I sit here with my heart breaking and my mind spiraling.

Why did they have to go so young? Why, after their life was so sad? Why them, when they were so innocent? Could anyone have known? Could they have not lived just one dream? What about their mother, how will her broken heart survive? What about the world, and all the potential they could’ve had?

Death is not fair.

I envy the folk who’ve never lost someone, blood or otherwise. People who’ve gone their whole lives without learning to live with an empty space, or reconcile the memory of a face with the fact that it doesn’t exist anymore, or strain to remember the fading sound of someone’s laughter.

A lot comes to mind when you lose someone and a lot more comes into perspective.

My first loss came at age 14, when my father passed away after a short but brutal battle. And for twenty years, this continues to shape me in ways nothing else ever has. Every life lost since, even one who’s distant but who’s mere existence comforted me, has added its mark and its burden.

Nothing prepares you for death, whether you get years, weeks, or a day… Time may facilitate the final arrangements, but it doesn’t soften the grief. No amount of preparation will reveal the thoughts, feelings, and reactions that meet you when the moment arrives.

And so I sit here drowning in my own thoughts. Thoughts I never imagined would surface with this loss, but I let them come…

“Don’t pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Death is not fair. Least of all to those left behind.

I’ve always been scared of losing people, yet not so much of dying myself. And one after the other, my losses have affirmed that. I’m scared of the aftermath and the helplessness. I’m scared of the knot of pain, and emptiness, and grief that would settle in my chest afterwards, nestling there with others of its kind. I’m scared of a future void of them. And while my own death may not scare me, I fear for my loved ones who will live through my loss.

Ironically, many think me a cynic. I’ve lived through loss, survived war, witnessed trauma, and nursed grief. I see what’s broken, unfair, and painful in reality, and never shy away from exposing it. But that’s all they see… and they lack perspective to see past it.

I sit here, my head pounding, every sound, color, and scent grating. As much as I wish to, I cannot turn back time, nor can I pause it, or remove my loved ones from its way. But as I cope with the absence, existence seems more vivid. Every minute ticking gains more weight and every breathe gains new meaning. Much in life given value is cheap, and much that is valuable is overlooked.

This, I know, from all my losses, and this is why I am no nihilist.

Hope and resilience are the daughters of grief. While I may not feel it now, I know life is beautiful, meaningful, and full of purpose. I know living is a miracle and loving is a gift. I know light seeps into the darkest of places and eases the deepest of sorrows.

Death is not fair. But nor is it evil.

It finds us all, one way or another, but with no intentions of its own. Death is not cruel to the lost; it’s a gate to something else, something more. But death is a wake up call for the living. It jolts us from the deepest slumber to remind us that we are here for but a moment, and it is utterly important for us to make that moment dear.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Yes, yes, I know what we think we’re going for.

The catch phrase is that people want to “cut down on technology” and “embrace a more physical life”. It’s coming on the tail end of everyone realising they have “brain rot” from being perpetually online, and wanting to “fix their attention spans”. Not only that, it’s driven by the reality that creativity is MIA, everyone is stressed and addicted to their phones, and our lives just rush by. What “going analog” entails apparently is journalling in notebooks, taking photos with film cameras, listening to music on an iPod or in vinyl, reading physical books and magazines, getting into “grandma” hobbies (because dexterity is apparently retro), and “downsizing” only to “necessary technology”.

What it strangely doesn’t include is not documenting everyone “going analog” on social media…

This trend fails to highlight the real issues that are far greater than the effects of having a Spotify account or using bluetooth headphones. The whole problem statement has been misconstrued, ignoring intrinsic human biases and politics, leading to this ridiculous (for the most part) solution that won’t solve much—if anything, quote me on this, it’s making it worse.

Subscribe now

A Brief Walk Through History

Now, I am born circa ‘92 in a (barely) developing country. Your “analog life” is my ✨culture.

I got my first email at around 11—if you’re curious, it was honeyeyes92@hotmail.com. We paid 3$ an hour at the network (that’s what we called “internet” cafes). We had a shared family PC sitting like a tank in the middle of the living room on a makeshift white plastic table.

We downloaded a song a day on Limewire (with a host of viruses) and uploaded it to a USB-mp3-player or an iPod (which, in my case, I inherited from a sister, who inherited it from a cousin) that could only hold around 10 albums at the time.

People watched cable TV (if you don’t like what’s on, too bad, go sit in your room) and once a week, you’d go to the DVD store to rent a movie for a dollar.

Cameras weren’t cheap and we waited weeks to develop photos (too bad if you looked like an ape in that one shot).

We had hobbies that scuffed our knees and got us tanned, or confined us to our rooms, disconnected, busy drawing or reading or playing games or music—while our parents got a bit of peace from having us constantly up in their business.

All of that and more was as “analog” as life got. Yes, I do get nostalgic; yes, it all does sound romantic; and, yes, I do miss the intellectually healthier times. So why am I hating on this trend?

Why does it always reek of mindless consumerism?

Because like its predecessors—cottage-core, slow-living, dark academia, dopamine detoxing…—it’s awfully focused on buying the relevant accessories to look it, planning content around it, and possibly finding a brand to sponsor the effort and spending.

Buying flip phones, CD players, or film cameras doesn’t quite qualify as “downsizing” to “necessary technology”. I’m pretty sure I also see a movement towards dressing in analog-era fashion, which is just an excuse to buy more stuff.

All of these trends are busy acting out a persona without the actual depth or qualities. We used to call that being a “poser”, but the appropriate term today is “performative”. I’m sorry, I can’t help but roll my eyes ironically at the term… even “performative” feels performative, like it’s concerned with making an elevated and eloquent impression more than “poser” ever was.

Our brains have atrophied, our privacy is nonexistent, and the truth is dead, but you’ve just got to get your hands on an iPod, which is now impossible to even find and sells for hilariously high prices. At least wired earphones are still somewhat cheap…

It’s not the tool but the hand holding it

As one of the people who went through the lifecycle from floppy disks (that’s the “Save” icon), to CDs, to USBs, to Cloud, I don’t actually want analog back. The internet and technology gave us priceless progress and convenience, and insanely wild opportunities. But with such access to power comes a massive chance for abuse, and as ever, we the masses noticed that too late.

