This is the first, the wildest, and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
-Mary Oliver
This morning is my “Saturday“, two beautiful days off spanning ahead of me. After a week of unseasonably hot weather filled with working hard and playing harder, I relished in the relaxing early hours of cooler, cloudy weather, peppered with the rain that our forests and water supplies so desperately need here. Per usual, I began my daily tasks accompanied by an audiobook. Today’s selection: “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention- and How to Think Deeply Again” by Johann Hari.* I feared it may be a slog to get through… one of those many intelligent, educational books that I know I “should” read but often don’t have the drive to. Instead, three minutes in, I was in tears. The picture Hari paints in the introduction is bleak. Images of his vibrant godson growing up more and more reclusive, addicted to screens and apps. The trip they take together with the intent to escape this, only to be surrounded by more tourists addicted to screens, museums providing them entertainment through iPads and even more screens, leaving the patrons always looking down instead of up, unable to see the beauty in the amazing settings surrounding them. The tears came because I live this every day. I see it in the people I pass, the friends I spend time with, the partner I live with. But most importantly, I see it in myself.
My first years abroad before residency, bouncing back and forth, in and out of Norway, were chaotic in so many ways. Yet they were also a blissful haven. You see, before June of 2021, I had an American cellphone that didn’t work here outside of wifi zones. I had a beloved 2015 iPhone, with a terrible, grainy camera and very limited storage space. And because of that, I had no reason to take it with me anywhere. When I left home, I was free. No phone calls coming in, no apps vibrating, no pull to check for updates or messages from friends. It was just me and all of Oslo at my fingertips. In the summer of my residency, my upgrade to a newer phone with an amazing camera, a local Norwegian number, and enough storage space that I didn’t have to constantly delete old items off to replace with the new, was an incredibly thoughtful and generous gift from my partner. Though I still planned to live the same way. Leaving my phone at home, or simply turned off in my bag. Only… Norway had other plans.
Norway is an incredibly advanced country technologically, which can be a blessing, but mostly a curse. Cash is nearly non-existent in this country, all transactions being made from debit cards and/or Vipps, Norway’s version of Venmo. All official documents and websites require a unique-to-your-person Norwegian BankID (something that took 4 months beyond my residency to receive and is virtually impossible to function here without), meaning that in order to gain access to almost any service, let alone log into one’s bank account, medical documents, taxes, or even mail from the city, a 3-step electronic verification is involved, a verification that is impossible to complete without one’s personal smartphone. If I want to read an email from my doctor’s office or make a medical appointment, I need my smartphone. If I want to buy something online from my laptop, I need my smartphone. All “official” documents, from the city, immigration, my former language school, test results, etc., are sent through “DigiPost”, an electronic mailing system separate from the postal service or traditional email, that requires a BankID verification from one’s own personal smartphone.
But at the beginning of last year, Norway took this a step further still. All ticket machines at bus stops, metro stations, ferry terminals, and tram stops were removed, meaning that the only way to buy tickets for public transportation is to try to find a 7-Eleven in the area, or purchase one on your phone. (Tourists without data plans abroad? I feel for you, and I sincerely wish you the best of luck.) Public transport in this city is not cheap, but the fines for riding without a ticket are even steeper, around $130 USD. Ticket control is strict and rampant, sometimes multiple checks within a 5-minute ride. Tickets must be proved through the app on one’s personal smartphone.
So, I quickly said goodbye to the days of walking the town alone without a phone, or keeping it stowed away in deep pockets of a bag. I needed access to it far too often. And because I so often forgot my debit card in the pocket of another coat or another pair of pants, with a basket full of groceries and no way to pay, I had my partner add my debit card to my phone as well. It was just easier. And because it was easier, and necessary, this slippery slope became steeper and slipperier and all the more treacherous.
The museums here, too, are changing, just as museums across the world. The [Edvard] Munch Museum, displaying the many versions of “The Scream”, “The Kiss”, and so many other achingly beautiful paintings, paintings in a once tiny, quaint, and authentic museum that were the reason why I first traveled to Norway on a whim in 2009, are now housed in a bleak monstrosity looming like an eyesore over the harbor, filled with “digital experiences” and guided visual/audio tours sans a human guide. The same happened to the National Museum, a gorgeous art museum with character and authenticity, replaced by a newly constructed, state-of-the-art building. I haven’t yet been to either. I probably should, but it seems too sad. The Viking Museum is also closed for renovations, from 2022-2026, and I have no doubt this will result in more of the same. It’s not just Norway, of course. My partner and I visited the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL for the first time this last December and were entranced by the virtual reality exhibit of being immersed inside so many of Dali’s paintings. But it also left me infinitely sad, longing for the small, unflashy Dali Museum I visited in London back in 2004, which, for all I know, has also been transformed. I don’t need technology, smartphones, and QR codes to appreciate art. This art has stood the test of time for a reason. It’s moving enough on its own.
