Disconnected - Day 8

Helllooooo

How art thou?

Life is great here!

It's been 11 days since I made the decision to turn off my phone. 10 since I implemented the idea. Day 8, because I had it on intermittently for a couple of days during the flood here.

So how have the days been? What did I find out?

The biggest discovery that I have made is how free I feel mentally all the time.

I know I gave a long almost philosophical explanation to it all. I'm sure most of it holds true, and I have a few examples of instances to prove it too. But now I'm realizing that the reason I needed it more than anything was because of how having to be constantly connected or have something to do basically creates a STATIC in your brain.

With the phone, I remember finding it extremely difficult to focus. I often forgot things. It was tough to sit or stay idle for more than a few minutes. It felt as if that time could be used - either to play, or watch a video on the phone, or just scroll through mindless repetitive facebook feed, or message people on WhatsApp.
Earlier, I couldn't go 5 minutes without being occupied before going "I'm Booooaaaaarredd"
So the world felt smaller... more about now. Which is not a bad thing, unless it's limiting the possibilities of a greater tomorrow.

Let me go through the pros and cons in a more organized fashion

We shall begin with the Cons

1. Being disconnected makes one rather lost while traveling or coordinating
   (I come to work by the office bus, and when it rains I don't go to my normal point of pick up, instead I go to a place more accessible by public transport. Last Wednesday, I stood there for a very long time unsure of if I'd missed the bus or if it was terribly late! *Got lucky there, it was late*)
2. Online Bank transactions are becoming a bit of a challenge because of the OTP requirements
3. Letting home know that I'm okay / gonna be late (Could be an extension of point 1) I had to borrow a friend's phone a couple of times for that
4. Making adhoc plans with someone not available immediately available is almost impossible
5. A camera isn't always in my pocket

I know there are other things like not able to listen to music whenever I pleased, or not having a calculator/ torch/ notepad always at my disposal, or not able to watch a video when I please, my tracker apps ... all those are missed intermittently ..but not to any paralysing effect. These cons can be comfortable lived with.

Now for the Pros:

1. Now, without a phone, I can think free.
   There doesn't seem to be a constant undercurrent of thought and opinions or noises of others clouding the process. Brain static as explained above is absent.
2. I can remember numbers! I remember so many phone numbers. (They do talk about necessity being the mother of things)
3. I remember details, small details I would earlier forget and go "Dayum, I should have taken a picture of that!)
4. I've been using my DSLR more often ;)
5. Friends around me don't use their phones as much now since they know that they have to be civil and talk to me and not just smile to their phones
6. It's free. I don't have to constantly check/ fight urges to check for messages. After the first couple of days, even those phantom vibrations stopped
7. Time is regulated. People are specific about the time they can reach me about keeping to appointments
8. I have conversations with people. I did back then too, but now it feels fuller cause I'm not distracted by a phone.

I was wondering (like many of my friends did too) what I was going to gain by doing this for 15 days. I was almost certain that I would be going back to my old mobile phone ways soon enough - so what am I trying to achieve by this?

This is like a vacation.

A vacation from busy-everything-available-at-your-doorstep city life. A vacation to a nice calm world, where one spends time with oneself ans quality time with friends. Good times these :)

I am sure I will discover more quirky advantages of both using and not using a cell phone - and I look forward to it :)