Or, we are we just chasing a trend?
Analogue living seems to be trending upwards every single day. I can’t even buy a camera without being smacked in the face with a nostalgia driven aesthetic. Don’t get me wrong, the aesthetic is pretty cute and I do think we should be living a life a little less on the internet and more in the real life, but as many others have pointed out before me, this wonderful type of living is turning into pure capitalist nonsense.
We could argue against not needing new this or new that when we’re trying to go a little bit backwards in time, but for a lot of people, they don’t already own a DVD player downstairs that’s been collecting dust for 15+ years. They may not have a landline sitting in a Rubbermaid because why would you ever throw anything out? They may not have an mp3 player or ipod they can bring back to life either because they weren’t born yet, or they threw it away/sold it years ago (it can’t just be me who has kept everything slightly useful, right?).
Chastising someone who wants a slower life and needs to buy a few things to make it a little slower is proving nothing, but the trend of ‘slow living’ taking over the internet (a little tongue-in-cheek being on the internet, isn’t it?) so that you can buy, buy, buy items that are a MUST for slow living? No, thanks.
And, that’s the kicker.
Why do we need to buy SO many items for a slower, more plentiful, more nourishing way of life?
There are many things we can do to incorporate this type of life into our everyday — without spending a dime.
It also brings up the question as to whether or not we truly want to have a fully analogue life. My answer is probably a huge no. For most people, at least.
For some, they won’t remember a life that wasn’t filled with phones and notifications and social media and videos. For some, they’ll remember having to log onto a family computer and going to make a sandwich while the dial-up finished making its music and you could spend a couple of hours in sketchy ass chat rooms, playing games, and chatting with your friends on AIM. For others, they grew up where party phones were the normal, how big of a deal it was when neighbours started buying family computers, and when only drug dealers or doctors had beepers.
As someone who falls into the one who logged onto a family computer and made a sandwich category, I can tell you that full analogue living sucks. Having to look up where your appointment was before leaving the house, then reading the map to your mom or dad while driving to said appointment, trying not to barf while reading in a moving vehicle sucks. While I think we all need to familiarize ourselves with paper maps more often in case a situation arises in which we do not have GPS, having someone tell you which route to take and changing it up in real time due to traffic snafus is far superior.
I don’t want my location on at all times, tracking me and sending my data to wherever (yes, I am Abe Simpson shaking my fist at clouds), I do want my location on when I’m trying to get somewhere and need assistance, or if I’m heading out by myself at night and want my friends to be able to find me, just in case.
I don’t want to be sucked into social media, stressing me out and making me tired (you can read all about how I thought I was dying and it turned out to just be Instagram here and how it gave me a breakdown a while back here) and causing me to miss out on life. But, I do want some fun videos, to see more animal sanctuaries (especially cats), to be more in tune with my neighbourhood, to get *some* first-person news, and to see what my friends are up to.
I don’t want my child to have a smartphone, or to spend any time unsupervised on the internet until she is much older and understands how damaging it can be. I want her to be able to pick up a stationary phone and call her friends instead of waiting for a text message, or having them message my own phone. I want her to have independence in making her own plans, but I do not want her down the rabbit hole of AI, predatory people, videos and photos that are well above her age range, or to only rely on a phone. But, I do think that kids need to be allowed to use the internet in certain parameters because of the world we live in. Shielding them, entirely, from all things technology reminds me of those who scream abstinence only as teenagers get pregnant.
I do want to bring more CDs and DVDs and radio into my life, and I’ve added a CD visor back to my truck, much to the delight of my four year old. She loves picking CDs at random, calling out the colours for me to pop into the CD player and jamming out to songs of my youth. But, sometimes I want to just click on the song I want to hear at that very moment, to hear songs that aren’t 15/20 /40/60 years old.
As someone who had to live without the internet for two weeks (ANY of the internet, not just the parts you hate) because my internet went out, only to have it continue to do this every spring because of spring thawing and ground squirrels, I’ll tell ya that going fully without sucks. It is a great way to break a cycle, and it was eye-opening to see how often I relied on the internet, or how often I checked my phone (data was something more precious than gold during that time). The all or nothing rarely works in the long run, and why are we depriving ourselves of the good parts? Why are we getting rid of the parts that work in our life instead of just ridding ourselves of the parts that don’t?
I’ve written about cutting Instagram out of my life, and I’ve cut out Facebook and Reddit and it has been absolutely, completely life-changing. I’m no longer so bagged down tired and exhausted, I’m being more mindful in the world, watching birds nibble from bird feeders, or watching bison stand majestically in a field, the snow crunching underfoot when I take a stroll through the forest, or even just down a dirty city street. I’m finding beauty everywhere all because I’m paying more attention to my surroundings, not filling my head with video after video after video of misinformation (and then getting mad at the fact that people spew such insanity) and the idea that I need to be online far more often than I need to be in the real world.
While I leave my phone at home every so often when I leave the house (truly, why do I need it simply to go to the mailbox) and that I’ve been untangling my phone from uses that I don’t truly need it for, like a camera or the notes app and replacing it for ‘analogue items’ such as a camera or notebook, I don’t want to leave my smartphone in the dust.
I want that GPS. I want to check my e-mails without having to open up my laptop. I want to be able to google reviews of places, or look up restaurants surrounding my location. I’ve learned to like to read the news on an app instead of a large, finger-blackening newspaper. I even want to check on Instagram every so often and enjoy myself on the app instead of feeling dread from an addiction. Most importantly, I want to be able to connect with friends I may not be able to have phone conversations with or see very often due to schedules or locations at the moment.
I want all of the technological advancements that help myself and not the ones that take my personal information and cause stress. I want that analogue living, but not all day, not every second. I want to write in notebooks, go back to hobbies, and print photos, again, and feel physical things under my fingertips, again, but I don’t want to cut myself off from the entire world.
I want a slower pace of life to sit and enjoy the wonders that are all around me, but I don’t want to be so quiet, so untethered from people and society, so bored. I want more in-person gatherings instead of video calls or text messages, but sometimes a quick text message exchange can change the whole day for better. I want that analogue life, but not entirely. Maybe that’s not true analogue or slow living, but that’s okay. It’s my type of living. It’s the start of a life that I want, and isn’t that the whole point of this all?
Originally published at https://michelleleeann.substack.com.
Juniper and Daisies 