april 2025

time in ottawa and the prospect of a phone fast 📱

on loss

This April, my grandmother on my dad’s side passed away. It happened at the beginning of the month, and I flew to attend her funeral in Ottawa about three weeks later.

I thought the ceremony and recounted stories were lovely. Her life was filled to the brim! So many moments of strength and family and music. She was an incredible singer.

I was happy to catch up with the Sylvester side of the family too :)

Inevitably, the whole thing made me think about loss.

Ever since her stroke in 2019, my grandmother had gradually become less present in my life, which made her passing feel distant.

Conversely, when I consider losing the people who I depend on and talk to and think about daily, it eclipses my ability. My life is defined by those people. It’s essentially comprised of them. Hard to imagine anything different.

on my phone

I watched this Eddie Burbank YouTube video of him getting rid of a smartphone for 30 days and it made me want to do the same thing.

Obviously, his experience was overwhelmingly positive and the anxiety he used to feel from his phone disappeared.

It got me thinking about how I could do this and why it appeals to me.

1. it’s the phone

I think removing the phone would be especially effective. It relates to one of my tech axioms.

the screen size axiom

The smaller the screen, the more solitary the experience; the bigger the screen, the more social the experience.

E.g. Watching a cinema screen feels communal; scrolling on a phone feels isolating.

So, if we go down this list:

• phone

• ipad

• laptop

• desktop

• tv

the further down the list your device is, the better you’ll feel afterwards.

(Anecdotally, when I spend more time on my ipad or laptop, I’ll often leave feeling more productive than disappointed or anxious)

What’s implied here is that it’s harder to get addicted to an ipad - we’ll have to see.

2. utility vs distraction

Interacting with my phone over the past few years could be described as

an attempt to derive utility without simultaneously fuelling a doom scrolling habit.

Turns out, this is hard! To find a solution, I inevitably run into this question:

How can I separate my phone’s useful functions from the distracting ones?

Unfortunately, apps don’t fall cleanly into those two categories.

In fact, it feels like we’re trending towards the exact opposite. Even my music app has an endless, scrollable video feed now.

There are many nuances and exceptions here. Often, I’ll discover music or recipes or artists that I really love from the endless, scrollable video feeds. It also feels like that’s where most of our internet culture originates.

Luckily, a cold-turkey fast completely avoids this question. You simply don’t get any of it. Scroll on your laptop!

3. social presence

In an effort to keep in touch with his friends and family during his phone fast, Eddie got a landline installed. I was quickly enamoured with this idea. In particular, leaving voicemails.

If all I had was a landline, friends would be forced to leave a message. With their actual voice!

Why does this appeal to me? This relates to Social Presence Theory: How well a medium conveys a sense of the other person.

At the risk of sounding obvious, I get more feeling from a voice message than a text. Fewer layers of abstraction between me and the other person. Sounds good!

fin

I’ll have to see if I ever build up the courage to go for 30 days. Maybe three is a good starter.

a tough race

I ran a 10k this month. It was the long-anticipated sequel to the same race I ran in 2023. In fact, I wrote about that race and how pleasantly surprised I was by my performance.

2023 - 50m47s

As you can see, I crossed the finish line looking “confident” and “poised”.

This year was different.

2025 - 52m20s

“In pain” and “exhausted” are the adjectives that come to mind.

Due to my very optimistic pacing, by the fourth kilometer I was exhausted.

I ended up finishing about 1min 33s slower than last time - about two and a half minutes away from my sub-50 goal.

That said, I didn’t injure myself! So it’s as good a time as any to start training for next year! I’ll keep you updated.

a few vignettes of my month

• convincing the tailor at the mall to hem the sleeves of my suit jacket (which I had bought hours earlier) before they closed because my flight left at 5AM next morning.

• noticing the sounds of the water before diving early sunday morning.

• discovering that homemade tortillas are quite easy to make and delicious.

• sitting on a bench with Ashley on a sunny day in Beacon Hill complaining about the Canada Geese

• watching hockey with my cousins after our grandmother's funeral - the Habs in game three were electric.

• boarding my five-hour flight with a steadily growing headache after helping myself to the free beer in the Air Canada lounge at Pearson.

  • note to myself: don't drink before a >4 hour flight! you will get a headache (Thanks to Ashley for connecting the dots).

music

• this song

• this dj set is remarkable (at least the first 15 minutes)

see you next month!