This morning, I went outside to get some sun, run an errand and buy me a few flowers as a girlie treat. In an impromptu impulse, because I had an hour free, I decided to stop by my favourite neighbourhood coffee shop and get me a beautiful cup of that Emperor’s Clouds and Mist green tea that only they make. I went in, absolutely unbothered about the fact that I have zero cash on me, because payments can be done through your mobile phone in India with such ease they almost don’t feel real.
I get me my tea, chat with the lovely barista, sit down at the table and start doing something on my phone that I was fully immersed in - and even though it was merely three hours ago, I cannot for the life of me remember what I was doing. The next time you have a long, hypnotic scroll session on Instagram, ask yourself the very second after you put your phone down to recollect five posts you saw in the past hour, or three new things you learned from this deep scroll. Chances are, your brain will struggle to do that, and how ridiculously dystopian that feels is almost funny. Our brain on social media is a conversation that never ceases to be terrifyingly interesting, and an experience I had today that ties into this theme is something I’m feeling so called to share.
Suddenly, my battery died, I’d not even realised that I’d forgotten to charge my phone. Then, as normal humans now do, I spent a few minutes in utter panic, looking at my steaming hot, yet-to-begin cup of green tea and contemplating if I should make it a takeaway and rush home to plug back in again. Or ask somebody for a charger. What if, in these very next twenty minutes of having to sip this tea without a phone, someone in my family drops dead with a heart attack, because, in their last moments they tried to call me for help and I couldn’t be reached? (As though I’d teleport to them through my phone in two seconds). What if a parcel from the post arrives at the doorstep, and I am not reachable for the verification OTP immediately, and then everyone gets mad at me for this immense inconvenience of my unavailability as I sip my tea? I swear this is not hyperbole, it’s an honest and accurate description of my stream of consciousness at that moment.
I noticed how I sat at the edge of my seat, butt clenched, forehead tensed, fingers tensed, feeling like being 0.1kms walking distance away from my home, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, but without this little device switched on, is so very wrong, unsafe and dangerous, and will deeply hurt or upset the people who will not be able to reach me during a small container of time.
I noticed how rigid my body went, and how utterly silly this anxiety was, and began to soften it. I leaned back, slipping into being the crazy person sitting alone at the coffee shop who’s laughing to herself without looking at a screen.
I have, of course, had my phone go dead in a public place many times before, and I know the feeling of being acutely aware of how funny this level of panic is while also being completely unnerved at the same time by said panic. There’s a whole lot of discomfort in being offline from our always-on world, and from our handheld device as a source of safety, shielding, distraction and constant online availability when one is out and about. I don’t need to specify why, as women, this takes on a whole new meaning and level of significance when it comes to safety.
I wasn’t even wearing a watch today, btw, and this cafe had no clocks. It was… Surreal. I had no idea how much time there was left until I’m supposed to be back home to oversee the cook’s work in the kitchen, I had no measure of how much time I’m spending at the coffee shop, I was officially in a different dimension. I noticed how every single person, at every table around me, had either a laptop open, phone in hand, or both, and this goes even for tables with multiple occupancy. Who needs clocks anymore? ;)
I would feel utterly stupid about myself if I gave in and ran home, so I decided to proceed to have one of the most fun experiences I’ve had by myself in a coffee shop in a LONG time.
I felt weirdly, utterly exposed (!?) without a screen to hide behind and into. I met men’s gazes and immediately made them uncomfortable. I felt awkward, like an unhinged weirdo who’s just sitting there and thinking and looking at people, instead of being politely, appropriately immersed in a device like the rest of the world in that microcosm of a coffee shop. I almost wondered if I am making people uncomfortable? I swear this gets only funnier and crazier as the minutes go by.
I had no book, no notebook, no purse, nothing. Just me and my energy, my gaze felt like it’s penetrating the room in ways it shouldn’t be. When you’re the only one in the room who’s not on a screen, all sorts of weird shit comes up. And I absolutely don’t mean this in a “Ho ho I am better than everyone else” way, at all. I do not intend to, at any point of this blog post.
Everyone I saw around me was literally me when I do have a phone. Walking in with headphones in, here but somewhere else. Scrolling apps hypnotically while a phone call conversation is on in their earphones, nowhere but everywhere at once. Scrollling the phone in the one minute break from writing, notebook open and pen uncapped. Here but somewhere else. Here but somewhere else. And I, on the other hand, all alone in being unbearably here.
Anybody who looked at me - and when you’re a woman by yourself, that’s omnipresent and ceaseless - I could feel their gaze with an even sharpened sensitivity that I don’t usually possess when I’m numbed out with the safe cocoon of my online-ness.
I do not like to be seen as open, approachable and available to talk to when I’m anywhere by myself. As a woman in India, even in the safest neighbourhoods, it’s just not it for me. And having my screen to look at so that I’m always somewhere else, always talking to someone who’s not physically there, or simply appearing occupied, has become such a necessary shield and armour that I forgot the joy of giving my brain empty space to just brain.
It’s so wonderful to have the safety and security of instant connection, availability and reach with the devices we have. And, at the same time, we’re always being called to examine this duality. Being always online is a blessing for human life. But there’s always moments when I feel painfully aware that it can turn so exhausting, depleting and suffocating to have to be assumed as always available by default. It’s as though wherever we exist, we’re one leg in our phone.
