The Glowing Rectangle of Fragmentation

I often fantasize of disappearing — not of being dead or having never been born — but existing only to myself without being a part of any society or other people’s mental landscapes. Being known by others has the potential to be a source of joy, but more often than not others’ “understanding” is misinformed or so shallow that it almost feels insulting to even be thought of at all.

Being a human involves a tension between existing as a free individual and as an object of other people’s perception. We each have the responsibility to create ourselves, or else we will simply become a sum of everyone else’s perception. However, without the existence of and interaction with others, we would never be able to develop an individual sense of identity or language ability to begin with.

We all want the freedom to grow into the person we should be, or hope to be, but are often held back or influenced by the way others perceive us. This reminds me of Jesus’s saying from Mark 6:4 (as well as other places in the gospels).

A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his household.

The context of this verse was that Jesus (along with his disciples) went back to Nazareth to teach, and the people rejected his teachings. They rejected the teachings not because of their content, but rather because of the source. The people already knew Jesus as a child and had their own idea of who he was, so they were unable to get past these preconceptions now that he returned as an adult and prophet. No matter how much we grow or transform, our existence as a familiar object in other people’s perceptions holds us in the past.

Although we all have a need to belong somewhere, unless we wish to remain the same person we have always been seen as, it may be necessary to leave some people behind in order to burst through the limitations of their perceptions.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. – Michel de Montaigne

A few months ago I wrote about the importance of solitude and boredom, and significantly reduced my time spent socializing and in touch with others. These months were not easy, and I experienced several periods of instability and melancholy. However, these months feel like a journey home after being away for many years. They have also served to put some things in perspective.

One thing I noticed was that when I withdrew and stopped actively organizing social activities or reaching out to others, few people reached out to me or invited me to do anything. I spent time with a few friends over the last few months, but most of my time has been intentionally spent alone and doing things I want to do, such as drawing and exploring the world of poetry (a new interest for me).

These months have highlighted the possibility that the reason I was so socially active in recent years was because I did not have a clear and meaningful purpose or pursuit in my free time, and perhaps withdrawing from socializing was the catalyst I needed to find a meaningful pursuit.

I quite enjoyed the solitude over these months, and having almost no one contacting me through my phone has made it much easier to leave my phone at home. For several months I have been locking my phone’s apps for hours per day to avoid being distracted, and often leave my phone at home when I go out since I have no expectation of meeting anyone. In fact, now that I have things I am focused on learning about in my free time, I often feel excited to go out to a cafe without my phone so I can focus on reading and writing.

Yesterday I spent the whole day outside riding my scooter with no smartphone or GPS, and even managed to successfully navigate to meet my friend (who also didn’t bring his phone) at a specific convenience store more than an hour away. After meeting, we rode around the northern coast of Taiwan exploring, and then went to Tamsui to find some dinner before riding back to our respective homes. Instead of GPS I used handwritten notes in a small notebook in my pocket, but didn’t really end up needing them in the end. I also have a habit of keeping several people’s phone numbers written in my pocket notebook just in case of emergency.

The whole experience was quite enjoyable, and I found carrying a notebook with directions and a few phone numbers much less intrusive than carrying every person I know as well as infinite amounts of accessible information in my pocket.

Before the trip, I was so focused on remembering how to get to that specific convenience store that I did not do any planning for how to actually get back home from there. I ended up getting a bit lost on the return trip, but it felt like an adventure. It’s also quite easy to ask for directions at any convenience store.

On the way home, as I was riding through completely isolated and pitch-black agricultural areas, not quite sure where I was going and seeing no other people or cars anywhere nearby, I was struck with a feeling I haven’t had in many years. I don’t know exactly how to explain the feeling, but it was as if I had been unaware of it for years and in that moment suddenly felt, quite viscerally, that I exist and I am free. It reminded me of childhood, like I was just outside somewhere by myself and no one knew where I was, I could do anything I wanted and no one could contact me even if they wanted to. I was really in that moment, and felt like I was fully embedded in the world and that moment.

