The Worth of a Thousand Words

I lost eight years’ worth of photos from a botched transfer when I got a new phone recently. I thought they were safe in the all-knowing cloud, but I guess I was sorely mistaken. I was able to salvage some by taking a picture of the picture before the old compromised phone was wiped clean; not a perfect solution, but better than nothing for a tech averse person like me. It was a jarring experience to have trusted something so unreflexively and to feel like the rug was pulled out from under me. I was now starting over, like a Tibetan monk who had worked for years crafting a sand mandala only to calmly blow it all away in a moment as a reminder of the impermanence of all things. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I have forfeited millions.

The photos-of-photos had a slightly blurry, weirdly retro aesthetic to them, which as a Gen-Xer I found familiar and strangely refreshing. Before the advent of digital photography, when I was a teenager, one would take pictures judiciously, as film and prints were not free. When I eventually got a digital camera, I would back photos up on to a physical hard drive, so at least I felt like I had them in my possession. Now, until recently, my 5,000+ high-definition photos lived on the phone. I rarely looked at them, partly because it was overwhelming and partly because I have grown weary of “scrolling.” And, in a way, they became less valuable because they have become so ubiquitous.

Like many others (and they are out there), I have found myself pining for a grounding in “real things” beyond the reach of the digital realm. My son and I went to a record store recently to buy some vinyl, CDs, and cassette tapes. I purchased a typewriter and a digital camera recently. I wrote down all my contacts on paper. These feel like feeble and futile efforts, but it’s something. 

I do use a GPS in my car to get around; but I remember the old days, when I rode a motorcycle, of laying out paper maps and just…memorizing roads. If you didn’t know where you were, you asked directions (try doing that now). You kept important phone numbers in your head or written down on a small notebook you carried with you. It’s amazing we survived at all. Now those memory muscles have atrophied because we have outsourced them to things which promised to make life easier for us. 

Everyone was in the same boat back then. The kid in the village without shoes doesn’t feel like he’s poor when everyone else is barefoot as well. But when everyone is sporting Nikes, going barefoot is seen as a shameful and eccentric thing. To go without a smartphone today (which more than nine out of ten people own) is seen as an esoteric act of intentional resistance. Our tech overlords are forming the world in their own image, and those who do not sign on are left in space like an astronaut floating out of orbit of his spacecraft—a poor man, cut off from everything.

The phone itself has become like a 3×5 mini-Baal I keep in my pocket at all times, one that I have given myself over to as a tether to a world which I control—a glass and metal box that gives me a feigned sense of connection and security. If I don’t know where I am, I pull up the Maps app. If I am bored, I can text “hi,” to a handful of friends. If I can’t sleep, I can zone out with YouTube videos of people building tiny houses in the woods. If I’m without it for even a brief period of time, I feel naked and alone, like I’m missing a vital appendage; I’m gripped by anxiety. And that is with minimal apps, no social media, and intentionally limited screen time. I’m working on reversing these habits. And it is incredibly, incredibly painful.

Most people reading this will nod their heads; but they’ll still shrug and confess, “that’s just the way it is these days.” But more and more, I have grown to regard the phone as profane in the formal sense of the word. I hate the idea of using it to pray with certain apps, and so this is one of my “lines in the sand” that I have implemented to curb its influence in my daily life. 

People mostly regard the smartphone as a neutral tool necessary to function in today’s world, and there is a certain truth to that. But I ponder the words of Christ, who calls us to “leave father and mother to follow Him.” For many of us, it would be a moment of hesitation if Christ asked us to leave our family, literally, to follow Him. To leave our phone—not for an hour but forever—in order to do so would be a moment of gripping fear and existential quaking in our bones. For we have made it our little pocket-sized god. He asks us to leave all and follow Him, and like the rich young ruler, we go away sad instead. 

Fr. Lazarus El Anthony, a modern-day anchorite in the Egyptian desert who is originally from Australia, knows what it means to leave all to follow the Master. As he notes in this rare interview:

In one sense I am utterly alone (in the desert). If I want to talk to somebody, to whom can I talk? There is no one who understands my language. There is no one here who has my past, no one here who knows my thoughts. If I lose my contact with Christ for one minute, there is no one to come to help me. So this struggle I must fight every day to keep myself…balanced on Christ, balanced on the Lord.

I am glad writers like Paul Kingsnorth and Christine Rosen, among others, are pushing back against our modern assumptions about the pride of place we give technology in our life—and the things we have lost as a result. Their witness offers a glimmer of hope that the tech-utopia promised by the kingdom of Silicon Valley is not a foregone conclusion. Still, it’s a difficult thing to live in the world but not of it.

I got a tiny taste of what it means to “lose it all,” which is what our Lord calls us to. In a strange way, it was almost refreshing to have to start anew. As I attempt to rebuild the grainy digital memories of my wife and children, our vacations and little moments I want to remember, I am rethinking this relationship with my pocket-Baal and how I might more intentionally extricate myself from its profane, pixilated reach. In many ways I feel powerless, small, helpless, and ensnared. But in at least making the effort, I have hope that I am not alone.