So, 20 years into social media and just four into GenAI, our depleted attention spans barely graze the surface of our “brain rot”. If you’re serious about “fixing”, you’re going to have to plough deeper than that into the field of “what’s wrong”. Take a deep breathe because this is going to sting…

We live for visibility, not meaning, and drown in comparison, aspiring to imitate fake influencer lives. We’re subject to mass manipulation daily, as our Feeds decide what we care about, though we all think we’re smarter than that. No one fact-checks, but seeks confirmation and validation. We’re mentally fragile, struggling with confrontation and failure, hiding behind tribalism, and avoiding any nuance or debate; disagreement is perceived as an identity threat and not an intellectual exercise. Everyone confuses constantly having access to information with possessing the knowledge, so we grow false confidence with shallow comprehension, while any skills we have left atrophied because we outsourced them: memory, judgement, writing, analysis, thinking, conversing, learning, solving… And that is nothing to how ignorant we are about how our invaded privacies are already working against us. Look up how the Lavender Algorithm works. Or read Meredith Whittaker’s world shaking speech.

Most humiliatingly, all of these compound as we’re willing prey for AI’s sycophancy. It is designed to respond positively to everything we say, whether or not it’s valuable or likely to be true. So we expose everything about ourselves and our lives, and when it tells us our ideas are brilliant, fantastic, original, revolutionary, and can save humanity… it is lying, but we believe it.

These problems have been predicted by political dystopian authors since the 40s, not because they’re clairvoyant, but because we’re extremely predictable by design. Psychology has defined a mile long list of prejudices—attentional biases, illusion of knowledge, overconfidence bias, Dunning–Kruger effect, confirmation bias, in-group bias, privacy paradox…— that, when mixed with the right environments, lead to these exact results…

To Analog or Not To Analog, What’s the Solution

So is drowning in a lot of retro accessories going to fix our “brain rot”? No, not likely. The cat’s out of the bag, and there’s no use pretending we’re back in the 90s with our gizmos and gadgets because we have an online existence that is not going anywhere, but getting worse.

What is useful is mindfully and intelligently taking back control and offsetting, hopefully reversing, the damage where we can.

Not everything needs to be digital or online, but not everything needs to be analog or offline, either. I say this because I care but…

Broadcasting your retro act online won’t stop you measuring and comparing against others. Getting a life will. Not seeking validation or normalisation or representation for every single thought you have will. Getting deeply educated will. Finding hobbies, meeting friends, reading books, and debating topics will.

Stop outsourcing your brains to AI. Yes, everyone and their mothers can tell your LinkedIn post, or Instagram caption, or Substack essay was ChatGPT. Actually learn how to research, fact-check, debate, and formulate a thought. If you feel uncomfortable or offended by having your world rocked a bit, sit with it, it grows you.

We don’t need a flip phone. Googling something on the spot, online maps, access to any music, and a great camera in one place aren’t actually the applications that cause brain-rot.

We don’t need to hoard books. There are libraries, apps like Libby, borrowing from friends, or (gasp) an e-reader… the point is HOW we’re reading—critically, broadly, out of our comfort zone—not much the medium.

We don’t need to cancel all streaming subscriptions, just focus on using one at a time. We can rent YouTube movies, too (there, that’s retro); OK, possibly buying the DVD of the show or movie we re-watch forever.

Our brains won’t bloom because we’re writing in a specific leather-bound notebook; it’s the actual writing process itself that matters. I personally journal on a basic copybook and write my fiction in Proton docs.

Solving Sudoku on physical paper is actually a good idea, but also explore apps like Brilliant or The New York Times puzzles for developing brain function.

In the end, take it from this 90s kid, here are the true analog things that count: print out photos of people and memories, look at them often, and share them. Exchange letters with loved ones because there is intimacy in knowing their handwriting. No need to text all the time, instead meet up more. Have real hobbies and interests, dive deep into them, know them well, do them often: play the guitar, crochet, rock climb, bake, have a book club, write a novel, research bees, plant a garden, become a nerd at a very specific and narrow topic that people just know you’re the one to ask…

All I mean is live well. And do it without an audience.

Does it ever freak you out that you can’t see your own face? Yes, yes, mirrors. But it’s not the same. It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and it’s crazy, once you give it literal thought. You’re just an invisible, lonely spectator from up high in a tower, looking out onto the world through a window. Your body’s just a Japanese robot you’re driving, and it’s quite the fall from your control room if you look down. You’re all alone in there, speaking to yourself in an echo chamber.

We go about our lives looking out at other people’s faces, admiring and criticising strangers, or memorising every detail about a beloved person, noticing a mood from a slight shift in an eyebrow, a thought from a pursing of the lips, getting the privilege of studying them as long as we’re facing them. But we can’t ever see our own, not in the same way, and when we do, it’s backwards in more ways than one.

It’s quite symbolic, isn’t it? That we’re always looking outwards, always investing emotions externally. We’re built that way.

As humans, we process visual cues faster and more emotionally than abstract or even verbal ones. As children, we learn to understand visual stimuli before spoken language. We trust things we can see, we form parasocial relationships with people we don’t know, we accept authority better when it’s represented in a person rather than a concept.

We spend our entire lives getting glimpses at ourselves through mirrors, through external commentary, through how we imagine people perceive us in their own control rooms. We adopt others’ imposed thoughts. We internalise abuse. We bask in flattery. We spin wild tales about ourselves all alone. We think of ourselves mostly based on second-hand accounts and recycled ideas. And it’s easy to believe untruths when they come from the loud tangible world rather than our gentle, delicate, and faceless soul.

Subscribe now

There’s a saying in Arabic, quite similar to out of sight, out of mind, but with an important difference: بعيد عن العين بعيد عن القلب. It means, “away from the eye, away from the heart”. Away from direct eyesight, it becomes difficult to give ourselves the same importance as those we can see. To hold ourselves close to our own hearts. To love ourselves just as deeply, if not more.

