Life through a Screen

The speaker reflects on the phenomenon of people watching concerts through their phone screens instead of being present in the moment. They discuss their own experiences of recording messages and the doubts and uncertainties they have about sending them. They also reflect on past relationships and the complications that arise when entering someone else's world. The speaker contemplates the possibility of pursuing a new relationship, but fears the potential complications it may bring. They emphasize the importance of being careful and taking small steps when making decisions. The speaker acknowledges their tendency to overthink and procrastinate, but also recognizes the need to stand by their own feelings and experiences. Watching through a screen, watching life. How many people go to a concert and spend the whole time looking at the performance on a tiny screen of their phone as they record it because they want to keep a record of it, a memento, they want to be able to watch it later instead of doing the thing that they have to do, that they can only do at a live performance and be present and connect with the experience, not view it through a small screen. And yet many, many people do it. Maybe they don't do it for the whole concert, but they certainly do it for a lot of it. And it makes no sense to me, but I understand what they think they're getting from it. They just don't realise what they're missing as a result. So why have I brought this up? I've made a few recordings to date and there's a few things that are going round in my head I'm thinking about, I'm considering, and were I to put things into practice or were things to happen, it would change things for me. And the question is, do I want it to change? Do I want to look at things through a lens, at a distance, keep myself separate where it feels safe, but never know what it would be like were I to actually step into the reality, experience the reality? Or experience the reality and maybe that's what I am doing. I thought when I sent a recording it would, it had the opportunity to open things up. It didn't. I didn't then take it further, I never said anything more, but it was listened to. So I've recorded something else. I didn't intend to, it came out spontaneously, but it is something else. And if I send that, it might be what triggers a change. It might move it closer. And the reason I haven't already sent it, like I did last time, I sent it literally the moment I had created it. I kept the momentum going, I felt like it was right, but I doubted it afterwards and then by the morning I was really unsure. I mean I'd sent it, so I couldn't unsend it, I accepted that I'd done that, but I was really unsure whether I really meant what I said in it, whether it was going to change things and I realised that I didn't actually want it to, that I wouldn't be able to deal with it even if I thought I wanted it. So I did nothing further with it. I didn't respond, I didn't act on it, I didn't say anything about it, I just let it go. And it seemed to disappear as a result. But today I've made another message. It's a bit different, it's a bit clearer, and I haven't sent it, I've decided not to do that. I'll leave it until tomorrow and I'll look at it again with fresh eyes or fresh ears and see if it still feels, if I feel like it should be something I want to say. Do I want to say this? And see what happens. Which makes more sense in some ways, but it also kind of creates a doubt as well. If I really felt myself speaking the truth, that's what I felt when I said it, then I should just send it because it is what I said, and therefore it should be heard in order to earth it. I've channeled it out, but if I don't send it, it doesn't complete its journey. It could be that in not sending it and sort of creating a space around it, it will feel different to me that I am already doubting. I won't be in the same state that created it, so I won't hear it the same way, and it may not be sent. That doesn't mean it won't still happen, something else won't still come out, I don't know, but the feeling is that there is a kind of impetus and urge that is without urgency or rushing, because there's no real agenda, is attempting to create a circumstance whereby more can take place. And that's as much as I can sort of see, and because I am not sure about any of it really, and it's something that I am well out, in a sense, well out of my comfort zone, even just approaching, I have to do it like this, so that it has the best chance of being authentic and being real, and I spot disingenuousness, unconsciousness, am I hiding something, am I not being really clear? I'm trying to be, I am being clearer, but I may have to be much clearer, and the moment, the timing of it is not yet. It's a process, it's an exploration, I don't know what will happen. So why did I start this, as looking through a screen? Because that's not life. You're at the concert, with all those other people, and your favourite band is on stage, and yet instead of being with it, you're recording it, phone in hand, you've got to look at that screen, and you can't stop once you start, because if you stop, you're missing what you will want later. Why didn't you record it all? Why did it stop there? Oh, I don't know, I wish I had. Just children, it's what you think you want, and you will play it back many times, and you will appreciate it, so in a sense what you're doing is giving up, surrendering what can come from being really present, for having lots of little future moments that keep it real. So I understand, I've never done that. I hardly even think about taking my phone out to take a picture of something in the present, I'm just experiencing it. Not that I have people who I share things like that with, but I used to, and I used to take my phone out to take a picture of something where the only motive was to share it, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. But there are some people, and I've been around them, who take pictures all the time. That's their way of remembering the moment, remembering what took place, keeping a record of it, so they don't have to remember because they're not going to. And it's interesting that I had a relationship with, I'm having a relationship with both of them, just different kind of relationship. But it used to actually drive me mad a lot, when I'd be