The return to writing letters
I have a daydream where I am sitting at an oak desk surrounded by walls of books, overlooking a lawn flanked with native trees. There are no electronic devices on this desk, just me, the writing pad and pen, crafting letters.
This desire has been tugging at my sleeve for what feels like years and I wonder why has it not taken centre stage. What is stopping me from writing letters? Why do I lust for it yet do nothing about it - is it really my dream? What is it trying to tell me?
What does the feeling of writing letters mean to me? I thought.
Does it mean slowing down?
.. purposeful action?
and being present?
I notice how much I rush and feel discomfort in being present with mundane tasks such as brushing my teeth, making coffee, or tidying the house. Why am I rushing through all these daily motions? For these exact actions are what remind me that I am alive, that I am safe and I am healthy.
I find it interesting how my life has changed significantly in the last two years, to the one I lived before. I have slowly released the pressure that was driving me to attain something I thought I should have, keeping up with the Book Of Life That Doesn’t Exist™️ as I call it, to discovering the beat of my own life rhythm. This was quite a shift for me as my career has only ever been in the events industry, which by its very nature is fast, pressured and stressful.
Now my life has a lot of space within it. I still work around the events industry but I do my best to not overload my schedule. I consciously choose my health over another’s expectations and desires. It has been a challenging experience but one I am willing to face as I know I cannot go back to the way I used to live.
My life has slowed right down, yet I often find that I am still moving too fast. This is especially so when I watch how I use my phone. Having this space away from my old life revealed just how unsustainable it was, as my habits are now revealed to me. No wonder we are all burning out, getting sick and dying because of it.
I’ve recently focused attention on my relationship with my smartphone, dipping into academic research. Reviewing some studies, it was revealed that collectively, smartphone users interact with their phones on average 85 times per day (Andrews et al, 2015). Eighty five times per day. In addition, average time spent on smartphones of 7 hours per day, with nearly half that time on social media (Coyne et al, 2023).
Another study indicates the mere presence of our phone in the room even put away is constantly drawing our attention, reducing our cognitive ability (Ward et al, 2017). The author uses the example of how we prioritise certain sounds/actions over others in terms of how our brain allocates attention. Our own name ranks very high on this list, as if someone says our name, we can’t control that our body responds to it (Holeckova et al, 2006).
Essentially, our phone is constantly calling our name. How on earth can we even have a chance of slowing down if our attention is being pulled at every moment? The metaphor of our relationship to our smartphones reminds me of how our mind works - constantly seeking to distract us and not allowing us any moment of peace.
I wonder then, if my desire to write letters is also a dream of being released from the shackles of the smartphone which keeps me hooked to the not-self life?
Even as I write this and drink my coffee, I notice when I place it back on the table, I tap my phone screen before drawing my hand back to the keyboard.
Is this dream mine or part of the collective? Do we all share a desire to be free of this aggression and live according to our inner rhythm?
Are we able to identify how the mind wants to live at warp speed because the faster we go, the less we are able to question what is happening? We are too preoccupied with keeping up, knowing that something isn’t right but unable to unearth it. We fill the void with food, materials, relationships, goals and distractions knowing that they will never satisfy us.
I recently noticed the correlation of how our relationship with our phone has become another way of giving our power away, just like we give our power away to our mind. We don’t trust our body clock to wake up at a time we need, so we set an alarm on our phone. We don’t trust our inner navigation system so we use Maps. We don’t trust that if someone needs us, they will get to us at the correct time, so we take our smartphones everywhere, even on a walk where we rather leave it at home.
The smartphone constantly serves as a distraction from the present moment, just like our mind. The smartphone is a tool, just like the mind. We are meant to be in control of it, not the other way around. When they run amok, we are in trouble.
Both the phone and the mind are here to serve us, not the other way around. That is what I believe the core of our discourse and suffering is surrounding the smartphone. We have become slaves to it, like we have the mind. Yet, there is a way out.
Like one of the three essences of Buddha’s teachings; “tame this mind of ours”, most spiritual practices and systems such as Human Design teach us how to come back into command and calm that mind so it returns to its correct role as our servant. We are here to be embodied, not em-minded (yes I made that up, I think).
For me, the more I practice honouring my body, the quieter the mind becomes. The captain has taken charge of the ship and the mind returns to its position on deck. It doesn’t mean that I will never sail through storms again, but it does mean that when I do, I am grounded, in command and able to deal with them. It means when I feel melancholy or grief, that I can hold myself with love and space to feel the pain and allow it to process. It means when I feel on top of the world that I can go with the energy and appreciate this moment will change.
It is a complete trust in life; knowing we are supported, knowing we have purpose and knowing there is nothing to fix.
It is also a practice, that we must return to in every moment, coming back into command and not being whisked away by the mind (or the phone). It is a new habit we must form if we want to find any inner peace from the smartphone mind.
It is in this space that I sit silently and sip my coffee, as I continue writing letters.
This post is part of The Undo Project and archived at isemurphy.com. If you wish to support this work, you can donate here. To stay up to date with Íse, subscribe to her newsletter.
References
Andrews, S., Ellis, D. A., Shaw, H. and Piwek, L. (2015) “Beyond Self-Report: Tools to Compare Estimated and Real-World Smartphone Use.” PLoS ONE, 10(10) p. e0139004.
Coyne, P., Voth, J. and Woodruff, S. J. (2023) “A comparison of self-report and objective measurements of smartphone and social media usage.” Telematics and Informatics Reports, 10 p. 100061.
Holeckova, I., Fischer, C., Giard, M.-H., Delpuech, C. and Morlet, D. (2006) “Brain responses to a subject’s own name uttered by a familiar voice.” Brain Research, 1082(1) pp. 142–152.
Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A. and Bos, M. W. (2017) “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity.” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2) pp. 140–154.