Growing up, I believed that I was unlovable, difficult, and too much. I would have been attractive had I just lost some weight. I would have been more palatable had I voiced fewer opinions. I would have been mature had I indulged my imagination less. I would have been good if I just did what I was told. “That’s not intelligence, that’s stubbornness and vanity”. These were the projections of myself I received from the nurturing and protective figures I looked up to from my windows. And I believed them deep down inside.

Mind you, you may have grown up hearing that you are the most beautiful and intelligent creation on this green earth. Or you act in rebellion against diminishing comments by pitching yourself into completely unfounded egotism. That’s no better.

The danger of believing everything polar about ourselves, for the good or the bad, means we forego self-reflection, sincerity, and vulnerability. We silence our inner voice, which knows us intimately and knows us best. We gag it with the world’s perception of us or else a false protective glamour against it. It’s as if we’re choosing a soulmate or a mortal enemy based on pure hearsay. It’s idolising or despising a mirage.

True love only comes from knowing someone intimately. And it’s about time we learned how to truly fall in love with ourselves.

It’s difficult and uncomfortable to sit with yourself, with that faceless soul behind the window, with that lonely echoing voice speaking to itself. It’s tough to focus on and really listen to a mere concept, “the soul”. That’s why many would rather court abuse, befriend toxicity, inflate their own egos, and while away the time poorly rather than wade through the piles of false or imposed opinions to get to the truth of who we are.

I need you to trust me now. Close your eyes and look inwards.

Imagine that lonely soul piloting your existence in whatever form she presents herself. She casts a dark shadow. She might not have the best profile. She’s covered in patterns, and scars, and faults, and grooves. Her hair may be electrified and her eyes may be red and swollen. She’s been alone, screaming out these windows, out into the void, only to have distorted thoughts echoing back at her. She’s had to lash out, maybe lie. She’s possibly talkative, easy to anger, or envious of some. She may have learned to flee or fawn, rather than speak her mind. She may have difficulty accepting faults or apologising. She may have made embarrassing decisions, or been a horrible friend. But wouldn’t anyone be, when they’re that alone, that ignored, that unloved?

Now imagine reaching out and touching her cheek. She startles and takes a step back, might even hiss at you. But then… she flashes the brightest, most blinding smile because she’s finally being seen! At that moment, you have to smile back. You have to look and take it all in because this is your soul. You when you’re not crying for attention or fighting for a place, you when you’re not insecure about your assumed worldly value of yourself, you when you’re not performing.

None of us are perfect, as much as we’d like to be or we aspire to fake. Indeed, you are not the most beautiful, or intelligent, or mature, or successful, neither will you ever be. Because the world is large and wide, and we are merely 8.2 billion humans alive today, not counting those who have passed through history*.* It is surely safe to assume there have been, are, and will be much finer specimens. And you may even know some of them. We all have faults and we all have sinned. But the danger lies in the blindness, the lack of awareness and self-acceptance.

No one falls in love with perfect, because perfect is not charming, perfect is not warm, perfect is not trustworthy; perfect is delusional with false humility. But everyone falls in love with real, with humble, with vulnerable, with trying to be better, with all the hiccups that come with it.

And so, when you finally find your soul in that dark control room, smiling at you dazzlingly with tearful eyes, I want you to hold her hands and listen to her as she babbles and gushes about all the things that make you endearing, especially those that people running on auto-pilot may perceive as unlovable, difficult, or too much.

Only once we’ve confronted our own insights about ourselves do we welcome love and accept the true perception others have about us.

Here are a few of my charming quirks according to my husband, close friends, and myself… please share your own!

Leave a comment

1. I carry sugar water in a dropper bottle to rescue tired bees

2. I vigilantly look out for snails on rainy days and move them out of danger

3. I brew my coffee with a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg (for prosperity and protection)

4. I get so excited about food and have a “fat child’s soul” as per my husband

5. I am easily consoled with dark chocolate and Indian food

6. I don’t text much, but I am physically there for you before you think of asking

7. I send snail-mail holiday cards for my friends and family around the world

8. I dress a lot in monochrome

9. I am very, very perseverant

10. I have an excessively wild and wide imagination

11. I can recognise any Charmed episode from the opening song

12. I laugh hysterically at lame jokes

13. I have very contagious enthusiasm; I always have a book, anime, or some recommendation

14. I’m very transparent, I will not lie even for protection, and I will call people out because I believe that’s the foundation of trust

15. I’m quick to forgive anything when faced with sincerity and I’m quick to apologise when I mess up

16. I keep being asked if I wear coloured contacts; I don’t!

17. I refuse to kill spiders, and will escort them to the outside politely

18. I’ve been told I’m a walking encyclopaedia and know the most random, obscure facts

19. I always, always have a book or two with me when going anywhere

20. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I tend to read physical books while walking outdoors (to the train for example)

Lately, I have been severely disillusioned by adult life. And I’ve sort of decided to go on strike. Sort of. I’m not quitting my job because I can’t do that. I’m not boycotting bills and taxes because, you know, prison’s not fun. I’m not dyeing my hair fluorescent anymore because I am much more concerned with the inward than the outward (also… my hair is hella healthy now). But rather I have decidedly quit the template I am expected to follow as an adult member of society.

You see, I feel like, as far as paying my dues goes, I have earned the right to rebel against the adult model, seeing as I have played within these boundaries for a long time.

I studied and got the high grades and accolades. I graduated from the “right” degree. I stumbled into a “great” career (and I do mean stumbled because it wasn’t much of a conscious stepping into, but more like the tripping-on-your-own-feet-heart-dropping-to-the-floor sensation before thank-the-stars catching yourself from falling headlong down the stairs). I somehow became important at work (I haven’t the slightest clue how that happened). I’m in a long-term loving relationship (a marriage, no less!). And, I know you will agree with this, I have an admirable degree of self-agency that keeps my bills paid and taxes filed, in spite of all the other stuff I’d rather be spending money on, my cats alive, my house somewhat clean, and my person somewhat healthy and sane.

I think we are all in unanimous agreement here: I am a functional member of society. But honestly, society hasn’t been such a functional model for me.