walking with her and I'd stop and she was taking a picture of basically the same things that she's already taken pictures of before. There's a compulsion, there is this feeling of having to do it, that not a day went by, not an experience went by when the camera, the phone wasn't out and being taken photos of people, places. Nobody had any objection because it was none of their business what photographs were taken. But for this person, it seems like it's everybody's business what photos are taken. No, I don't want you to take my picture. No, you can't take their picture. No, put the camera away. There's so much control, which means that she has to take some photos surreptitiously, hidden. Which I like. I've seen her do it a few times. Because what other choice does she have? But nevertheless, that constant need to photograph things that have been photographed and will just be deleted or never looked at is not something those who don't take pictures can ever really understand. You just have to allow her to do it and I did my best to allow the first one to do it and not get involved, but I know that it did irritate me at times. And the second one could easily irritate me as well. It interferes with the flow of the moment. It's okay to take the pictures, but in order for that to happen, I can't flow with the moment the way I want to. I've always got to let go of what I want to allow for that to happen or we have to do things separately, in which case it's irrelevant. Having simplified my life from those who complicated it, it seems like it would be a foolish thing for me to re-complicate it. On one level, re-complicating my life makes no sense as it has taken a long time to get to a place where I have let go of everyone. Or they have let go of me. I'm not sure which came first, but I've let go of them and yet I understand that the challenge of the complexity is what life is about. That's where growth, change, things occur that can't really be foreseen through struggle, adversity, overcoming difficulty is what creates expansion and change in a way that is necessary. This is something I've not experienced before like this. Like in each situation, it's always new. There are elements of course that can be sort of connected, but it's always new and this seems extremely new in many ways. I don't know that I am capable, but then at the same time I'm also, I also don't know that I'm not capable. So the only question is, and it's not one that has to be answered right now, is this something I actually want or is it something I only think I want? Can it be something I do, I give unconditionally? Can I make it about the other and it be something that is necessary to do so? And in return, I get something I need too. So it isn't a one way thing, it's not a selfish thing. I've never done it quite like this before. I've tried, but the other hasn't needed me to care about them in the way I do. But this time, she might need me to care about her in the way I do, because there will be times when it will be essential. But there is a fear that the complication will be... I remember, I remember a moment very soon after I moved in with my wife, or my, the woman who would become my wife, and it was a done deal that I was now in with her in this relationship doing the things that she did the way she did it, like I had quantum leaped into a new life situation. There was a moment as I sat in the back of the car, she was driving, her daughter was sitting in the passenger seat, and I was sitting in the back which wasn't designed for anyone to sit in it. On cushions, hunched over as it was too low to actually sit upright, no seatbelt of course, that part didn't matter, but after 20 minutes, numbing, cramping, and I would do this often because my place was in the back, not in the front, when her daughter was here. And anyway, but sitting in the back in that moment as she made her way to Starbucks for the umpteenth time, and I realised I had committed myself to being in a world that wasn't mine again. That I had mistakenly accepted what I thought was what I wanted, or at least what I needed to make my life better, only to discover that actually it was going to be worse. Which is quite ironic really, to think that it will be better and discover it is actually worse, but I was so sure, and yet also realised I was deluding myself. I was escaping from something that didn't work and created the idea that this would be what would replace it. It seemed to work for a while, exactly like that, but only for a while. Something then happened, which I can't really explain, but when it happened, it changed things. Things, everything was different after that, and it became harder and harder for me to live in her world. I was playing the part of somebody living in her world, rather than actually living in her world. I never really did. She sort of had to give me, without me really asking for anything, exactly what I needed in order to keep me, or so she thought. And then when she got tired of doing that, because she couldn't sustain it, I was already bound to her. And so I was now a kind of slave, I suppose, the replacement dog. And I don't say that like, oh my God, there was a dog and it had to go, but it was, its place in the relationship ranked higher than me. And it knew that, because for the five years prior to my arrival, it had only been the two of them. Well, I say that, she did have a relationship, but that wasn't a very good one. But the dog was a constant for her, and yet with me, because I don't really like dogs, I couldn't, and I didn't want to share her, there was a competitive aspect that was bizarre. Anyway, I became that other dog. I had, I just did what I was told, really. I couldn't really do anything else. And all of that came about because I was willing to jump into, and it wasn't a very physically different life, it was only at the bottom of the stairs rather than at the top of the stairs where I was previously. I wasn't in another state or another country, which is where I'd started out. But I jumped into this alternate reality and still kept the previous experience. I would go there, we'd watch films up there, without my partner, my new partner. Often, as a result of having had an argument or falling out, that would be where I would go and there would be other friends in the building who would join us and we'd have a nice evening. With