Phone Freedom?

Perhaps the first thing I ought to do is explain why I thought cutting (some) ties with my phone was something that I must attempt for a week. This notion may have conjured up a misrepresentative image of myself; I do not have a blackberry/iphone constantly stuck to my palm. In fact I own the cheapest Nokia available, whose most exciting function is a speaking clock and a flashlight whose light I am yet to see lighting anything up.

So why did I feel that this small, rather harmless device was to blame for anything undesirable in my life? May need some distancing?
Following a week of less unnecessary, frivolous texting and the diminished importance attributed to having my phone a hand's grab away, I am not entirely sure. The truth is it did not feel all that different.

I guess the idea came from my general aversion to technology-despite the lengthy existence of the mobile telephone, and its appearance as commonplace fairly early on in my life, I can still be heard to bemoan the pre-phone days on occasion. Whilst I accept that for some people being connected all the time is rather more integral, for example to their job than me, I have always felt that the need for constant contact is a BAD THING, failure of modern society. Technology has bred this fear, and removed the need, to ever be alone.

Whilst asking myself what it was I was trying to achieve this week I realised that what I was getting at; the freedom, within a busy, hectic world, to devote myself entirely to what I was doing, without distraction, is less about the phone, but about myself. By placing the blame, through habit, on my innocent phone, I suppose I have displaced the fact that perhaps it is simply my busy mind, for which the phone is simply another outlet. Certainly, technology-less (and especially, rather paradoxically to the moment, computerless) I would have less distractions, however, on the other ideal end, being connected to what's going on here, now, in the moment takes a lot, lot more than a phone..

I have learnt that I do not belong amongst the amish, as has been suggested to me a few times in the past, and would not want to either, which is progress. Aside from this realisation, I don't think this change really changed much. Whilst attempting this meagre task this week I have been reading 'Spiritually Enlightened: The Damnedest Thing'-an explanation of how it feels, what it means and what it is, to exist in a state which massively amplifies the essence of what I thought I was trying to achieve this week. In fact, the author's distance and disassociation from the here and now, and its complete unimportance to him, scares me.. For the moment, for me, attributing less to the little things (for example not informing quite so many people of the often trivial events of my life via text) is enough.