So, friend, to take you back to my point… I decided to go on strike.

Subscribe now

And one of the first things I dropped is the ridiculously humiliating disguise that I’m a serious adult. I am not, thank you very much! And the mere thought of it appalls me.

Picture this: a five-year-old zooms about the metro, pretending to be a dragon, making sound effects, probably roaring at strangers who smile with doting eyes. Adorable, right?! But a 30-something does that and it’s suddenly a mental health concern. I know that is a vivid image, but the serious question here is: when was the last time you played? Barring freaking out strangers on their daily commute, when was the last time you played without worrying about “looking cool”, “being productive”, “acting your age”… just laughed from your deepest core and had fun?

When we were children, playing was built into our lives, expected even, for proper growth and development (and to allow our parents space to breathe and remain sane). We climbed things we weren’t supposed to. We scratched our knees. We risked a screeching parent for “just 5 more minutes!!!”

But then we grow up. I don’t know the exact age that’s supposed to be, but suddenly, we do. “Sit up straight, don’t laugh too loud, lower your voice, throw away those stupid toys. Act like a grown-up.” All of which is code for: act without a soul, act like the rest, we don’t know who decided we should act like this, but be a good little sheep, now…

I reject that reality and I urge you to, as well.

Because here’s the thing. Humans need to play. Adults may arguably need it more than children when you factor in the sheer stress and lack of imagination built into being an adult. Play keeps us happy and smart and keeps life from feeling like an endless cycle of chores and staring at screens.

Play stops our brain from shrivelling into a useless raisin. Play strengthens neuroplasticity and cognitive functions. Play improves problem-solving, creativity, and decision-making; all the things we assume decline with age, but they don’t have to. Basically, if you feel depressed and like your brain is in a fog, there’s a chance you’re just not playing enough.

Now, if you’re properly enraged and energised by my rant, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I wanna play!” but seeing as you’ve been out of it for years, you may need some guidance to find your way back. Here are my seven universes of play. I dabble in all.

Video Games

The most obvious first stop is the pixel playground, and I don’t mean the sedating, degenerating, brain-rotting turf of mobile or tablet games. Video games require problem-solving, creativity, and fast decision-making. They have stories and amazing artwork. They challenge you and require strategic thought, but also enfold you in a hug. The point is not “being good”, but being happy. The point is being entertained, being thrilled, being into it and escaping the muggle world for a while.

And much like books, if you say you don’t like video games, it’s simply that you haven’t found the game to capture your heart. So get a console or download Steam on your computer, but get to it and game.’

Board Games

The next stop is the sheer social chaos that is board games.

If you’ve ever played a board game that ruined your friendships, then congrats! You have played correctly. Board games are breeding grounds for betrayals, mischief, and your inner evil to peek into the real world. These are not a flaw in the system. They are in it by design! Board games strip away socially-induced formality. They create bonding moments and inside jokes. They encourage pretend play (a muscle that atrophies in adulthood). You simply cannot be severe, self-conscious, and composed when you’re screaming that you are “not evil, goddammitt!!” in a game of Avalon.

Playful Relationships

Get your mind out of the gutter. Or, actually, don’t. Because that’s playing, too. But what I want to actually focus on is that the best relationships are the playful ones. The ones where you still tease each other or have stupidly lame inside jokes that you just howl at.

Even in friendships or families, have you noticed that the people you can safely tease and ridicule and banter with are those that are sincerely the closest to you? That’s because they know your playfulness isn’t secret spite or meanness or passive aggression. That’s because play builds trust and fosters emotional safety.

Playing Alone

The closest thing to good old-fashioned childhood play is hobbies. That could be creative ones like building LEGO, puzzles, knitting, colouring, making beaded accessories, and folding origami, or physical ones like skating, obstacle courses, indoor climbing, or even bounce parks! Adulthood sucks away the fun of creativity or moving for any reason other than “exercise”.

These are not “just hobbies”. They’re small challenges that you do for the joy of it. They help your brain enter a flow state where time disappears and you’re simply in the present, destressed, decompressed, and away from productivity culture. It also gives you an outlet for your creativity and a safe zone for exploration, with no fear or threat of failure. Because guess what? It’s not that deep. Create for the laughs and move for the fun. Not as punishment.

Let me leave you with this.

Play is a mindset. Not what you’re doing, but rather how you’re doing it. And it’s everywhere if you let it be. Playfulness is a superpower because it makes people feel safe, at ease, engaged, and happy. It makes us more comfortable and connected to each other, and most importantly, it reminds us to take life less seriously. Playing makes our lives feel lighter, relationships stronger, work more fun, and daily life less like a loop.

Play is not extra. It’s essential.

So get up and go play something today. Something ridiculous, pointless, and fun. And tell me in the comments what it is. Remember, life is way too short to be serious all the time.

The whole world has been on a throwback bender. Have you noticed? The same movie names in theatres (just much worse), low-rise jeans (which should have stayed dead), wired earphones (there’s a good idea), refurbished Game Boys, flash cameras, even flip phones now… I’m not on Tiktok so I don’t know the other trends, but I’m sure the list goes on.

The Oxford Dictionary defines nostalgia as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past”. But what’s making people long so much for a past that, quite frankly, many of them weren’t even born to experience yet? Would they even have enjoyed it, had they been?

I was born in the early ‘90s. I did research out of a 20-tome encyclopaedia. I know how to actually look up a word in a dictionary. I still have the “writer’s bump” on my middle finger. I had dial-up internet and you couldn’t use the phone when someone else was online. I spent nights reading websites and going down research rabbit holes. I had to rewind a cassette with a pencil if it ever got jammed. I blew into console game cartridges, and let me tell you these games were hard. I remember when the first iPod came out. People just walked up to others and became friends. Homework was tough and that mandatory summer reading list was long. We got bored, we got uncomfortable, we were resourceful, and we could focus.

They say our world today is going through a loneliness pandemic. In part, they attribute it to the lingering effects of COVID; in another, it’s a side effect of living online with nothing for company but the infinite parasocial relationships we sustain.

