I dropped my phone in a lake today. I was on a kayak and began desperately looking for it from above losing hope with each passing minute. my life flashed before my eyes.. my authenticator app, my joke hot wallet that i ran up to 200 sol.. I thought they were gone. I knew this would happen the moment I got in the kayak with my phone in my pocket instead of my bag, but I ignored my gut, the same way I ignore myself when I buy an obvious rug.
I haven't been separated from my phone for more than 10 minutes in years. a feeling of serenity crept in. in the moment I went from extreme frustration to the calmest I've felt in months. I was about to give up scanning the lake floor and head home phoneless.
I was fantasizing about how much fun it would be to try to get home from an unfamiliar location without GPS. Memories of what my childhood was like before phones rushed into my head. I wanted to cry.
I knew I would eventually have to buy a new phone, but I felt freed for now. I was feeling genuine happiness as I turned around.
and that's when I caught a glimpse of the fucking phone half buried in the lakebed. The calm feeling faded away and was replaced with dread. If I wanted my phone back I would have to go through a small trial. The water was about 5 feet deep and freezing cold and it would take 20 minutes of paddling wet and cold through a brisk wind to get back to my car.
I reluctantly did it, I jumped in and got my fucking phone back. I am typing this as I warm up in my car.
It sounds really stupid but I learned so much from this. It's the most authentic offline human experience I've had in a long time.
The thing I spend 50 hours a week impulsively staring at completely sucks the joy out of life, and I never actualized it until now. I get this is obvious to many people, but it wasn't to me.
I wasn't even planning to drive 2 hours to go kayaking today, something I don't understand pushed me to do it. And I think this was why.
I have no idea how to get home from here, but I'm going to figure it out without my fucking phone.