The interesting thing is, this was simply the default for the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have existed. It is only recently that this sort of experience started to feel profound or strange in some way. Today we call it being “disconnected,” but in those times I feel much more connected than I ever have online. A smartphone may seem to just be a little rectangle that makes life a little easier and more convenient, but it is much more than just that.

A smartphone places nearly all of humanity’s knowledge and communication within reach at any moment. It allows us to contact almost anyone we have ever known, and for them to reach us just as easily. Music, books, films, maps, payments, conversations — all of it now lives in a single object that rarely leaves our side. This may be the ultimate form of convenience, but it also collapses all boundaries in life, creates an issue of constant partial attention, and eliminates the potential to ever feel bored or experience true solitude.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of the things mentioned above, and they can all be a part of a healthy life, but there used to be a time and place for all those things. We used to use the computer at home to chat with friends, do research, explore social media, play games, and pay bills. We used to go home and sit on the couch to watch TV or movies. We used to use a dedicated device for listening to music, and listening to music was an activity on its own, not something that everyone does all day as background noise for everything else they do in their whole lives. And when we wanted to meet a friend, we used to call them and make a plan, and check a map or ask someone how to get to a place before leaving home (resulting in better navigational abilities).

Now we do all of these things using the same device, and that device is with us all the time. This creates a constant background state of possibility. Even if we turn our phones off or silence all our notifications, its very presence is a constant reminder of our unread messages and emails, bills to pay, and ways to distract ourselves from boredom. This lack of boundary and constant connection also creates new social expectations.

Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, there is now an ever-present line of contact and fewer excuses for why you might not be available. Some people even think this gives them the right to contact you at any time and expect a response. Even if no one demands responsiveness or availability, this increased expectation of availability has become a part of our modern culture. This magnifies the scope of our existence as an object to be perceived by others.

Smartphones have become symbols of our domestication, like a collar on a dog. We have traded a measure of autonomy for ease and efficiency. The side-effect is that our attention is no longer entirely our own; through our constant availability, we can be pulled in different directions at any moment by the expectations and demands of others.

Having the time and ability to “simply exist” is an important part of life and an essential factor in maintaining mental health. But the sad truth is that this becomes nearly impossible when in constant possession of a smartphone due to its boundless potential for distraction. The ability to reach into our bag or pocket at any time and do almost anything we could ever want to do creates a constant fragmentation of our attention, preventing depth of experience.

Depth requires sustained attention — if we are constantly interrupted or distracted, even in the back of our minds, we get caught in a cycle of only experiencing life in a shallow form.

In Ecclesiastes we read,

Better a handful with quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind.

We forget that we, too, are animals — born into the world, living for a time, and eventually passing from it. Even if we spend our whole lives gathering knowledge, wealth, or influence, we have to leave it all behind when we pass on. We are sprinting madly down the track, so obsessed with winning the race that we don’t realize that in the end the prize is inconsequential. What ultimately matters is the depth of our experience and the richness of life shared with others.

Life needs to be balanced, and that means we have to let ourselves rest. And by rest I don’t mean lying around scrolling on smartphones, watching TV, or browsing the internet all day.

These few weeks of not carrying my smartphone may be the closest I ever get to my fantasy of disappearing. Perhaps my fantasy of disappearing is not a desire to disappear at all, but rather a deep longing to return to the natural wholeness of life that has been stripped away by our modern world of fragmentation and endless reachability — a desire to exist as just one person, in one body, in one place, and in one moment.

True integration of self requires both solitude and connection, but our modern world of hyper-connectivity and attentional fragmentation has resulted in a collapse of categories. Our solitude is no longer pure solitude, and our connection is no longer focused and deep. Over time, this dulls our growth and quietly weakens our relationships.

Perhaps moving forward will require recovering some things we have left behind. Less convenience may allow us to focus more fully and be more deeply embedded in the moment, and fewer but more intentional connections may allow our relationships to deepen.

I will leave you with a poem to reflect upon, The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.