Most of us are also depressed, because we’re over-exposed to news we should have never heard about, and get bombarded by falsely curated lives of affluence and frivolity that render the normal, mundane, and real lives unfulfilling.

So nostalgia has risen in popularity as an escape to the proverbial happy place. We’ve become so fragile, we’re easy prey for surveillance, for censorship, for conditioning, for manipulation. We’ve become so reliant on convenience that we’re gladly trading it in for our privacy, our sense of community, our resilience, and our individuality.

Subscribe now

But escape is not what we need. Nostalgia has become my act of rebellion, of rehabilitation and resuscitation.

While we knew real boredom in said past, we also knew contentment. Those simple, yet time-consuming and challenging activities that modern life convinced us are better when faster, more efficient, and more convenient - thus rendering them extinct - they served a purpose. They prepared us for the real world, they stabilised us emotionally, they trained us to focus and fact check and question. Losing them has made us incapable of handling the basic human-condition of being uncomfortable and growing as a consequence.

Here are just some of the nostalgic behaviours I’ve brought back into my life, some for the sheer feel-good whimsy and others as defiance of a world that tries to infantilise us. I’d love to hear yours.

Saving my most important data on external hard drives, not the cloud. Working in tech, particularly in the field of AI, has made me extremely distrustful of anyone holding and manipulating my data without my control.

Printing photos & putting them in albums. Because no one ever leafs through old photos on their phones. And one day, when we’re gone, those phones will be in a landfill somewhere, but printed photos will stay with our friends and family.

Writing & mailing physical letters & holiday cards. There is a charm in knowing a beloved friend’s handwriting, and a form of mental stimulation to sitting down and formulate that letter.

Carrying wired earphones, always, just in case! We’re enslaved to battery life on so many levels, but also how incredibly intimate is it to share a wired earphone with someone?

Buying DVDs again. Streaming services have started editing old media, cutting scenes, and changing scripts to align with modern politics, and that is a form of censorship that will only grow with AI. There’s also a romance and depth to physically choosing what you want to watch, plugging it in, and sitting down to watch it - disconnected.

Playing Sudoku and Crosswords in paper format. I have always needed to solve things on paper, it helps me better understand, expand, and retain. The science supports how cognitively enhancing this simple act is.

Wearing an analogue watch.

Starting a real-life book club. Because we’ve lost the capacity to form communities and bonds, as well as discuss and disagree with people outside of our echo chambers without getting offended.

Consuming older books and media. I’ve made a list of old fantasies, horrors, and sci-fis I absolutely must read, and the list is endless. I’ve also made a similar list for older movies and shows. Media nowadays has been watered down to single-dimensional doctrines with no soul, no sense, no imagination, and no critical thought.

Just “dropping by” for a quick coffee then goodbye. It doesn’t need to be penned in the calendar 10 weeks in advance, nor does it have to be a whole day plan. Keeping these carefree connections alive without perceiving them as inconvenient.

Unshackling myself from my phone.

It’s not so simple, I know. Using a pair of wired earphones won’t make you less reliant on technology, nor will it suddenly rekindle the light of critical thinking, of debating and questioning, of being a skeptic and playing the devil’s advocate, or of focusing on a single task until you crack it. But it might just inspire you to accept a way of life that isn’t necessarily always convenient or efficient, but intellectually favourable in its charming discomforts.

I will save my diatribe about how we’re all brain fried, why small screens are ruining human intellect, and how being connected all the time threatens the very fabric of our society for another day. It’s a tirade I love to go on, but today’s essay is more practical. I will give you the exact and exhaustive list that allowed me to break my, let’s call it, compulsive screen attachment (yes, yes, phone addiction).

I did it in three phases that honestly took me around 2 years. You can do it in one day, and the third section is the real tangible steps.

Subscribe now

first, screens should not be worn…

Some years ago, I fell for the smart watch fad, though in my defence, my intent was to use it for health tracking: sleep, steps, heart rate, the like. But regardless of my intent, the watch itself comes configured to display any incoming texts, to ring when someone calls, to ping you when you receive an email, to go off when your alarm rings, to notify you that a friend just sent you an Instagram reel, to remind you that you can’t break your streak on Headspace… Basically, it just keeps buzzing and sounding distress signals that something, not necessarily important or even useful, but something nonetheless, requires your immediate attention.

Now to my credit, I removed all notifications that were not health related. I kept the “drink your water”, “stand up”, “go to sleep” notifications on. I also configured the watch face to strictly show health data, the weather, battery levels, the date… boring, basic widgets.

Then one day, a simple coffee with an old acquaintance woke me up to the fact that I had turned into my own neglected Tamagotchi. While she kept compulsively looking at her Apple Watch every time it gave a buzz for any reason (which, rude, but also, no text is so urgent as to need to be read on a tiny watch face!), but that subsequently made me realise that I had personally grown completely desensitised to all my own watch’s nudges. They happened so often, my brain just tuned them out. Basically, if I were a virtual pet, I’d be dead: forgot to stand up, or drink my water, and don’t get me started on my sleep time.

And, let’s be honest, smart watches are an eyesore. So why was I even wearing it? The watch had to go.

What I did instead:

1. I invested in (or rather my husband invested in me by gifting me) an Oura ring to track my health data. It gives me back the autonomy of checking the Oura app whenever I wanted to, which is basically once in the morning and once at the end of the day.

2. I wear a good ol’ watch for timekeeping now. It’s classy, pretty, (nostalgic, a huge delight for a 90’s kid) and really, all the information anyone needs to know on the spot and cannot walk three steps to acquire.

The point here is we’ve somehow been sold the idea that the silliest of notifications is so entitled to our attention, that we now need to migrate our screen time away from the phone and onto our very own bodies. We’ve also been told that we can save so much memory and concentration by outsourcing it to a buzzing wrist shackle, then re-investing it in more important things like… what? Doom scrolling? Online shopping?

