Transcript
Speaker: Welcome friends to another episode of life's effin nuts
Speaker: I'm your host JR Coming at you live from Berkeley, California Life's effin nuts, one man's stories and ruminations on being human in an upside down world Yeah, you heard me right, upside down world
Speaker: ass backwards, inside out, upside down world.
Speaker: All that being said, how you doing my friends? How's life?
Speaker: What's shaking? What's popping? What's new? What's fresh? What's alive?
Speaker: How's the soul? How's the spirit? How's the mind? How's the body?
Speaker: um just my little disclaimer which i always do and i'll try to keep it very brief because i don't want to be annoying and redundant though probably i often am annoying and redundant what can i say it happens um but just that these are raw uncut unedited for the love of the game because i enjoy talking and trying to make sense out of my words um And I don't have the time, energy, money, or bandwidth to sink a bunch of money into this project or to promote it. So I'm just doing it for the love of the game. And my hope is that...
Speaker: If there are people out there who this resonates with, that that there will be an organic unfolding, an organic blossoming. So if you are out there, one of the few, the proud few, tuning to the old Life's F and Nuts radio network, and you like what you hear, it tickles you down in your soul, send it to a friend.
Speaker: Spread the word. broadcast this baby way out into the cosmos.
Speaker: Oh God, I'm feeling particularly strange this morning.
Speaker: Life will do that to you, I suppose.
Speaker: All right, so what I want to talk about today, which I've talked about before, and if you if you listen to this show consistently, you'll see that in some ways i am a boring, predictable human. My brain circles around very similar themes, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.
Speaker: Nevertheless, there are certain things that I do enjoy talking about, and do that I do enjoy musing upon.
Speaker: And today, one of those themes is technology. The dreaded T word, technology. the dreaded T-word, technology.
Speaker: Hopefully I won't be too long-winded. actually don't feel like talking that much today. I don't feel like it's talking talking as much as I usually feel like talking, though you probably wouldn't be able to tell because here I am running my mouth a million miles a minute saying I'm not in the mood to talk.
Speaker: So, little strange, right?
Speaker: But basically... When I was younger, i was pretty anachronistic. I still am in some ways anachronistic, but when I was younger, I think I was, i was also idealistic and i
Speaker: was also extreme in my thinking. And so i just worried in an intense way about the effects that entertainment and television, you know, when I was growing up, we didn't really have smartphones, but just the effects that that kind of numbing agents could have on me.
Speaker: And i remember i really liked TV. i In fact, I love TV. I think i was part of the one of the reasons i was so afraid of TV growing up. um In some ways, it was like the most soothing, comforting thing in the entire world.
Speaker: And for me, it like represented, i don't know, safety or respite.
Speaker: It was just so comforting. It was like one of the only things in the world that could kind of calm my anxiety. And to be clear, when I was young, I didn't even know I had anxiety. If you had told me I i had anxiety, I would have been like over looked at you sideways like, what?
Speaker: Me? Anxiety? No.
Speaker: But looking back, yeah, it probably had a lot of anxiety beneath the surface.
Speaker: And yeah, TV quelled that anxiety. I would watch whatever, movies, sitcoms, and you know i really liked comforting, feel-good stuff and sports.
Speaker: um but But by the time I was around 19, I would say,
Speaker: ah developed this kind of bellicose um stance towards entertainment and television.
Speaker: and ah when I would like come home from college and stay at my parents' house, I would like deprive myself of creature comforts because I was just so terrified of becoming numb or kind of becoming addicted or corrupted um by comfort.
Speaker: And so I would, yeah, i was like I was like a monk. I would go to my parents' house and I wouldn't even sleep in the bed because I was so afraid of creature comforts. I did not want to be numb.
Speaker: I did not want to be numb. I was just of setting a precedent within myself of choosing comfort.
Speaker: Over whatever, whatever the opposite of comfort is dealing with myself, my feelings, my reality, the immensity and vastness of the human experience, things like that.
Speaker: And so I'd sleep on the floor, which is very uncomfortable. And I wouldn't watch any TV, even though I really wanted to. Like I said, it was one of the most comforting things for me.