Many organizations here have tried to stand up to this, making “safe spaces” so to speak for people to enjoy opportunities cellphone-free. In saunas, in spas, in pools. It seems a reasonable and highly welcome request, to cherish fully these moments of rest and tranquility. And yet there’s always those who feel they are above the regulations. Cellphones vibrating on the sidelines, pinging as a tourist uploads their winter dip immediately to their Insta-feed. Swimming in the luxury of a tucked away spa for my birthday gift, surrounded by selfie takers. I have to wonder if this is what my former yoga studio has now become, once a sacred haven for me in the States, and I have to hope and pray that it hasn’t.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of course. Social media is a whole other ballgame, with issues forking off for miles and miles in every possible direction, looping and turning and tangling in upon themselves. I find the pulls of social media a constant battle within my own life, seeking the balance of keeping in touch with so many people I love that are an ocean away while also maintaining my sanity. The guilt of not knowing and responding to the highlights and pitfalls of friends’ lives weighed against the immense overwhelm, anxiety, and sometimes even despair that the information overload brings. And while my partner and seemingly all of my friends are overjoyed by the advent of ChatGPT and utilize it daily, for work tasks, for language translations, for help with job applications, I remain terrified. Terrified of what is to come, petrified by the inevitable repercussions.
Has no one read Ray Bradbury or so many other writers before and after him? Seen through his stories the terrible events and consequences that lie in wait? It seems not, or at least not enough to care, given that so many of his stories and predictions have come true. Houses that operate entirely on their own, a man driven insane by the constant noise and information broadcasted from a bus, book burnings, the scarcity of humans just walking places, being alone, meditating on life.
Call me alarmist. Call me out of touch, behind the times, but I know this slippery slope all too well. I’ve witnessed my own slow demise into the darkness, only fully realizing the extent through forgotten memories of previous times. The horror I felt watching so many acquaintances sitting inside a hotel, scrolling through social media on their phones, while the Galapagos Islands filled with sea lions, giant iguanas, sharks, rays, sea turtles, and flying fish lay await outside, mere steps away. The couples I watched at my bar, together but not together, each engaged in their own personal phone-related dramas, not talking or making eye contact. The selfie-obsessed tourists far more concerned with their Instagram posts than the breathtaking hot springs, waterfalls, mountains, or wildlife that surround them on every side. Promising myself each time that I would NEVER become that person, and reflecting now that at many points of my life, I have.
I’m guilty of so many things. Headphones in, too immersed in a podcast to notice the birds singing or the sound of the wind. Busy snapping photo after photo of every beautiful overlook, seeing the expanse more through a lens than through my own eyes. Listening to an audiobook while practicing yoga on the balcony, instead of sitting in silence or listening to music, allowing myself to focus on my own body, my own breath, rather than someone else’s words. Catching myself scrolling through emails, the news, various apps the moment life gets boring- on a bus, in lines, on my own couch next to my living, breathing partner. A partner that I discuss these issues with night after night after night.
In listening to the first 30 minutes of Hari’s book, I was struck with the epiphany that always hits like a lightning bolt to the soul after such reminders. I don’t want to live this way. I don’t think any of us do, really. Distracted, disconnected, unable to fully focus or process the daily ups and downs of life. I want to delete my social media accounts all together, swear off my cellphone, dedicate my life to taking youth and adults on technology-free seaside and forest bathing excursions to reconnect with nature and themselves, to remind them what is truly important. I want to remind MYSELF what is truly important. And yet, while the options are all possible and amazing and at my fingertips waiting to be pursued, I know the cruel reality. I know that my smartphone is required for the most basic of tasks here. I remember my love of podcasts and audiobooks. I am drawn back to keeping in touch with dear friends and loved ones in the most practical and efficient of ways. As Hari also acknowledges, our worlds are now built to fuel this addiction. The pull to technology, the connection to 5G inevitably leading to the disconnection to the soul. The trend is only growing. Those of us who are able to extricate ourselves, even partially, will be outliers, seen as out of touch, no longer the norm. It won’t be an easy battle, but I will keep resisting. I NEED to keep resisting, reclaiming, re-remembering. And I hope with all my heart that our society, and especially those I love most, will too.
*Hari, Johann. “Stolen focus.” New York : Crown, 2021.
A Mermaid Out of Water 