I was working through some practical, 21st Century suggestions with someone the other day and this old post came to mind. It's a piece of writing that never made it onto the Daily Reminders website… until now.
(I can report, more than two years later, I never went back. The image below is from my home screen today!)
ⓘ A version of this Daily Reminder was first sent out on 21Sep24
For those of you on iPhones, a new version of the operating system, iOS 18 was released earlier this week.
Included is a feature I’m sure Android users have had for ages (he types, in an attempt to evade tribal war), which is the ability to apply a coloured tint to all of the apps on your home screen. ‘Greyscaling’, in a way… but with whatever colour you like.
Like this:
I tried it out while playing around, colour-matching my background wallpaper, using the little dropper icon, and I haven’t changed it back.
Why not?
Because it means I’m less distracted by my phone. Nothing’s clamouring for my attention, going ‘look at me, look at me!’ when I reach for my phone, either:
- to do something legit, or
- when I feel the urge to procrastinate.
So I don’t get involved.
It’s become uninteresting to me.
It means more of my attention is available for life, now.
You know what’s coming, don’t you…?
Many of the conversations I have, and the questions that people ask—once they have grokked that Thought is the source of any discontent in their lives—tend to centre around ‘how to’ better manage it, or make it go away or make it less intrusive.
“How do I shut up all this nonsense in my head?” they ask, with real, and understandable, exasperation.
And what we do—what I help you to do—is the equivalent of greyscaling it.
Not by applying tools and techniques and being vigilant or anything like that (all of which are exhausting & ultimately counter-productive), but by learning more about the nature of Thought.
By seeing, insightfully, what’s going on:
- What Thought is and what it isn’t
- Who we are and who we aren’t.
And when we go through that process of clarification—of unbefuddlement!—we become less distracted by our thinking.
If it clamours for attention, going ‘look at me, look at me!’ (which it will, because that’s just what minds do) it no longer makes sense to get involved.
It becomes uninteresting to us.
And that means more of your attention is available for life, now.
Enjoy your week.
💝
Giles
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