Speaker: And that kind of stance or that orientation to the world only grew and intensified as I got older. ah kind of wore it as a ah a badge of honor, badge of pride that, you know, when I, let's see, how old was I? don't know. In my early 20s, I had a little studio apartment in Berkeley, California, and wore it as a badge of honor that I had no internet.
Speaker: um As smartphones began to kind of take hold, I refused to get one for many years. I had my old flip phone and I wore it like a badge of honor. I had no TV in my house.
Speaker: I was old school to the core through and through. My primary form of entertainment, I had this kind of retro, old-fashioned record player.
Speaker: like kind of it's it's not It wasn't a real one, but it was a remake of like the old Mahogany record players with the big circular dial that glows up and has Roman numerals.
Speaker: And then you lift up the top cabinet and there's a vinyl player. like That was my primary form of entertainment. I listen to the radio all the time. I listen to records all the time. ah read I read all the time. you know I had this like sparse little ascetic cave, this little studio apartment in Berkeley. And i was very minimalistic in terms of...
Speaker: um furniture and design and things like that i had a little red rocking chair in the corner of this tiny little apartment had a little desk and had this record player and a small book kit shelf and that was pretty much it had a little a little like futon mattress in the corner on the floor so yeah in some ways i was like a monk
Speaker: and
Speaker: Like I said, I was like sort of extreme in my stance and there was also like pride and ego. I mean, some of it was legit. Some of it I really liked.
Speaker: The simplicity of that existence and and to not have the constant temptation or distraction of addictive entertainment and screens and things like that. Like part of it was gen totally genuine.
Speaker: I enjoyed sitting in my little red rocking chair and reading. Um, or sitting at my little desk and writing letters and things like that by candlelight. Like I liked that. I liked that.
Speaker: I liked it. It was, it was kind of like a spiritual existence in a lot of ways. But like I said, there was some pride for sure. um and i and and And also like it I was partially depriving myself like it was like almost like I was socially anorexic in some kind of ways. or i don't know if it's not socially because it's not related to people but like maybe culturally and interested anorexic like I was depriving myself of these kind of mainstream comforts that um are prevalent culturally.
Speaker: um And I felt kind of righteous and in some way. Like i said, part of it was genuine. like i just I liked this quiet, thoughtful, meditative, ruminative, spiritual existence. And and then part of it was prideful, I would say.
Speaker: And and like with a sense of righteousness.
Speaker: um
Speaker: And then eventually, i sort of caved in
Speaker: to the tie that I don't know the but the pressure or the force of whatever I remember my my old flip phone no longer would work like it that the the flip it wouldn't flip closed properly like it wouldn't eat like I don't know whatever that but hinge or magnet i don't even know what the technology is to make the actual top part close onto the bottom it just stopped working like my phone wouldn't close and therefore like it i don't know it was just it was falling apart i'd had it for so long and i went to the verizon store in there and i said like can i get a flip phone they said we don't we don't have them anymore and they're like all we have is whatever smartphones and i said don't really want a smartphone and then like i was like can i just can i get the smartphone but not have any of the like the internet or the features or anything like that
Speaker: And I didn't even know how smartphones worked at that point. And so the guy's like, yeah totally. Like, I'll strip it down for you. Like, all you know, all you'll be able to do is text and call. I'm like, perfect. and In some ways, he duped me because i I mean, I guess you could like technically turn off the Wi-Fi or whatever. But in my mind, I thought maybe there was a function to like really actually strip it down and just have the call and text functions.
Speaker: um So, that yeah. So then I had a smartphone. And then, i don't know, eventually I moved to a new apartment and i got internet.
Speaker: And yeah, I feel like just slowly over time, this kind of really pure stance that I'd had around technology just kind of drifted away. um now, know, I have and live in a little house and have internet and television and netflix and smartphone and in some ways it's nice because i do enjoy entertainment but i i think that some of the things that i was worried about when i was younger in terms of becoming kind of addicted to entertainment or to comfort um losing my edge
Speaker: um did Losing connection the deepest sense of presence and reality and the spectrum of feelings. um I do feel like some of that fear was warranted.
Speaker: I do feel like having all those gadgets and gizmos and access to entertainment, um ah can a it can be used in an appropriate, healthy way. And and at at times, and i would say more often than not, I do use it in a healthy, appropriate way. But it it's definitely easy to sort of slip into an addictive kind of relationship with entertainment, with screens, with comfort.
