Living Distractionless: Making the Hard Choices to Get Back to "You"

As I near the end of my fifties this year I sit and think about things from my past. Good, bad all of the awkward in between. Waiting, not knowing and finding out are constant components to some of these memories. I used to wonder about all kinds of stuff and sometimes would either call someone I knew or had to wait to go to the Library. I know all of that dates me quite a bit but why would these times stay so large in my mind when in the last 20 years up until very recently, I had a smartphone glued to my hip giving me any answer I could ever want?

I think it goes back to how I felt about myself back then. Sure, I looked better, was younger. It is deeper than that. What I remember is curiosity that persisted and the attention span and determination to find out even if it took days or even months. There were less things sitting and vying for my attention, pleading to be those most important thing I read all day. About six months ago I felt the need to try something radical. I began turning all the artificial digital pollution off

The phone that only rings

The venerable landline still does one job. It rings. You answer it or you do not. When you leave, it stays. There is no feed on it, no map of where you drove, no app that learned your habits. For a house with kids, or someone who values their headspace in one of the few sacred places on this earth (your home) a corded or cordless home phone is still the cleanest tool. Traditional copper line service is almost nonexistent. I have very low speed internet and my provider wouldn't offer a phone package that wasn't a cellphone. I ended up getting a phone contractor to install a line that works on my limited connection.

A flip phone is the same idea in a pocket. On Verizon, the Kyocera DuraXV Extreme is the plain one: calls, texts, a keypad, a battery you can swap, built to get wet and dropped. On T-Mobile and many of its smaller carriers, the CAT S22 Flip is the practical middle. It is still a flip, still a keypad, still IP68, and it runs a small Android so a bank app or a map can live on it if you need it while out. The screen is small enough you won't lose hours using it.

Paper, or a close imitation.

A paper notepad still wins for a list, a phone number, a measurement, a thought you do not want filed in a cloud. It has no battery. It does not notify. A small book in my coat is enough for most days.

If the handwriting has to travel and be searched later, a minimal e-ink tablet is the next step, not a laptop. A Kindle for books. A reMarkable or a Supernote if you need notes that look like paper and do not run a social app. E-ink is slow on purpose.

Watches not 'watching'

The Cubitt Viva 2 is not a dumb object, and it should not be sold as one. It is a 1.85-inch AMOLED watch with Bluetooth calling, heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, and a battery Cubitt rates at up to eight days. GPS on a walk comes from the phone it is paired to (The Cat S22).

Entertainment that ends

Internet feeds do not end. A record does. A movie does. A book does. That is why the old formats still work for a person trying to get his evenings (and memory) back.

Half Price Books is the local version of that choice. The Bloomington location is a bit of a drive for me from Loogootee but it makes for a good monthly trip. The shelves are used CDs, DVDs, and books at prices that are still cheaper than a subscription service. You buy the thing. You play it or read it. When it is over, it is over. You can sell it back and do it again!

The choice, stated plainly

None of this turns back time and yes I found it incredibly inconvenient for a couple months. A really curious thing happened. I found myself starting conversations again, I've talked to people in this area I never would have (and the same for them probably). When people call me, I ask them about stuff I'd normally be able to just scroll an answer for and before you know it I learn that my nephew knows about classical music or that my brother tried his hand at making a pressed duck once, HILARIOUS.

Those moments didn't stop happening because of devices, I know this. They did, in my experience become less frequent, hard to remember and plain crowded out by the immense media noise of strangers I could care less about.

I'm thankful I am trying this as a result my typing has greatly increased because I pulled my dusty desktop out of the closet so I could continue to write articles!