Before I get into this week’s belated Friday blog, I’ like to say… I just read the Catcher in the Rye, and oh my God…. I cried. I can’t believe Goodreads only ranked it at a 3.5/5… Here’s my Good Reads review if you need something for a literature class: 

“I see what everybody is saying about this story having no plot… no direction, seeming to reject every convention… But doesn’t that sound like Holden, though? There’s something about American literature based in New York that really hits for me, perhaps I am just in love with the city. Anyway, I really enjoyed and related to this book. The thing Holden said about how modern science can’t explain the embalming process used by the ancient Egyptians really put it into the perspective that it is written in the 1940’s, as I forgot. I guess I forgot because Holden’s problems seem just as relevant to what young and angsty people struggle with today. I think there’s a couple of interesting themes here to play;

#1: The problem doesn’t go away if you throw money at it.

#2: The problem doesn’t go away of you send your kid away to school instead of parenting. 

#3: The fall from innocence and the rise of trauma.

#4: Nihilism’s natural progression.

If it wasn’t very late out, I’d most likely elaborate in what I mean by all this, but I hope it’s self-explanatory.”

Something that I’m not so proud of happened. My phone screen broke and is completely unusable once again :P. I cannot believe this keeps happening… Actually, I do. I treat my devices like shit low key, that’s been something I’ve been trying to work on. Another $100 down the drain for real. What’s funny is, the day before the screen cracked, I told myself that I should go out and buy a better case. Of course, I blame myself for continuously dropping my phone, but I mostly blame girl jean pockets and Kate Spade phone cases for this. Just kiddingggg I have to learn how to be more responsible. Anyway, I’m getting sort of tired of always having to use my phone in order to live in… I don’t know… Our country, but its ok. I understand. Not really actually. I could rant about this, but why should I even do that? Ranting can be a waste of a blog, unless it’s funny… I’m sure y’all understand exactly what I mean about the reliance on smart phones thing. I’m also being dramatic. 

So, I stayed up late for 4 hours to write a newsletter to send out… And I did. I wrote 4,555 words or something crazy and it was by far my favorite. I just didn’t save it to my iCloud, so the only copy exists on my disabled iPhone. I am not discouraged though; I am going to get it back. 

Instead of ranting, I am beginning my research… I am going to make a complete comprehensive guild on how to live without an iPhone. Feel free to contribute!!! Comment if you are on my website, or email me at proxoxie@gmail.com. 

Let’s start out with this article by halftheclothes.com. They make a good point about getting back your time and attention. I relate to this; I narrowed my screen time down to a daily 3 hours max… But that’s still 3 hours of my 12-hour day spent on my phone. Sure, I use maps as my primary app, but I honestly suck at reading maps IRL… and I love maps, I can stare at maps all day. I learned today that I get my love for maps from my mother. Anyway, let me summarize this article’s best points; 

Step 1: why are you going without a Smart Phone? 

This is self-explanatory. 

Step 2: What are your wants? 

Make a list of the things you most want to do with your life? Communicate with friends and family? Read?  

Step 3: Substitutions

How many of your wants require a Smart Phone? How can you do these things without your phone? 

Step 4: Remember your why

Step 5: Go without

I will use this example to do a basic illustration of my thought process. 

Why do I want to go without a Smart Phone?

Honestly, Smart Phones make me sick to my stomach. They have the capacity to provoke my anxiety so immensely, that when lose my appetite, my stomach tightens at the same time and my body will refuse to swallow any food, even if I am hungry. 

It provokes my anxiety for a number of reasons, the most important being that of all the notifications being hurdled my way… Of course, I have the option of turning them off, but I always have a fear of missing something. There’s nothing to really be missed but phone calls and emails. Those really are the most pressing things, or should be the most important. When a goddamn taco bell notification makes a louder noise than your own ring tone, that’s when you know that almost everything on a phone is unnecessary. 

It also makes me feel a sense of dread, that I can’t go on living my life as conveniently without one. That sparks a sense of challenge within me, as my willpower begins to rub its hands together to plot against any rational decision. Did you know I was vegetarian for 5 years and vegan for 2? I can do a lot of things based solely on willpower, but it’s amplified if there’s morality involved. Sometimes, it doesn’t lead to the brightest decisions. Because I know this about myself, I know that my Smart Phone makes me more impulsive. Impulsivity and willpower sure do dance well together. I want to have a better attention span so I can be a better listener for people. I want to provide them with patience. I have just recently been able to do this for myself. I would also like to optimize my time in the day. Being on a phone only feeds into the addiction; I think it’s ridiculous how easy it is to get addicted to a shiny glass tablet. I guess I did end up ranting. 

