Your Phone Might Be Stealing Your Magic

“As Socrates explained to Phaedrus in Plato’s famous chariot metaphor, our soul can be understood as a chariot driver struggling to rein two horses, one representing our better nature and the other our baser impulses. When we increasingly cede autonomy to the digital, we energize the latter horse and make the chariot driver’s struggle to steer increasingly difficult—a diminishing of our soul’s authority.”

~ Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism

That’s right. Every time you mindlessly pick up your phone and start scrolling without any real pleasure or joy, and every time you compulsively look at the news while becoming increasingly anxious and depressed, you allow your soul’s authority be diminished. What?! No! You mustn’t. Right? No way! If you’re going to live an inspired, magical life, you need your soul’s authority to be in tact.

But wait: once scrolling has become your habitual default mode, how do you stop?

One way is to get yourself a book to read. A really good book that you’re excited about reading. Or, learn to knit or crochet or cross stitch. When you have an enriching activity nearby, you can turn to that instead in a waiting room or bus stop, or anytime you would normally look for that little pink Instagram icon.

Next, delete the social media apps from your phone. Unless you need them on there for work or something, try limiting your social media use to your desktop. That way, you will not be tempted to compulsively click on those crappy little attention vampires.

Finally, make a list of real world ways to connect with your friends and family. Like, you know, call them on the phone, send them a postcard, order them a little gift, knock on their door, invite them to coffee, make travel plans. Obviously, all this stuff is at least a million times better than clicking like or typing “love this.” Better for them and for you.

Breaking habits is hard, but breaking the compulsive phone checking habit is worth it! Think of The Chariot card from the Tarot, and make like that handsome, confident guy keeping those sweet ass sphinxes in line.

Very few of us (if any) will break the habit perfectly and for all time. And there will be ups and downs. But that’s no reason for us not to do our best.

Don’t Outsource Your Autonomy

“Outsourcing your autonomy to an attention economy conglomerate—as you do when you mindlessly sign up for whatever new hot service emerges from the Silicon Valley venture capitalist class—is the opposite of freedom, and will likely degrade your individuality.”

~ Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, outsourcing means “to get work done by making a contract with another company to do it, often in another country, rather than in your own company.”

So obviously, your autonomy is the last thing you want to outsource! Because then it’s not even your autonomy anymore. It’s someone else’s control over what you spend time on, and even what think about and when.

Don’t Be Drained By Constant Negativity

“In an open marketplace for attention, darker emotions attract more eyeballs than positive and constructive thoughts. For heavy internet users, repeated interaction with this darkness can become a source of draining negativity — a steep price that many don’t even realize they’re paying to support their compulsive connectivity.”

~ Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism

By now, we’ve all heard how the algorithms exploit the fact that we give more attention to the complaints, the outrage, the polarizing arguments, and the shocking lies. We also have a sense of how this magnifies problems, again and again, every day, until the stories we are all absorbing about the world are negatively distorted and skewed.

Knowing this, we must stop participating in this vicious cycle. We can’t, of course, stop everyone from participating. The corporations and the algorithms are going to do what they do. But we can stop ourselves from participating. And the good news is that once you break the habit, your life and your mood will vastly improve. It’s an instant win. It’s not a win-win, because you win and Google, Meta, et. al lose. They lose your attention, from which, as we have seen, they profit immensely.

Which is great. Because I want them to lose your attention. And I want you to win it back, and reclaim your power and your joy.

Anyway, I’m tired of divisiveness, aren’t you? Just, like, can we just stop being on angry teams who hate each other? We’re all just people, doing our best.

For example, I’m a moderate liberal and a Witch. But if you’re a conservative and a Christian, let’s be friends anyway. If we disagree on something, it’s fine. We can have a lively debate or just change the subject to how much we both loved Ted Lasso.

Kick The Habit

“The sugar high of convenience is fleeting and the sting of missing out dulls rapidly, but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists.”

~ Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism

Eating a treat every now and then is a delight. Eating a donut and then another one and then a red rope and then a Slurpee and so on throughout every day is another. You spoil your dinner. You don’t leave any room for the stuff that actually nourishes you, like broccoli and bananas and olive oil.

Not to mention, you feel like total crap. And if you continue in this way, you seriously injure your health and the quality of your life.

Do you get the metaphor here? Sure, right now at this point in history, everyone does it. Or almost everyone reaches for their phone again and again and again, all day long, even when there’s nothing of substance to see on there.

There was also a time when everyone smoked all day. If everyone jumped off a bridge while eating a donut and smoking and looking Instagram, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. Because all of that would be so bad for you and also really hard to do all at once.

Breaking the compulsive phone checking habit is hard, but if we want to take back our magic – and if we care about the actual quality of our lives – we’ve got to do it.

Living a magical life means prioritizing real world connections with people and animals and nature. It means reading great literature without stopping to post quotes from it, making and eating delicious food without stopping to take pictures of it, and seeing a friend’s eyes sparkle as they laugh. With you. In the same room. In real time.

Taking a walk outside may sound like a simple, humdrum to thing to do. But it isn’t. When I walk outside, without my phone, I see beauty in three dimensions. I feel the earth’s power. I smell the soil. I feel the breeze. I hear the birds. And as I breathe, observe, notice the silence between and beneath the calming rhythm of my footsteps, it slowly but surely dawns on me that I’m never lonely or alone. My consciousness is vast and eternal. I’m connected to everything.

 The real world is where the magic is. Let’s take that magic back.

This book is not meant to be about magic or spirituality at all, but what is says is of vital importance to both.