyone you’d like to have. It is like Amazon for human relationships. Only later on you realize that you’ve spent the majority of your day either swiping for the next instant match to get the next dose of quick dopamine fix for your brain, or wasting hours on endless, shallow small talks, arguing with strangers over basic etiquette and common sense, or watching the convo die shortly after the first “hi, hello” exchange. I guess it is not a surprise for anyone if I say that this kind of interaction gets very old very fast. And then again, you are there alone, exactly where you started, but a bit more burnt out and hating your life just with a bit more enthusiasm while you are glued to your phone 24/7.
So, long story short(er), this morning I started thinking what people were doing in the Stone Age…you know, BEFORE smart phones were invented!?!?! I remember I was alive, and existed just fine without it (because I didn’t know what I was missing, you’d say oh-so-wisely :))) but just like I have no idea what on earth did I spend all that free time BEFORE I had kids, I don’t remember how life was without these time consuming parasite devices either. So I decided to give myself a break from it, and discover life beyond the apps and wonders (of social media).
I deactivated my Facebook ( it’s kinda like holding up a middle finger to it… and exactly as effective and dramatic, because absolutely no one gives a shit about me being on it or not 🙂 I was too much of a chicken to permanently delete my whole account, but I was pleasantly surprised that at least it is an option now, because Facebookoperate on the same principle as Hotel California… “you can check out, but you can never leave”. I enjoyed having the option, but I didn’t pull the trigger just yet. Instead uninstalled Instagram, too. Ouch, that hurt! That place is like a playground for my brain. I like creating insta stories, feeling insta creative on it, posting pictures with inspirational quotes and feel so spiritual, holier than thou, so unique (along with all the other 5 million similar style accounts) and all my pole dancing tutorials were saved on that app as well. So that was a deep cut for my pretentious creative veins, but oh well, they say the survival rate is fairly high after such moves like this, so I am not too worried. Then I pulled the plug on all my dating apps….goodbye half naked bathroom selfies, fish pictures, oversized beards and half-assed “hello”s. How will I live without y’all, I’m not sure yet, but hoping that the withdrawal symptoms won’t be too intolerable.
So there you have it… My phone is clean from all the time- consuming, mind-numbing apps I cherished for so long and now I don’t know what to do with my phone anymore…. paper wight? Flashlight? Alarm only? Do people still use that green thing…the call button? I guess I could text people, but since I can’t fish for new victims from Bumble anymore, and I don’t really have friends either, my phone is mostly silent with an occasional unsolicited sales or tax call. Now I am back to the dark ages, where life is silent, I don’t know what to do with myself anymore and I get to experience for the first time how it feels to be bored…or just BE! Just be with me….present in my life…then my kids (yes, they are still around, as I’ve noticed after I got my head buried out of my phone)…just to be with them and pay attention to them without being glued to my phone constantly. I get to be bored…..even if it is only for a minute, but now I know how boredom feels. Oh, the luxury of being bored. And I get to read more books….watch a movie….be in nature…brag about being better that you on an old school blog ….you know…back to reality.
I know I am speaking as an old veteran of this wild lifestyle …. but I am not. This whole exile only happened a few hours ago, so don’t be too proud of me just yet. And I don’t know how long it will last….but I hope I’ll get to enjoy this break at least for a whole week before I cave in again, and feel the irresistible urge to post a picture of my breakfast, or fish for likes with the newest, cutest thing my daughter just said.
What if, during my break, I just realize that most things in my life is just for ME, to take it all in and enjoy it fulling…not to pass along right away and measure the value of the post with the amount of likes it gets. What a sick and twisted society we live in these days, and we don’t even realize it, only when we force ourselves to part with these apps, we feel the hole in us….But let me tell you, this hole is a lot bigger while you are ON these apps. You are just too distracted to notice it. And as you stop the noise, you notice the presence of the hole for the first time, and you don’t try to distract yourself from it with the next trending video or the other spiritual post you gift to the world, but you sit with it, with the silence, the hole, the vast darkness in you, and you just observe it, watch it and accept it as it is…and relax into it. Then it starts shrinking, and shrinking and shrinking until you are so comfortable with yourself that you can’t remember if you had a hole in you, or you were just simply one.
(an S hole…but that’s another topic for another day)
Quitting Queen 