I find that extremely intrusive and so should you.

second, the original was an alarm clock, not an alarm clock app

One of the biggest things I hear people starting with when they’re combatting their phone addiction, screen addiction, social media addiction - whatever we’re calling it - is “not checking their phone the first hour of the day”. That’s a good start, sure, but how is that advice helping if the whole point is it. is. compulsive? You don’t tell a drug addict to stop being addicted by not taking drugs for a day. Wow, wish they’d thought of that!

“Breaking the habit tonight”, as per Linkin Park, starts by lowering the barrier of entry. If your life is not designed around having to check your phone, you will be less likely to check your phone. Mind blowing, I know. So in order to successfully not check your phone in the morning - or at 3AM when you can’t fall back asleep - your phone needs to practically be out of reach, preferably even in another room.

Subscribe now

What I did instead:

1. I bought myself a basic digital alarm clock. “My phone’s my alarm, I have to have it next to me.” No, you don’t. There’s literally no excuse that’s stopping you. You spend money on less useful items, let’s be honest. Mine is basic and cheap. It shows me the time, the date, the temperature in the room (not outdoors; it’s not online), and can be configured to only ring on the weekdays. Resist getting something with metaphoric (or literal) bells and whistles - a white noise machine sunlight lamp alarm will be more expensive, hence, giving your brain an excuse to procrastinate on buying it.

2. I keep a pen and cute notepad on my nightstand for any thoughts that intrude and sound the sirens when I’m in bed, which would have otherwise required the Notes app.

3. I have a small bluetooth speaker by my head (these come cheap now, too), in case I need sleep sounds. I connect it to my phone, turn the sounds on with a one-hour timer, then lock my phone, and head to bed.

4. I also have two different books on my nightstand. So if I can’t go to sleep, my hand can’t automatically reach for the screen and scroll.

(Just in case you’re curious, I also have a water bottle, melatonin gummies, earplugs, an eye mask, eye drops, and allergy medication on my nightstand.)

I’ve managed to render my phone practically useless to me in my sleep routine. And with the last and third step, I completely forget my phone even exists till mid-day, let alone “the first hour of the day”…

third, it’s a phone, not a carnival

It’s quite overwhelming how everything on your phone is vying for your attention. It’s like you’re managing 20 toddlers with strong personalities and no discipline, demanding candy on empty stomachs and missed naps. You leave your phone alone for 5 minutes and come back to 34 notifications from all the apps telling you about their pointless new AI features, reminders that you haven’t posted in a while, asking what you ate today, or enticing you with coupon codes for things you really don’t need. That’s aside from the 149 memes on that one text group you never seem to catch up on.

I’m out of breath just writing this. Get your phone out. We’re ending this circus right now. The exact steps I took to achieve liberation were…

level 1 - lock yourself out

1. I manage all my passwords using a password manager. I personally use Proton, but you can choose your preferred app. The point is, start by getting a password manager.

2. Log in to Instagram, Tiktok, and whatever social media has a choke hold on you, and change the passwords. Then save these passwords in the password manager. NOTE: Make them all unique and strong, because we’re cybersecurity conscious, but also, because S0X^X#xAzrB7JM#kJM0c is much more difficult for you to remember than wildcheese11.

3. I also turned on two-factor authentication for each account. This means that whenever I sign into one of the platforms, I need to put in my password and a code. Proton (not sponsored. I wish) is great here because the password manager also has a two-factor authentication option. But SMS verification also does the trick…

4. And now… I sign out of all socials, I remove any “remember me” settings, and I stay signed out as long as I’m not using the app. That way, whenever my brain goes on autopilot and takes me to Instagram, or whenever I get the urge to check my feed, I need to sign in. Which has now become quite tedious. Here’s what it looks like in practice: I realise I’ve tapped on Instagram… I stare at the login screen confused only to remember I’m signed out, I go to the password manager, sign in to that, copy my impossible password, put it into Instagram, do multi-factor authentication, and then I’m in.

Gone are the days my brain wakes up after having been in the app and scrolling for 10 minutes already. Unless we have a very good reason to check social media, we’ve just created our first barrier of entry. Literally. Moving on…

level 2 - snap yourself out of it

1. I uninstalled Facebook, Messenger, and LinkedIn from my phone because why are they even on my phone?

2. I don’t have a Tiktok account and I almost never use Youtube on my phone. If you do, then I would include these in the next step…

3. I set a 30 minute time limit on my social media apps, which in my case is only Instagram. If you have more, all the apps would share the time limit. Of course, I could have gone with 15 (more aggressive) or an hour… but I find 30 minutes to be the sweet spot. Your phone will remind you 5 minutes before the app locks. Yes, I could tap on “ignore for 15 more minutes” - and I do that at times - but it will just lock again after. And worst case scenario, this guilts me into realizing just how long I’ve been scrolling and how many times I’ve ignored it. But if I’m honest, most days I don’t even use up those 30 minutes. I forget I have a phone…

Now, we already have not one, but two phase gates to break our compulsions to scroll.

level 3 - shut it up, the phone that is

1. I uninstalled pointless apps. Those included social media, shopping, editing, fitness, food, productivity apps…

2. I went to notification settings and (trust me, nothing will happen) I turned off all my notifications for practically everything that isn’t essential. You’d be floored by just how many pointless sirens your phone has turned on.

3. One issue was Whatsapp notifications. No one is entitled to my immediate responses except for my husband; his are the only texts I need to read in real-time, while everyone else could wait for when I decided to check my messages. So we downloaded Signal and use it to text with each other exclusively (there are much more important reasons to use Signal over other texting apps, but not the current point). You could also choose iMessages, if you don’t use them with anyone else…

4. Another issue was Teams notifications (my phone is also my work phone). That’s fixed by turning on the settings to block notifications out of a set schedule and when I’m active on my laptop.

With that, my phone was, for all intents and purposes, dumb. No notifications came through except for Signal and time-sensitive apps, like my bank or national ID. I currently go hours without checking it that I forget where I left it.

level 4 - make it utterly boring

1. I configured a shortcut on the right-side button to make my screen black and white when I triple-click. And it’s almost always in greyscale now. I don’t know the actual science behind this, but it makes the whole experience of looking at the phone less stimulating and less like candy for the brain.

