Come evening time I got ready to get writing, turned the netbook on, got to Blogger, started a new post, had an attempt on few words, until I realized the E key wasn't working. I disassembled it, cleaned it, cleaned around it and underneath it, checked for anything odd looking, assembled it again, still nothing. My frustration grew so big I started to cry, and then I shushed my mind.
I turned everything off and lied in bed, I needed to rest from the chaotic day, but also readjust and recenter. Reading Mahmoud Darwish's Journal of Ordinary Grief was not a good idea on that day, and perhaps binge reading it all day long contributed in my gloom, though reading was initially my idea of escaping the senses overwhelm.
I cried again, I wasn't sure if I was crying for Darwish, for the Palestinians, for the made up conflicts, for the apathy of the world, or if I really was crying over my E key. I think it was everything, and then some more...
There is freedom in writing with a keyboard using full hands and all 10 fingers, sitting up straight, and looking at the words forming on the screen. My mind works in a specific way that's needed for writing, things flow differently, unlike when I'm blogging from phone.
Was it another new thing I'm to lose now!? Perhaps it was, though I have been preparing myself for a long time. This netbook after all is ancient, it's a miracle it still works and I'm very grateful evey time I use it. I'm a minimalist through and through, and I resist technology quite a bit, I like sticking to whatever works, never was crazy about getting the latest gadget, the latest update, the newest or trendiest anything. The phone still works, I thought to myself, and I murmured a little gratitude prayer, then got down to starting a new book as I drifted to sleep and called it a day.
The phone is quite old too and is cracking up. It was a cheap make that I got at the start of lockdown back in spring 2020 when I lost mine out of the blue. I had to grab whatever cheap phone I could afford at the time and while the shop allowed me in, as they were pretending they were closed down, only sneaking one or two customers at the time. It's been almost 4 years already, and I'm still playing catch up.
I'm still inside my own head, battling between thriving and surviving, confused about the time and whether to consider this a beginning or an ending, and whether all the losses were beginnings in disguise, and if indeed I have been blessed, or just plainly stuck in a rot. I'm still trying to make sense of things, not just what happened since spring 2020, but since, well, the beginning...
The photos for work I'm taking lately with the phone are emarassingly low quality, the camera in my phone has gone really bad, the screen doesn't allow me to see perfectly either to when I'm attempting editing, and I seem to be still in this forever catch up to be out there. Everybody's so very natural at it, that showing themselves thing, photos, videos, voice, their face, ideas, style, the trend, the it!... They have the fanciest phones, the latest apps, the best resolution everything, and it's on 24/7, as though they're broadcasting their life, let alone their work. And here I am all l truly wish to do is to hide. Perhaps that outdated technology of mine is helping me achieve that, one way or another...
Still, I gotta sell, people and customers are only to be found on their phones these days, mustn't I play the game?! I'm still trying to find that balance between a world that's so very physical and materialistic - in which I feel total alienation and experience complete detachment from - and an existence that's merely passing by, hovering over it all, simply witnessing.
Perhaps I overwhelm my own senses myself too from being too much in both worlds, and simultaneously thinking about them. I dream of peacefully existing in the middle, having established a newly found harmony and a wise enlightened way of being, forging this into that when and if needed, minus the narration...
Just maybe.
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