all that waiting to be dealt with afterwards. Complicating, after complication, after complication. Now, she would be considered relatively normal, even though she wasn't, she had her issues and there was definitely some mental health stuff going on. Whereas this time, there's no question that she's unwell, not normal. But at the same time, that doesn't mean that there isn't something of value in it. Even if it's only temporary, I'm not saying that I know the future and if I do this, this is what happens. I have to be careful not to think that way. I can only take small steps, small steps, as small as need be, so that I am not overwhelmed by choice, by making a choice, by the decision, by the act. I have to be careful. I have to listen to my intuition, to my conscience, to my awareness. I have to be able to act upon it without discovering later that I knew this but somehow overruled it. I have to be so careful. At least that's how it seems. And yet at the same time, if that is how it seems, then perhaps it's telling me that it isn't really something I can do. But it just seems like it is from here, without any of the pressure or any of the reality of having the experience. Without any of that present, it's easy to see certain things could happen in certain ways. But the moment they actually exist, the reality comes home, that's when it can be overwhelming and now I have no other way out but to proceed. The commitments, actions have been taken that can't be taken back. I have experienced that before and the devastating feeling is unbelievable. It's like going to hell. That's what it feels like to me. And there's no escape. Can't escape it, can't avoid it. You're on your way down boy, just go. Accept it, get on with it, live the life you now have. And that's not an easy thing to do. You've got to make the best of it and you've got to find joy in it and you've got to love and you've got to care and you've got to, you've just got to get on with it. It's unnecessary suffering until such time as, well, I found a reason to leave, a way out and I took it and I still don't know if it was exactly the right thing, I suppose it was, but it was a tough one and I felt trapped and I hate feeling trapped. I've struggled to find some semblance of freedom. I do not wish to give it up. So I have to tread carefully so that I don't have to. At least that would be my, that's what I'm hoping for. I must be careful not to jump into the deep end without having any idea how deep it actually is and whether I'll be able to swim in it or not. There is no point in jumping fully in, full on in, fully clothed, straight in, only to realise you want to get straight out again and then not be able to reach the side that you're, once you're in, you're flowing down like you're jumping into a river, you're off. You might try and swim back but you can't, you're going, the current's taking you. You've made your choice, you've jumped in, now you've got to go where it takes you. And that's really difficult to do. It really tests my faith that there are no mistakes. But I suppose if I hadn't jumped I probably wouldn't carefully get in because you tend to hold on to the side and never let go. Whereas you jump, take a leap of faith, you think you want to go in and you know that you're going to go somewhere as a result but you don't know what it will feel like, you can't know what it will feel like until you do it. You take that step off the ledge where there's no going back, only then do you know what it means to do so. I imagine that would be the suicide moment for those people who have that desire, they've decided, they go up to the roof and then they take that step. There's no going back from that, once that actual step is taken, once you're falling, done, finished. How many people, I wonder sometimes, before they hit the ground regret that decision, that something shifts in them so dramatically, they suddenly see things so clearly that they know that they didn't need to do that but it's done. We'll never know unless the person survives which is, you know, not often and we still might never know, they may not even really have that in them afterwards but still, it's a thought I have. I could never take that step, can't take a step like that into the unknown, it's very difficult. Death, end of life, it's something I can't just throw away but in a sense what my life experience is like is something that I have done, I have taken that step many times actually. Some I've balked at, doubted and withdrew from but others have panned out, gone that way and I've even done the same thing twice to the same, with the same person, knowing that it didn't work the first time, I then did it again for it not to work again. Although there was elements of it that did work later but still, the feeling of having jumped from the frying pan into the fire was so powerful that this feeling of, oh God, I'm in hell, I can't stand this, this is terrible but there's nothing I can do about it. I can't escape anymore, I have made my bed and I've got to lie in it now, there's no other bed, there's nowhere else to sleep, just here. So this could either be indicative of somebody with serious personality disorders or I have experienced the hard path enough because only the hard path teaches me what I need. Clearly if I'm making those kind of decisions I must need the experience that comes from it. So this is it, now you could say, wow, this is overthinking, blimey, do you overthink things to the extreme and by overthinking so much I end up not actually taking any action. It's a kind of indefinite procrastination. So not recording the message and then immediately uploading it, doing all the physical, technical things required to make it available and then sending the link and sealing it and earthing it. Without doing that I'm saying I don't believe that I can, I'm doubting myself so what I've channeled, what I've felt, what I've expressed isn't real and that can't be good for me, that's not good to do that. I have to stand by what I feel even if it turns out to be other than I imagined and yet I am afraid, I will be honest, that my current situation which has a tremendous absence of complication is attempting to re-complicate my life because it's actually important for me even though I would avoid it because I think I prefer the simple Simon. But that is simply an idea as well, so who knows.