The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

I know from experience that I can survive loss, as long as I keep myself intensely distracted.

Sometimes we don’t make choices that align with our best interests. Sometimes we might even be harming ourselves, despite our best intentions.”

You give people a distraction from their real lives and a false sense of familiarity that stands between them and having true connection, true community. Your impossible-to-live-up-to images make people think there’s no point in even trying to enjoy the messy real lives they have been given.”

See what life is like when you’re looking at it directly and not through a tiny screen.”

“Everything you can do on a phone you can do better without a phone. Except the self-numbing and avoidance. Just skip those.”

No one can follow these so-called influencers and come out with their head on straight. I guess they’re called influencers for a reason.

There is a large part of me that truly believes something important is happening and I am missing it. All the time. Every second of the day. I reach for my phone over and over again. Even just a few minutes ago I wanted to find out how far in miles my mom’s house is from Dewey’s. Do I need that information for any reason? No. Did I want it? Yes. Is phonelessness a very repetitive exercise in not getting what you want the moment you want it?

“It’s not like that,” she says. “It’s like, I don’t want to be dead. But I don’t know how to be alive.”

That’s her secret: if you are unwilling to reshape yourself every time the times change, you are, effectively, timeless.

all speech should be true, kind, and necessary,”

“It’s better,” I realize aloud, “if you just run at the truth full speed.”

Back at that café in town, you said we were creating content! But we’re really creating discontent!”