ASAP

It doesn’t matter how busy it is, August is often sleepy.
You might be working just like any other month (or even more in my case), but around you the air is suspended, summer rejects all urgency. Nothing responds well to musts in this season.

It’s a different stillness than the one we feel in December, where seeds are planted for later and life is watched from a hazy window. In August, you’re leaning against a windowsill observing a fruitless calm. It’s not an air that makes promises, the things you were waiting for are rolling on the ground in front of you, and if you are willing to enjoy them, you’ll watch them exist and watch yourself exist with them.

There will be time for more promises, but now “left on hold” is good enough.

Some months ago I started experimenting with dumb phones. It’s undeniable that smart phones distract us from a lot of other things that would give us more joy or meaning long-term, but that’s not the main reason that motivated me. I grew frustrated with urgency, immediacy, I understood I was unlearning sublimation.

I want to know what’s the capital of Bangladesh? I google it.

I think about that friend? I text them.

I see something funny? I take a picture of it. Maybe I even send it to that friend. Maybe I post it.

I am not sure which way is quicker to get to the station? I open my navigation app.

I think of something? I write it down.

I feel down? I scroll.

I feel bored? I… open my phone. Just unlock it. Open anything that my thumb reaches the easiest. Move from app to app. Wander with no goal other than the imperative of DOING SOMETHING NOW. ACT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Everything is urgent, not because it is, but because it can be solved, fulfilled, answered, removed, acted upon, in just a click.
I think about x, I (think I) need x, I take x, I forget about x.

So a dumb phone, at least some of the time, allowed me to make the comma between thinking about something, and imagining I need it, a muuuuuuuuuuch looooooooonger cooooooomma. I leaned against a window and saw it pass by, admired its gait, followed its journey with my eyes, smiled at its obliviousness, imagined calling for it but then didn’t, cause I realized how beautiful it was to let it pass without having to own it.

So now, in this month that defies all urgency, I reflect on how much of what we do is motivated by a need to skip questions on whether we really want something or what we really want is to have something NOW. Most of the times we’ll realize the rush is exactly because we’re afraid we’ll find out we don’t really want it when we look more patiently, more closely.