What are your wants? 

I want to keep in touch with my family more. 

I want to be able to look at maps and know where I’m going. 

I want to be able to read a lot. Like, every day. 

I want to be able to preserve my projects such as Proxoxie and Deep Dark Tunnel Radio. 

I want to keep in contact with my customers. 

I want to be able to check my online banking frequently. 

What can you substitute for your phone in order to do the things you want to do?

I can keep in touch with my family with a flip phone if I wanted to. I can use my computer. 

If I want to look at a map, I can get some maps of the city and figure it out that way. If I really wanted to plan the perfect subway ride, I can check the subway and bus schedules on my computer prior to leaving my place. 

I prefer to read books made out of paper anyway, its more person that way. I’ve read 4 books in January. I can preserve my project while using my computer. Same with online banking. A Smart Phone is just like an annoying little computer. 

This article goes into depth about how to do things without a smartphone that would require one in the first place. For example, you can basically do everything from your computer… like ordering a Lyft or Uber. 

Here’s a quote from this article by the Guardian: 

“Americans check their smartphones an average of 96 times a day, which works out to once every 15 minutes. Two-thirds of Americans check their phones 160 times every day.”

This is an obvious addiction. I still love the internet, but I strongly dislike addictions. Anyway, the more that I think about all of the institutions that require me to own a phone (take my college for example, I can’t log into to online school without having the do a two-factor authentication with my phone). Perhaps, I can rely on someone else’s phone to get into the two-factor app and verify it. 

Honestly, the only one who can tell me how to go about this is God. Continuing my research, let’s go to Reddit and Quora. Everyone is saying to invest in the Nokia 3310. The Nokia 3310 have the snake game on it, you know, the one where you’re a snake and have to eat the apples and run away from other snakes… IT ALSO HAS RADIO ON IT!!! That’s super cool. 

The more I think about this, the more possible it seems… 

Shortly after I wrote this, I went out to Target and bought myself a Nokia 2760 Flip for $20. Immediately when I left my place, I felt completely lost without an iPhone, even though I was only going down the street. So, I got to the Target and I realized a million different ways that I could use my iPhone. For instance, I had strong impulses to look up the different kinds of phones that I could buy for under $20. I guess I was shopping for what they call a Dumb Phone. There’s a whole subreddit on this. I was honestly surprised when I saw that the Nokia that I wanted (the one for under $30) was stocked on the shelf… From the perspective of an iPhone user, 
I never considered the people that might own a Dumb Phone. I sort of assumed that everyone owned a Smart Phone. 

Anyway, so I’m now noticing that the hole in my shoe got bigger on the bottom. I got these Demonias in New Orleans back in 2020. I’ve been wearing them out pretty well. On this particular day, we got a couple of inches of snow. The air wasn’t too sharp in my lungs, it honestly wasn’t that bad temperature wise. There was hardly any wind either, the snow was just sloppy. My sock ended up getting soaked immediately. Now that I think about it, I remember a couple of times I went to bonfires during the past few summers. I like to stick my feet practically in the fire when I sit. I remember how my shoes start smoking, it’s like every time I’m at a bonfire this happens. This is probably how I wore out my boots so fast. 

So, I was on my way to my service provider to transfer my Sim card to my new flip phone… believe me, I did not have the patience for customer service calls at this time. Sometimes, it feels better to walk off your frustration and go speak to someone in person. I feel like customer service calls go a lot easier when you are prepared with all your information, it also helps to know and understand their process. The person on the customer service line doesn’t want to speak to you just as much as you don’t want to speak to them. So, I get to the store, and the guy tells me that this Nokia isn’t compatible with the sim card I’m using. At this point, my heart drops. I thought I had researched this correctly. It turns out, you need to buy the Nokia 2760 V Flip for $90. I’m not paying $90 for a flip phone at this moment. Maybe if it were a Nokia 3310, I could just look on eBay, but even then, I wouldn’t feel completely comfortable buying a phone from eBay, but I would still consider it. It’s like buying your shoes from eBay, you never will know how they used them. 

I love the front page of the Nokia phone store website. It’s a gif of some guy showing the Nokia Smart Phone to absolute strangers, and they react like they are all pleasantly surprised to know that the phone was a Nokia. It was almost like the phone was some cheap pasta sauce they were trying to change people’s minds about…  

I started to make my way to the Apple store, I had already accepted that I was going to be spending a good $200 to get my phone fixed. I did not want to take my chances at going to a 3^rd party retailer, only for them to sell me a screen that wasn’t manufactured at Apple for $100 or more… That’s just the business model, it’s actually one of the reasons why I almost feel horrible about spending my money there. Now I’m starting to sound like Holden from the Catcher and the Rye. I have to learn how to take care of my things better anyway, so this was a lesson to treat my iPhone like it were a concealed weapon. I’m going to put it safely back in the box in my closet and I’m only going to take it out for emergencies. 

