I do this to escape the technology trap

Ping.

Jason's text just came through, but it's just annoying.

But then there's that other email you were meaning to get to this afternoon, but you weren't feeling it.

You have those accounts to organise too.

So rather than doing those, you decide to watch some soothing YouTube video.

This then turns into a twenty-minute spiral into scrolling short-form, attention-dissolving clips of owners laughing at their misbehaved pet huskies.

Now you're even more frazzled than an hour ago.

You feel it in your shoulders.

Then comes the neighbour's drilling through the walls, which sounds like a huge man doing long farts.

So you throw on your headphones and get lost in a video game.

Thing is, technology tends not to soothe our racing minds. It winds the coil tighter.

But sitting down to read a page or ten of fiction, ideally in an actual physical paper book. Now that does something.

I do it to calm down.

It's entertainment. It activates my imagination in my mind's eye.

So it's not entirely passive.

Just a page helps the mind still.

It's a habit I return to often.

As some of you might know, I am now actually writing fiction.

I am writing a novel about a chap called Paul who heads to northern Finland to escape post-collapse Helsinki.

But I also write very short stories, mainly sci-fi and horror, on my fiction Substack: Story Cabin.

I released a five-minute ghost story today there called 'Greendog.'

If you like fiction, I'd love you to take a read today and subscribe to the newsletter there. 

It helps me a lot.

Thank you,

Alex