5.12.25 - Some Thoughts for the Day
I don't think our kids will really "have" as many meaningful photos of us because of how we take them now. People don't print them out and curate them into albums that much anymore. They sit in your account, and are shared via messages, etc. The lack of curation and phsycality changes our relationship to them. I will make real photo albums like my family did until about 2010.
I am on phone calls with my friends and family all day and it occurs to me that this is not normal and very immigrant coded. If you watch old movies it seems like young people are on phones a lot, but I do seem to hear a lot of jokes that people in my age cohort don't really do phone calls. Maybe my friends are a little more old school. Maybe everyone else has replaced the one hour phone call that people did to kill time with short-form video content. When I have a long walk or errand or commute, my first instinct is to text or call people. But maybe the accessibility of podcasts, audiobooks, music, etc. dampens this instinct in others. On the train, it seems like most people watch videos or listen to music. Uber drivers however keep the phone call spirit alive. Those guys are always on a phone call. I think that it would be good if we rebalanced back to phone call culture.
The optimal amount of all-nighters/very short sleep nights a year is definitely not zero. I think too much regularity in your sleep schedule makes you dull in the mind. Plus, the cavemen likely had to stay up every so often, stay on watch, etc. Healthy people should be able to stay awake for 36 hours or so without major incident. It sucks but it's not a disaster. I will never stop doing a few all-nighters here and there for mental health purposes.
There needs to be policy action making it illegal to create smartphone dependency. I would get rid of my smartphone, but a lot of places need you to have a QR code, many jobs want you to have a device that can download a two-factor authentitcator app, so many services these days require an App --- bundling all of these things with an addictive entertainment device feels deeply wrong.
****UPDATE: I wrote this out of my mind exhausted after returning to New York. I collapsed shortly after writing it. I have not read it over again and will not edit it, but am posting to the site in the interest of the historical record.
knxnts