1 day Ago
You’ve probably seen it, and you’ve probably done it yourself. You’re on vacation, you find a scenic overlook, and you hand your phone off for an effortlessly calm picture of you, staring off into the middle distance. Time is frozen in perfect calm, the picture capturing how peaceful you are with the world.
But once the picture is taken, you’re right back on your phone. This moment of peace never existed outside of Instagram . You never actually paused, breathed, and enjoyed the sunset.
Instead you took pictures of it, replied to texts, and posted your effortlessly-cool photo online for others to see how well you’ve conquered life’s chaos. The jig is up, of course. Now that we live in a world fully saturated by social media, we all know your photos are a mirage.
You never slowed down and just breathed. The fact that you took this photo is Exhibit A. But I don’t think you’re fooling others as much as yourself.
You’re not hoping they think you’re calm, you’re wishing to actually be that person in the photo. You wish you could unwind like that, but you go right back to your plugged in world once the moment passes. You aspire to this for the same reason that we increasingly idealize hobbies that suggest a peaceful mind.
Consider your hipster friend who started a record collection. Is he just enjoying the sound quality of vinyl, or does the experience of listening to a record actually enhance the fidelity of life, creating a moment of singular focus? With records, you’re physically connected to the music. Listening and then carefully flipping the record has the qualities of a Japanese tea ceremony.
Every movement is intentional and meaningful. Every sense is engaged. This is Zen.
Flow state. The very opposite of the performative calm in your vacation picture. And the opposite of your complicated, chaotic modern life.
Instead of bills, work emails, or childcare duties, you’re able to be lost in a moment. So the issue here is actually quite simple. We pollute our own lives with distraction.
We keep the television on in our bedrooms. We play YouTube in the background while we cook. We wear earbuds everywhere and even fall asleep to white noise.
We surf the web while on the can. We can’t even focus on Netflix without checking our phones during slow moments. It’s not quite our fault.
That chaotic modern life urges us to seek every small enjoyment, to fill the small empty spaces with some measure of enjoyment. Knowing, all the while, that the constant drip-feed of digital entertainment is illusory. It brings no real comfort.
Perhaps this is why many of today’s lifestyle fads aspire to escape our digital prison. #CottageCore and #TradWives are both, so to speak, cut from this cloth. Disconnection from technology in search of purpose, focus, and even identity.
#DarkAcademia yearns to read old books in gothic coffee shops, while #PumpkinCore unironically longs for walks through crisp auburn leaves while wearing sweaters and, no doubt, drinking a pumpkin spice latte . These fads idealize a simplified life where you can live in the moment and in the doing, instead of the rehearsing or the recording. We clearly understand, instinctively, that moments of focus and simplicity bring peace.
But we get pulled back again and again for that sweet dopamine hit of texts and likes and “breaking news!”. In the 1950s, psychologists ran an experiment, where they wired rat brains to a lever. If the rat pushed the lever, it would receive a hit of dopamine, stimulating the pleasure center of their brain.
The rats went nuts for the lever, preferring it to food, water, even sex. This might sound scarily familiar to some of you. Fortunately, we are not rats.
The answer here is simple for most of us. If you want moments of intentionality, peace, and focus, you’ll just have to build them. Pretending on social media won’t cut it.
Put your phone away at dinner and concerts. Leave it in your jacket, in a closet, at social functions. Walk your neighborhood with your own thoughts, and not with a podcast.
Try to use the loo without Facebook. In the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” , after waiting countless hours for a photo of the elusive HImalayan snow leopard, Sean Penn gets his opportunity, but pauses, just watching the furtive creature. When will he take the picture? “Sometimes I don’t.
If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.” Find those moments, stay in them.
Be present in your own life before it passes you by. Andre Garron is a lawyer who grew up in Avon..