So, I’m on my way to the Apple Store and I pass by these protestors. Typically, I walk past rallies and don’t ask questions. I don’t like participating in anything passionately that I don’t know anything about. Something in me told me to stop. I looked around and read the signs. They were all Russian. I thought to myself, I am literally witnessing history. When I think about my Romanian cousins who live in Eastern Europe, I get really uncomfortable knowing that they’re there. I used to go to a Roman Catholic Church when I was a kid, we’d always meet our Romanian family in this church basement with the strangest green and white tiles. I always found it to be comforting. I remember I would take my purple digital camera with me and run around taking pictures of everything. I think I do the same thing now. I haven’t heard much about that side of my family in a while. I pray they are ok. I remember my one aunt raised her glass to me and said “the is my holy water”. She drank it, “I drink this every morning”. It was vodka. 

So, I’m looking around at this Russian protest trying to read the signs. Literally and metaphorically, I guess. I start asking this dude next to me what was going on. With a thick Russian accent, he said that these people were all from Russia. They were protesting against Russia against the war in Ukraine. I asked him if his family was safe, he told me his girlfriend lived in Ukraine and had to flee to Germany. I showed him my flip phone and he said “Wow! In Russia we can’t -” He cut himself off. He began explaining that in Russia its harder to… he cut himself off again. I understood and dropped the subject. 

I went into the Apple Store. The only available appointment wasn’t until another hour. I passed the time by going back to the Russians, as many of them have come into the Apple store to get warm and were checking stuff out; kids were playing on iPads, hell, I was playing Fruit Ninja on one of these giant iPads to pass the time. You can defiantly tell Russians apart from Americans. 

Most of them had only moved here a couple of months ago. I spoke to one of them using a Smart Phone translator. I felt uneasy using his phone because it did not have a case, but I made sure to hold it with two hands. I noticed a couple of really nicely dressed Russians, some had really cool hair. It was explained to me that in Moscow they like to dress nicely and they all really like iPhones. Another Russian told me that in Moscow, they will look at your entire body up and down and judge you based on how you dressed, if you had a car and if you had an iPhone. I compared this to L.A, I asked if Russia was one big L.A. He said only Moscow was similar, but the rest of Russia wasn’t. The rest of Russia wants an iPhone, but an iPhone would cost them a month’s worth of their pay, so when they see one, they get excited. This would make sense as to why the other Russian dude was so impressed by my $20 Nokia. It really hit me how unified these people must feel during this moment. I felt that I should make myself feel more a part of this protest. I turned to the dude next to me and asked what they were chanting. He told me they were shouting “Kill Putin” and “Putin likes to eat humans”. I laughed so hard at that last one. I started shouting “Putin is a cannibal” in English. I was the only one doing this. I asked if Russia was in support of the war against Ukraine. They said that the young people are against it, but the older generations are in support of Putin. There were countless of signs that said “Free Navalny”. All of the Russians I spoke to asked me if I knew who Navalny was. Alexi Navalny is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist fighting for the war against Russia. They believe they will lead them out of this war. Putin tried to poison Navalny, but he survived. He’s imprisoned right now. I remember this random angry American dude walked directly in the middle of them and said “Fuck you!” with his middle finger up. I don’t know why. The Russians laughed. They laughed as if someone told them a casual joke. I stood there until the protestors slowly disbursed. 

I went back into the Apple store and spoke to their mechanic. My screen was fucked. I dropped it off for the night and everything, I’m ready to pay the big jackpot. I feel like this happens too often, but I’m the type of person who has to learn the hard way. 

Another reason why I don’t like being on my phone all the time is because this one time, I posted a meme about Russians always wearing Adidas and underage drinking and squatting down and stacking on top of each other, then I captioned it “Time to buy more Adidas”. I almost got shadow banned. Anyway, I guess the moral of this story is #1: listen to your parent’s advice and #2: Russians are badass. I also want to say that Ukrainians are badass too. Also, Romanians… In Poland they listen to some fire music, for reals. I don’t know anything about Belarus.

So, I ended up keeping this Nokia after all. I figure one day; I might need it. I also took some really cool pictures at the protest on this Nokia. I figured, one day this Nokia will be worth more than $20.