Speaker: And, and also like, you know, when I was younger and had, had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to escape into in the absence of screens, I would, I would just read and write, which I loved. And, and, and that, you know, like some people could say that reading and writing could have its own addictive qualities, but for me, yeah and, and I could see how that could be true, but for me, ultimately it felt much more nourishing um to it And it still does to this day to read in the right and to write. like It feeds my brain, feeds my body, feeds my soul on a different level.
Speaker: and And also, like I would say it calms my body more than, say, a screen. um that Even if I'm enjoying something on a screen, watching ah a legitimately good show, feel like it can be very pleasurable, but...
Speaker: um At the same time, there's like there can be a kind of certain vibration in my body that's not really sustainable.
Speaker: And so, yeah I think part of what I was afraid of when I was young um was warranted or or that fear was was warranted and. Yeah, no, I mean, and, you know, there's so many people. I'm obviously not the only person talking about the dangers of over entertainment and screen addiction and things like that.
Speaker: um But it's, you know, it's just kind of insane how. We have these little supercomputers in our pockets, most of us, if not almost all of us at this point.
Speaker: And the apps are literally designed to ah make you addicted. um All the like the little notifications and the banners and the buzzes and the sounds, like it it all plays on on human psychology and um kind of primal instincts. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just pretty pretty gnarly, pretty gnarly um how powerful it can be. And I have to like actively discipline myself to not reach for or grab for my phone when I don't actually need it.
Speaker: like There's always like this intense pull, I would say. um Check check the my news app or um check the sports scores or whatever it is. like Or even just like just to look at what time it is or if any text came through or whatever it is.
Speaker: um The strength of that pull is really intense. And one thing that I've realized over the years is that think part of that impulse of like kind of compulsively wanting to check or reach for, grab grab for something, reach for something um can be because there's like an underlying emptiness that I can feel sometimes.
Speaker: or Or not okayness with the moment as it is. Not okayness with the moment as it is. Not okayness with the moment as it is. Like having this like desperate need for something else. For something more. For like a hit of energy or adrenaline or intrigue or something.
Speaker: That once this level of stimulation like gets in my bloodstream...
Speaker: it It kind of puts me in this heightened state where I i kind of want to stay stimulated all the time. like Transitioning to a less stimulated space can be really uncomfortable.
Speaker: um And I even see it in my eight-year-old son in the sense that... can't remember what day it was. I think it was this past weekend or something. We had been out, hanging out all day, hanging out friends, high stimulation. It wasn't screen related, but was just high stimulation, kind of a lot of fun and movement and motion. And then I intentionally...
Speaker: wanted to have a couple hours of downtime because i I could just feel that the energy and the stimulation was getting very high and so I brought him home and kind of said tell told him like let's let's recharge our batteries I'm gonna go relax for 20 minutes you kind of entertain yourself for 20 minutes and normally he's like totally cool days okay i'll I'll like I'll grab my hot wheels but in this case like immediately he's like I'm so bored and I was like okay I get that um But it was very interesting. Like said, usually he has no problem with 20 minutes. Like, it's fine. He'll just go play.
Speaker: But being in that high stimulation space for a few hours as we were, it makes not being stimulated painful and uncomfortable and, like, intense.
Speaker: So I think a similar kind of thing happens with with screens and phones and things like that. Anyway... um
Speaker: Crazy, crazy world out there. Life's up for nuts where we got whatever, 8 billion people, most of them addicted to phones, supercomputers in their pockets, compulsively checking, compulsively whatever, tapping on their little screen. um that's That's a pretty intense space for our nervous collective nervous systems to be in, right?
Speaker: Pretty intense. majority of people on this planet probably don't know maybe out don't maybe i don't know majority i don't i mean i'm mostly familiar with where i live but whatever say it's half half of those eight billion people in this like frenetic compulsive addictive space where they're checking their phone every 10 minutes or whatever it is like that's intense that is intense that's intense and you wonder why our world is sort of crumbling and falling apart in so many ways maybe that's part of it maybe that's part of it anyway
Speaker: That's it. I'm JR. Life's effing nuts. See you all around soon.
