Thank you so much for reading Zoya, I have a hate love relation with youtube, in my eyes the watch later queue is just pure optimism about future you's free time that present-you will never allow.
Honestly, it’s not just that we’re distracted. it’s that we’ve traded away something specific: the felt knowledge of things. the difference between reading about grief and sitting inside it long enough that it changes the shape of something in you.
Spidorable, thank you so much for reading and for pulling that line out. . It is so easy to intellectualize our feelings instead of just letting ourselves truly experience them. I’m really glad that specific part resonated with you.
Really good read! Great insight most people can relate with. The habit is totally reversible with conscious effort, so not all is lost. You just need to practice catching yourself in the moment and choosing differently :)
Thank you so much for reading Vexx, i really appreciate the optimism in your comment. you're absolutely right. it's all about building that mental muscle to catch ourselves in the act and gently pivot. taking it one choice at a time! :)
I say bring back the boredom. I am the most creative on the verge of it.
Lately, I have been checking how long are the breaks between putting the phone down and reaching for it again (no reason). 10 minutes. 10 minutes I repeat. On average. I am hoping that awareness will bring change.
Thank you for your words. So so beautiful written, so accurate and so honest ♥️
you are so right. like that empty space of boredom is exactly where the magic and creativity actually live. reading and thinking tracking those 10-minute intervals sounds both maddening and incredibly eye-opening. the fact that you're even measuring it and sitting with that discomfort means you're already breaking the spell. thank you so much for the beautiful and generous compliment, Ela, it really means a lot!
it's always special coming from you, your comments are the highest possible praise i can be bestowed upon! to have an incredibly gifted writer like you say that about my words completely made my day. Thank you so much for reading and for being here! ✨
Amyy, thank you so much for reading this, and trust me i completely understand that feeling. the pull of the scroll is designed to be incredibly strong! awareness really is the first step, though. be gentle with yourself. we're all trying to unlearn this together.
I suspect many of us are carrying around hundreds of unfinished conversations with ourselves. And somewhere between the next notification and the next headline, we keep forgetting to return to them. Beautiful piece 😊
the heavy irony of crossing out my 3 month old draft that i began writing about the same thing in the same manner as i was coming to terms with my (or our) inadequacy as projects in progress living an insulated packaged life, leaving said draft to breathe and be as it is as an unfinished incoherent mess with a few standout sentences, and then immediately being greeted by this piece, written about the same thing in the same manner (or so i presume) //actually written well though, unlike mine, props// complete with its own beginning middle and end. anyways, cool write up.
this was really well written, i can see a lot of myself in it. i have god knows how many bookmarks and i've never watched or read them any of them. once i tried going through each one by one but then i gave up. we've all just crowdsourced our thinking to people who know perfectly well what they're going through but not what you're going through.
p.s. really random but your substack is really... aesthetic i guess? i don't know
it really is those damn reels. i used to scroll past my gallery to reminisce. i’d turn off the wifi mode as i glee upon a glimpse of the past—food i ate on a random tuesday, screenshot of an article i liked or a video of me and my friends laughing. now, my storage is full with screenshots and pictures hidden in there. no re-visits, only a ghost town of memories.
From the first line I felt like its me.
Till the very end its me.
With the exception that now I add even YouTube videos to the watch later section.
Thank you so much for reading Zoya, I have a hate love relation with youtube, in my eyes the watch later queue is just pure optimism about future you's free time that present-you will never allow.
Btw, this line is so beautiful:
Honestly, it’s not just that we’re distracted. it’s that we’ve traded away something specific: the felt knowledge of things. the difference between reading about grief and sitting inside it long enough that it changes the shape of something in you.
Spidorable, thank you so much for reading and for pulling that line out. . It is so easy to intellectualize our feelings instead of just letting ourselves truly experience them. I’m really glad that specific part resonated with you.
The line about the dog having a complete narrative arc versus the flooded city is devastating because it is also embarrassingly how my brain works.
Thank you so much for reading <3
I feel called out 😭😭
haha, trust me, I was calling myself out the entire time I was writing it! 😅 We're all in the same boat. thank you for reading suesue
Really good read! Great insight most people can relate with. The habit is totally reversible with conscious effort, so not all is lost. You just need to practice catching yourself in the moment and choosing differently :)
Thank you so much for reading Vexx, i really appreciate the optimism in your comment. you're absolutely right. it's all about building that mental muscle to catch ourselves in the act and gently pivot. taking it one choice at a time! :)
I say bring back the boredom. I am the most creative on the verge of it.
Lately, I have been checking how long are the breaks between putting the phone down and reaching for it again (no reason). 10 minutes. 10 minutes I repeat. On average. I am hoping that awareness will bring change.
Thank you for your words. So so beautiful written, so accurate and so honest ♥️
you are so right. like that empty space of boredom is exactly where the magic and creativity actually live. reading and thinking tracking those 10-minute intervals sounds both maddening and incredibly eye-opening. the fact that you're even measuring it and sitting with that discomfort means you're already breaking the spell. thank you so much for the beautiful and generous compliment, Ela, it really means a lot!
only you can put words to a feeling so wonderfully.
it's always special coming from you, your comments are the highest possible praise i can be bestowed upon! to have an incredibly gifted writer like you say that about my words completely made my day. Thank you so much for reading and for being here! ✨
The most devastating realisation is that although I feel seen through this I'd still go and doom-scrool away to an eternity
Amyy, thank you so much for reading this, and trust me i completely understand that feeling. the pull of the scroll is designed to be incredibly strong! awareness really is the first step, though. be gentle with yourself. we're all trying to unlearn this together.
I suspect many of us are carrying around hundreds of unfinished conversations with ourselves. And somewhere between the next notification and the next headline, we keep forgetting to return to them. Beautiful piece 😊
the heavy irony of crossing out my 3 month old draft that i began writing about the same thing in the same manner as i was coming to terms with my (or our) inadequacy as projects in progress living an insulated packaged life, leaving said draft to breathe and be as it is as an unfinished incoherent mess with a few standout sentences, and then immediately being greeted by this piece, written about the same thing in the same manner (or so i presume) //actually written well though, unlike mine, props// complete with its own beginning middle and end. anyways, cool write up.
I feel so seen I can't begin to describe
this was really well written, i can see a lot of myself in it. i have god knows how many bookmarks and i've never watched or read them any of them. once i tried going through each one by one but then i gave up. we've all just crowdsourced our thinking to people who know perfectly well what they're going through but not what you're going through.
p.s. really random but your substack is really... aesthetic i guess? i don't know
it really is those damn reels. i used to scroll past my gallery to reminisce. i’d turn off the wifi mode as i glee upon a glimpse of the past—food i ate on a random tuesday, screenshot of an article i liked or a video of me and my friends laughing. now, my storage is full with screenshots and pictures hidden in there. no re-visits, only a ghost town of memories.