2. I set a plain white wallpaper and lockscreen for the same reason.

3. All of my apps are grouped in boring folders, named “health”, “media”, “work”… with no aesthetic designs or graphics. This means my brain can’t find any app on autopilot. I actually have to focus and search for what I need.

4. My main screen now only has the really needed widgets: weekly weather, Libby (where I borrow audiobooks from the library), Insight Timer’s meditation streak, a daily calendar view, and Signal.

And there you go.

Didn’t I say exhaustive? But the alternative is an exhausting existence where we’re slaves to a little tiny, shining brick that has conditioned us to twitch and answer to its every beck and call.

Thank you for reading Kindling! I would really appreciate it if you share this post. We can all use a friendly wake up call against the serious brain-rot and mindless conditioning that we’ve been exposed to. Let’s resuscitate our brains!

Share

I just closed the phone with my mom and a fanciful thought lingers in my mind. How curious it is that some sayings don’t quite translate across languages. My mother tongue is Arabic, but my first language is English. So I know this predicament well. How do you explain to people certain words, feelings, or phrases that just don’t translate, not quite?

There’s a phrase my mom uses often as a way of calming me even when I lose the most seemingly precious of opportunities. Today, she says it right before ending the call, after I told her that we didn’t close on the house we were truly hoping for…

إذا لَخَيْرِك

Subscribe now

The literal translation would be, “If it’s for your own goodness”.

Not “your own good”, but goodness - it’s an important distinction. Good describes something beneficial, desirable, or morally right, while goodness is an inherent quality, a state, or characteristic of being good. It implies moral virtue, kindness, and an innately pure nature. But this Arabic word for “goodness”, “خَيرْ”, also carries with it a connotation of peace.

See, my mom’s wish for me, always, is goodness and peace. I’ve recently come to love it so dearly, though I’ve heard her say it my entire life. It’s charming, wouldn’t you say? Not a wish for luck or happiness, nor wealth or success. But my goodness. My peace. Not a wish for me to always get what I want because not all I want is for my own goodness. More precisely, not everything I wish for will bring me peace. And in a world that looks like… well, this, that is a small word of blessing that I have grown to appreciate on the daily.

Peace has been on my mind a lot lately; hence, this newly found appreciation for an old worn-out phrase. You probably understand that peace is not a blessing the whole world shares. You may even be deeply empathetic towards certain causes or peoples who have suffered or may still be suffering in its absence, sprinkled in with a good measure of your own political opinions, as distant spectators often have. But my mom’s wish for me comes with a whole universe of subtext. Goodness and peace are high-value commodities that only someone who’s lived without them for so long can truly and sincerely appreciate. Like my mother’s whole generation, as well as the ones before it, and those that came after it.

“The world feels so bleak right now,” I often read online. But is it really just “right now”?

Let me tell you this, and I say this, as my mother would say, “for your own goodness”. The world has never been at peace, and it’s definitely not more violent right now than ever before. There isn’t more war, and it most certainly isn’t more ugly than before. This has always been happening, and there is way more of it than you can begin to imagine. Because the world is so much bigger than we comprehend. The Western world has been removed from direct war since WWII, and even those who lived through it are now mostly gone. So people became sheltered and forgot… until now. Social media has made it a novelty. Everyone anywhere with a screen feels like they’re involved. Everyone who previously felt safe, now feels that the world is a worse place to be in than they previously perceived. But for those of us from everywhere else, we know: it’s always been like “this” and “this“ is even only a fraction of it.

It’s curious how living in conflict and adversity fosters a deeper sense of appreciation for goodness and peace. It’s even stranger how the biggest blossoms of hope can be found inside war zones rather than in the pockets of peace that are spectating from the outside. People who have forever lived in peace tend to grow bored, even agitated with it. So they catastrophise, invent, and even import squabbles to feel alive. Humans crave adventure, pain, and turmoil when they’ve lived through none. But those who have, grow resilient to it, learn to see the glimmers in what’s available, and appreciate when nothing happens. As the common English saying goes, “no news is good news”. Silence or lack of news often means that nothing bad has happened.

So while the world will sadly never be at peace and many will suffer from it, and while we’re exposed to more news than we were ever meant to humanly digest, I know firsthand that much of the world is in a better place than it ever was before. That is a blessing all of us living in peace need to appreciate daily. I will keep reminding myself to appreciate peace when I have it, to find happiness in the mundane, and to appreciate having things to be concerned about. Because that means I’m still alive, and life deserves to be appreciated.

Thank you for reading Kindling! I would really appreciate it if you share this post. We can all use a reminder every so often to feel gratitude and appreciate the peace in our lives.

It wasn’t a long time ago that I had a heart-wrenching thought: I’m broken. I never seemed able to hold on to happiness. It just seeped through my fingers like sand, flowing faster the more desperately I tried to grab it.

Before leaving Lebanon, I hadn’t had much reason to be happy. I lived in scarcity, in survival, in an endless pursuit of achievements that barely improved on an abysmal quality of life. I definitely was not taught that I deserved happiness. No one ever suggested that happiness was a sane, valid, or even achievable pursuit in life. Only naive people, “touched” people, made happiness in and of itself their main goal.

Understandably, happiness became this “event” in my mind. It was something that would happen “one day.” It was a milestone I would claw my way to. A reward for a tedious climb. Simply put, I didn’t know how to be happy. I wasn’t aware of my ability to do so.

Because… wasn’t it an external force? Wasn’t it a gift life granted or refused you?

Subscribe now

And I know many people who share this mental prison. We’ve been through a lot. So our default reroutes to a constant state of wretchedness. We ruminate. We fixate on what’s not working. We whine and worry and overthink. We wait for the other shoe to drop when there may have never been a first shoe to start with. We feed the monster even when we don’t mean to.

But when does that blurry line get crossed, from life constantly serving us bad hands to anything becoming an excuse against being happy? After all, there is a comfort in the familiar, even when the familiar is misery.

And so one day, three years ago, as I completed my 30th trip around the sun, as I felt the weight of three decades spent in survival and abuse, I thought: What if I could trick myself into being happier?

