Today I went for a walk, and on my way passed near a cemetary. Next to the entrance was a crow sitting on a roof, looking down at a small faucet.

I had a feeling I knew what it wanted. I found an empty container, filled it with water and left it next to the faucet. Then I stepped back and waited. After about a minute the crow came down to drink. This made my day.

As I’ve written in a previous post, I believe that sometimes the best option is not the most convenient one. I’m definitely not the first one to come to this conclusion; the IndieWeb is full of thought-provoking posts dealing with friction and its value to our life (some examples that I enjoyed reading: A Fan of Friction, Friction is a Feature, On the importance of friction - apologies to many others not linked here).

Yesterday at my parents-in-law’s house I was looking at the old laptop that’s been sitting there in a corner more or less forever. My father in law noticed and asked me if I know of a place where old electronics can be dropped for recycling, because they couldn’t find anything near them and that’s why this laptop is still there. I asked what’s wrong with it; he said that the screen is dead, and vaguely remembered there was another hardware problem that had to be fixed but they never got around to fixing it because the screen then died.

This past week was, for me, a small experiment in using the internet as little as possible. My goal was not to be totally offline - which would have caused some real problems for people I have to communicate with, and also I know it wouldn’t be something I could really stick to in general. Rather, the idea was to see if I can start building healthier habits about the amount of time and attention that I devote to online stuff.

Even though I try as much as possible not to carry a smartphone, sometimes I have to; and on those occasions I do like it when people notice my somewhat unconventional choice. The Unihertz Jelly Star has a 3 inch display, and I am often asked questions like whether it’s a real phone and does it have a camera/internet/apps etc.

A few days ago I went to pick up a package, which required me to have the smartphone in order to show the pick-up message and confirm delivery. Both the shop owner and his younger employee, who asked to see the message, were amazed to see my phone. The shop owner commented on how everyone is always looking for bigger and bigger and how rare it is to see someone go in the opposite direction. The employee wanted to hold it in his hand to see how it feels. Then he asked something like ‘yeah, but is it convenient to type on? Do you use Whatsapp or anything on this thing?’. My reply was that it’s not really convenient, and that I don’t use Whatsapp. At this point the shop owner started smiling synpathetically, while the younger guy looked quite confused. So I added that I prefer to use my phone as little as possible and that this inconvenience really helps. Well, it was worth going there just for the shop owner’s smile; he clearly got the idea.

Christopher Butler recently published an excellent blog post which just happens to perfectly characterizes the different strategies I’ve been playing with for getting more focus and clarity into my life as regards to the flood of technology-induced options we so often blindly adopt by default. In particular, my recent attempts to reduce my online time, which by now is more than just reducing smartphone use, can all be seen as instances of what that blog post talks about.

As part of my ongoing (re)watching of David Lynch’s creations, I just watched once again Part 8 from Twin Peaks - The Return. If you’ve watched this series - yes, it’s THAT episode. The one I’m totally amazed was made for mainstream television.

Now, trying to impose a straightforward interpretation on anything that David Lynch made - definitely this one - is kind of stupid, I know. If you think you can explain it all it probably means you got it wrong, or at least missed something important. Sure. But still, I can’t resist the (possibly ridiculous) interpretation that struck me as somewhat obvious.

I’ve been planning to start a blog for quite a long time; now it’s finally happened. The first post is an awkward thing: Do I write as if I’m introducing myself to the readers (who don’t even exist yet)? Or do I just pretend this is the continuation of a previous discussion with someone who already knows me?

Never mind; I’ll just call it a day and move on to the next post.