Sometimes, when I’m out with my friends and so, so immersed in a beautiful conversation that I forget the passage of time entirely, I’ll have this flashing moment of alarm like “Oh my god I haven’t even seen my phone in god knows how long because I was being so present here. What if my parents have texted me something that I owe it to them to immediately see even when I have stepped out of the house.” The guilt! The panic! It doesn’t help to have a family that couldn’t be bothered to really talk about things to me when I’m home, but will suddenly remember some pressing question, conversation or decision that they want to ask me about over text when I, for once, step out of my WFH life and go engage with the world. And somehow, I can’t seem to shake off sensing the subtle implication and social contract that’s always saying that we’re the problem if we don’t give our instant attention and replies to whoever is seeking them, no matter where we are.
I have some friends whose phone never leaves the table, and whose glances never leave the phone. And I feel so alone with them that I actually end up not starting certain conversations because I feel like I might inconvenience them by starting a subject that can turn deep, take too long or take up too much space by keeping them away from their phone and having to listen to me, because they already seem to be 50% unavailable to me despite literally being there meeting me. I even start questioning why I didn’t just stay home and text them instead, and not in a rude way at all. I observe with so many dear friends how, if there’s a momentary and natural pause in the conversation, they’ll rush to pick up their phone and check notifications with an urgency that makes me feel like I was quite inconveniently being a burden and keeping them from it this whole time, lol. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve left unsaid with people, because I didn’t want to interrupt them with their phone or take up too much of their attention between their phone checks, while they were sitting with me.
I have some friends who are far more polite, and stay present on the table save for an actual phone call. The moment they pick up the call, the way that everyone else on the table immediately goes to have a quick look at their notifications has an urgency to it almost as though reaching for water after a run or something, because it’s now acceptable to do that given that someone picked up their phone. And there’s only a few seconds window before we must return to being politely present. Wow, it amuses and baffles and terrifies me. Obviously, these are just observations. I am also all these people and afflicted with the same tics, more often than I’d like to admit. Sometimes, it almost feels like, behaving like this is supposed to be socially acceptable and good. Being always available to, instantly concerned about and accessible to several people at all times, across digital realms, and the person sitting across from you in the physical realm being just one among those who have your attention, not the only one. And I even feel like my taking even the mildest offense at this means I’m an unnecessarily sensitive weirdo.
I’ve been thinking a lot, the past few months, about how ‘content brain’ is a thing now, of how we tend to overfeed our brain with stimulation in our times. I see my family wake up and reach for their phone first thing, work on screens all day, and then unwind in the evening by scrolling on their phone some more, watching television and YouTube, and then scrolling some more before sleep. It’s like every single aspect of our life is consumption, consumption and consumption of stimulation.
As I sat there at the coffee shop, phoneless unhinged deliciously awkward energetically glitching, I savoured how my favourite kind of tea leaf smelled exactly like the breeze carrying the scent of fresh cut grass in my school grounds when I was in my horse riding classes. I let my mind wander, and floated into gratitude for how beautiful my little street really is. The swaying palms outside - so, so abundant and taken for granted in my land - confirmed to me why they were so exotic, coveted and glamorous in the Victorian era. I thought about how beautifully maintained the coffee shop’s Mastrena espresso machines were, the mirror surface shining like it was bought only yesterday, and made a mental note to keep the mirrors in my home exactly as shiny. I people watched in ways I haven’t given myself the pleasure of enjoying in god knows how long. I had thoughts that untangled, structured, clarified and inspired my intentions for the rest of my day and my week, and they came flowing into my consciousness with a buttery smoothness that I didn’t know I was capable of - if I just let my brain be alone, bored and present. Nowhere but NowHere. I visualised how I want to spend the rest of my day. I played with ideas for designs for my shop. It was light, serene, and so much fun, to exist in my own little bubble like that. Unreachable. I realised that a very, very tiny part of me is ALWAYS on edge about staying alert for the next notification sound or phone call ringtone. It’s so tiny it’s barely conscious. It’s a normal, natural survival thing for our body as we have evolved with the times. The phone is tied with feelings of safety, not only for ourselves but also for others. And, turns out, every single thing is urgent. But now that the potential for that happening was taken away with my phone switching off, I deeply felt the relief of how it feels to have that tiny part switched off. It unlocked a different part of my ability to think, imagine, process and reflect. I realized that I wanted to enjoy this feeling so much more often.
It wasn’t meant to be, but it turned out to be such a cool artist date for me.
I had no measure for how much time I must have spent finishing my cup of green tea, it may have been only 18-20 minutes, but I swear it felt like two hours. Like the passage of time isn’t something that’s happening to me, but as though I create time by how much presence and depth I lead myself to experience.
~~ It’s interesting how this cute little experience happened for me exactly at the time when I’d been mulling over how it would look like to live more deeply, consume less but in methods that feel like more, and what I’m feeding my brain. I’ve been reflecting on how sneaky the whole ‘optimizing’ game can be, the never-ending potential of how much exposure to different things we can amass and how poor my digital boundaries can slip into being when I’m not conscious of them…
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