That was the start of a series of eccentric experiments and long-winded research. I started doing little things, deliberate, ridiculous, peculiar things, to trick my mind into a positive outlook, into smiling, into just being happy instead of being in the ceaseless pursuit of happiness.

And weirdly… it worked.

Let me tell you how.

1. noticing delights daily

In my mind, I had loaded such massive expectations upon happiness’s dainty shoulders. That was my core issue. And the solution? I found it in The Book of Delights by Dr. Ross Gay; a book that muses over the beauty of everyday moments by chronicling minute and often overlooked joys, encouraging us to embrace gratitude and presence.

So that’s where my experiment started.
At first, I struggled to notice the mundane, let alone to delight in it. I struggled to tune into the world around me. But the more I paid attention, the more life provided. So I kept track of the small delights I found in my Notes app. That was simple. But I took it further. Whenever I saw something that incited delight, I would literally say “Delight!” out loud, allowing myself to giggle ridiculously over the act. It may sound childish, or unhinged, or unnecessary. But it worked. My brain started spotting delightful things everywhere.

Eye contact and a smile with another avid reader on the train.
A little child in a snow puffer that made them look like a marshmallow.
A snail crossing the street at a zebra crossing.
A squirrel pulling an orange plush toy up a tree. (You can’t make this up, but you can easily miss it.)

The most commonplace events made me giggle or well up with tears. The most commonplace events weren’t so commonplace at all. They are all around us, and knowing that makes life feel a lot lighter.

Subscribe now

2. throwing kindness like confetti

“…the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others,” were the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And his sentiments have been supported by science a half-century later, as psychologists find that our own happiness is, in large part, influenced by the kindness and generosity we extend to others.

So, armed with science, I made my second commitment to sincerely and unabashedly compliment strangers. This is never about starting a conversation. It’s just them knowing. “I noticed something wonderful about you, and I think you ought to know.”

I once crossed an older lady on the street wearing a bright green puffer jacket. I immediately turned around and told her it was “delightful!” To which she couldn’t contain her laughter and thank-you’s, telling me I had a wonderful smile myself. That was the whole interaction.

Another time, I sat across from a woman on my train whose outfit was impeccably chic. But for some reason, I just didn’t tell her even though it niggled at my mind. We got off at the same stop. We walked a few steps apart on the same route… We both ended up at the door of my office building. And as we got into the elevator, I finally caved and told her. She just beamed. And my brain went: “See? Don’t resist!”

Every single time, the receiver blooms. They light up with confidence. They stand taller. There’s a perceivable pep in their step. And that feeling, knowing I might have just set the tone for their whole day, makes my heart feel warmer.

3. inventor of The Whimsy

Many of us often feel the melancholy of living in a mundane world, possibly grieving the loss of Hogwarts, the fae, dragons (though arguably, a good thing), and magical wardrobes to other lands. But don’t these books make us happy while we read them? Isn’t imagination delightful?

So, when I don’t have a compliment to give, or if someone looks like they are in no mood for human interaction (which, fair), I derive joy and entertainment in another way. I make up whimsical and absolutely ridiculous backstories about the people and places around me. And I make sure to share them with my husband, much to his amusement, because aren’t stories, by design, meant to be shared? Here’s one such saga…

Close to our home, on the path that leads to and from the train station, there’s this house with a pot of huge purple begonias by the front door.
At night, flickering blue light glows through their windows. So obviously, that’s where the Danish Ministry of Magic is headquartered.

I’ve since discovered that the blue light comes from a large fish aquarium by the windows. But of course, that is very much on brand for wizard entrances. An aquarium that you’d have to get into. But for the past couple of weeks, a moving truck and forklift have been parked out front, with increasing piles of construction waste. Yet no sign of construction (at least, none visible from the outside). Very sus, if you ask me. The wizards are trying too hard to blend in…

It’s nonsense. Absolutely. But isn’t all fiction “nonsense”? It makes an otherwise normal life more delightful, more charming, more whimsical.

Leave a comment

4. glimmers in my back pocket for the rainy days

But what if you’re experiencing a particularly bleak day? A day where you haven’t walked to the train to investigate the Ministry’s newest shenanigans, or complimented a charming barista on her strawberry blond hair, or delighted at a snail crossing the street? What then?

You may not know this about me yet, but when I’m not writing, I moonlight as an adult with a 9-to-5 job, where my superpowers include impeccable risk management and a unique talent for problem solving. And that’s how I devised my happiness backup plan.

I keep a very long running list of situations and effects that never fail to bring me joy. I call them my glimmers. Come what may, my glimmers lift my spirits even on the stormiest of days (metaphorically, of course, since stormy days, in my opinion, are delightful!)

All of them are uncomplicated, ordinary things that require no special occasion or careful planning. And whenever I feel particularly happy about something simple, on to the list it goes. My glimmers are like a recipe book for happiness that works every time.

5. a fairy tale in my backyard

Now, I must ask your pardon before I share this final trick for coaxing yourself into happiness. If you don’t have a patch of nature to frolic, or very solemnly stroll in, you must find one. Otherwise, this last one might backfire and leave you slightly despondent with envy. My final trick is this: I’m attempting to befriend the crows and squirrels living in our backyard.

Every morning, I take my coffee and my book, don my plushiest hoodie and slippers, fill my pockets with a mix of nuts and seeds (I’ve found cat kibble also works…), and go find a bench in the little forest tucked between the buildings in our block.

I scatter the loot by my feet and I wait (hence, the coffee and book.)

So far, the squirrels are still wary, but trust is earned, and I live in hope.

These tiny, absurd, but intentional, habits have quietly rewired the way I experience my days. I’m quicker to smile. I feel more connected to the world. And I keep myself constantly entertained, even when nothing particularly exciting is happening.

And that’s the key: Happiness isn’t some huge, dramatic event to keep waiting for. It’s a series of tiny, beautiful moments you can train yourself to catch. If that sounds frivolous, too childish, too whimsical, outright ridiculous, does it matter? Should decorum and gravity outweigh our ability to be happy?

The better question is: How can you charm your brain into a happier default? Because you absolutely can.