#http://www.topwaytohappy.tk/2017/02/new-year-new-phone-same-me.html

[yes-dal456]

New Year, New Phone, Same Me

In January, my iPhone was confirmed dead by the Apple Store in Saint Laurent du Var. It had gone dark the day prior, unresponsive when I woke up to a New Year in France at my girlfriend’s cousin’s house. I could’ve accepted this as some Sign Apparent, taken a healthy break from connectedness and doubled down on using the rest of my vacation as I’d halfway intended - to decompress from a year of navigating my late twenties as a sober SWM on the periphery of some insular comedy/art scene in Brooklyn. Instead, I used my credit card to get a new iPhone that I’d return for a full refund before flying back to the States, where I had faith Verizon could bring me back to life at little cost. New year, same plan.

If this was one of those self-defining, fork-in-the-road moments, I had taken the beaten path. And if there’s shame in that, I’m too far gone to feel it. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that my brain now processes sunsets better in the background of selfies than it does when they’re playing out in front of me. And let’s not forget that sunsets translate to production value. I’m a filmmaker of sorts, with a body of selfie-stick work that I’m always looking to supplement. As I ran my card in that Apple Store, it occurred to me that I may never have another opportunity to feel the cognitive benefits of a holiday off the grid, away from Timeline Culture. Was I making the right choice? Yes, I assured myself. Getting the iPhone was in line with my raison d’être - the one I assigned myself several years back: to make provocative content until something sticks. And if nothing sticks? Well, I tell myself not to think about that.

I’m a junkie with strong expressive needs, and without my iOS applications, I wouldn’t have been able to edit and post satirical videos from locations like the Pointe de la Parata in Ajaccio or the McDonald’s near the Prince’s Palace of Monaco. Projecting my brand from the field is my shtick right now, and Emilie (my girlfriend) supports that, so when I wasn’t sucking down the bread and cheese her family kept putting in front of me, she’d escort me to scenic spots that I’d feature in the background of my selfie-stick installments, behind an increasingly inflamed face. “No detox ‘til Brooklyn,” I kept saying. But I’ve been back in Brooklyn for a month now and still no detox.

  The year isn’t so new anymore, and while the to-do lists I made are losing their gravity, my wayward ambition still wakes me up at night. My big 2017 resolution was something along the lines of “Stop comparing myself to others.” I hadn’t put it into words until now because there’s no way for it to avoid sounding like a cheap hook on a site appealing to Millennials riddled with the most basic strain of existential dread. But, let’s go ahead and face it ― I am basic. I’m a creature of Timeline Culture with little to no free will, being corralled into singularity, and here we are again, teetering near the event horizon of yet more phone talk. So be it. I’m back in my motherland, the US of A, with my Verizon upgrade, a 128 GB iPhone 7 galvanized by that sweet life force, Cellular Data. The Apple News notifications are constant and they keep my train of thought from straying too far from Trump, and now that the Internet is available in all 278 underground subway stations for users of the Big Four cell service carriers, I can check in on my contemporaries’ blossoming careers while I hit up soul crushing open mics.

  Part Two of wikiHow to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others emphasizes the importance of appreciating what you have. I’m not going to keep a gratitude journal, but the luxury of “decompressing” from the year 2016 CE by traipsing around in the Mediterranean with my sweetheart, isn’t lost on me. Braving the twisted headlines as I skimmed papers in Williamsburg cafés last year was tough, sure, but the toughest part about 2016, for me, was my continuing to put a precarious amount of energy into pet projects without any assurance of recognition or profit. In one year, I’ll be 30, and that number means something. The meaning itself may escape me right now, but I’ll go ahead and assume it has something to do with money, or maybe focus.

  Currently, I sustain myself by bartending weekend brunch shifts, substitute dog walking and not drinking booze. The rest of my time goes to working on my projects with a focus that is borderline autistic and trying to maintain interpersonal relationships. In other words, life is good, and any discomfort or impatience I feel as an “underappreciated” artist in Brooklyn is as basic as it gets. If I’m starting to sound complacent here, I should note that I get itchy around success stories. When I was at the National Museum of the Bonaparte Residence in Corsica, I lost myself in the “zero fucks given” expression on one of the replicas of Napolean’s death mask and caught myself brooding on the fact that by the time he was my age, the freak had won the War of the First Coalition and the Battle of the Pyramids. Before things could get too heavy, I pulled myself away from the display case only to get captivated by a lock of his hair in another. It radiated historical significance and reminded me that I only have 226 subscribers on my YouTube channel.

  And enough of that. I have made the conscious decision to believe that feeling small from time to time builds character. A study called “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior” published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2015 suggests that feeling insignificant may make you a kinder person. It could certainly benefit our President, but, alas, I have a hard time believing Trump would be able to look up at the night sky long enough to have to start grappling with his own smallness. He’d sniffle a few times, look down at the encrypted phone his staffers gave him after they confiscated his Android, and then he’d scan his personal account for new Twitter wars to be fought. Somebody would do well to lace his nasal spray with psilocybe alkaloids, strap him down in an observatory somewhere with a cervical collar around his neck and maybe some specula to keep his eyelids peeled back, then let him confront the universe for a few hours. Assuming he survived the horror, he’d come out of it a better person. But if it turns out the ends don’t justify the means, then forget I suggested that. Jeff Sessions summed it up for us last year when he said “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” If that’s the case, we can assume they don’t jet psychedelic mist up their noses either.

  We could also just try sitting Trump down with Sandy Pearson from Chattanooga. Sandy, a 48-year-old woman studying to be a mortgage broker, is not too keen on Trump’s Twitter etiquette but says if she had just 10 minutes with him, she could get him “to straighten up and stop with this foolishness.” I don’t know her, so I can’t speak to her powers of persuasion, but I do envy Sandy’s ability to “focus on the good” if for no other reason than the science behind it suggests that positive thinking benefits your health and enhances your ability to develop new skills. I digress, but that’s customary these days. Trump has a way of bleeding into everything. And if you avoid the newsstands, he’ll get in through the screens, like that straight-haired girl from The Ring.

  Shouldn’t I be using my energy to fight for the Resistance? Shouldn’t I find some way to make my art subversive and direct it against the new regime? In a lot of ways subversion relies on the medium, so shouldn’t I start working toward becoming a Fox News anchor just to break my cover down the line and bomb the airwaves with progressive rhetoric that’s profane enough to violate FCC regulations? I have to make it a point not to lose sleep over these questions. My new resolution is to reclaim that pillar of Health called A Good Night’s Sleep. I even bought myself an old-school alarm clock, and now my bedroom is an iPhone-free sanctuary where I abstain from blue light, electromagnetic radiation and news notifications. If I wake up with a get-viral-quick scheme, I’m committed to writing it down the old fashioned way - in a moleskine on the bedside table. Whatever projects I take on this year, they will have to contend with a well-rested me. Yes, new angle, same plan. I’m joining my fellow basic people, keeping calm and carrying on, and I’m enduring that underlying fear of failure that rides me wherever I go.

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