In 1998, if you’d told me I’d point my phone’s camera at the TV to “log in,” I would’ve asked if you also had a tin foil hat to go with that alien nonsense. Yet here I am, in 2025, and Apple TV keeps asking me to do it practically every time, and I’m wondering if these so-called advances are actually… devolutions.
I miss not knowing.
I paused for a moment, watching Dave scroll through Reddit. I imagined him as young Dave—still living at his parents’ house, nose to a book or playing board games with his siblings, without a device. Something in me believes it was better back then. Maybe that’s just nostalgia—the passage-of-time bias. I’ll never really know, but the fantasy feels convincing, doesn’t it?
Lately, I feel discontent. I’m not sure if it’s about social media, or screens, or just… everything. If I deleted it all, would that help? I hesitate to even write that, because writing it makes it real. People say, “Just cut back,” which I do—for a day or two. Then I rationalize it back into my life, like nothing’s wrong. Until it is.
The ease of it scares me. The check-check-check dopamine hit. I feel a rush and a pull toward it, and then a voice saying, No, I’m in control. I can put it down. I choose.
Reminding myself of that helps.
For the last few paragraphs, I spun into a mini panic that I’m addicted, and—oh no—now I need a massive overhaul. Which isn’t true. I’ve dealt with addiction before—with people and with substances. I’ve left entire friend groups, work environments, and long-term relationships. That was hard. This? This is nowhere near that hard.
And yet… it feels serious. Life-or-death dramatic. Pedal-to-the-metal. I hate when I get like this. I do it with working out, too—wanting to, not doing it, then beating myself up. Or earlier, when I found a clump of Evelyn’s hair she cut off without telling us. It felt serious and enraging, and I couldn’t let it go even though I wanted to.
I feel stuck. Angry. Shut down. Writing usually untangles me, but tonight it isn’t working.
I’m going to put on my headphones, listen to some calming Alan Watts, and call it a night. I want to apologize for being a bummer, even though I know I don’t have to.
Sorry anyway.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 