Why I don’t have a mobile phone

People are always extremely surprised by the fact that I don’t have a mobile phone. They get even more surprised when I tell them that I have been living like this since 2014. They always ask me: “Why?”.

Normally I answer that it is because I don’t like it. Well, today I decided to be a bit more specific and metaphoric about my reasons.

Do you know what I miss the most in this “technological era” we are living in? The Magic! And although I used to consider myself a witch when I was a child (sometimes still do, but nowadays I prefer the term “energy holder”), it is not that kind of magic that I am talking about.

The Magic I am referring to is the one people used to feel when a letter would arrive in their hands, coming all the way across the world. Someone, hundreds of thousands of miles aways, wrote his / her feelings on a piece of paper, sent it to your address, and now these feelings are here, at the palm of your hands!

Then we evolve to how magical it must have been for the first people to hear somebody else’s voice on a telephone. I am sure many of them got scared and cursed the devil to be the architect of this diabolic invention. But soon enough, all that was left was the magic of hearing your beloved ones voices, even if they were far, far away from you.

Even I remember, not long ago, when I was a teenager (yes not that long ago, please), as I received a phone call on a landline (now this sounds like ages ago, I know), from one of my dear friends, and we would talk for hours and hours. And even more thrill would I feel if the “friend” was actually a love affair. You would feel as if the ground under your feet was gone, and you were floating towards heaven.

Last but not the least, a way closer to our times situation, a tiny word composed of only three letters: sms. Do you remember how magical it was to look at your inbox, on your colorless mobile phone screen, and read the first words of your new sms? And, of course, the sender. Your heartbeat would go over the roof and while you were reading that sms, it was like nothing else in the world existed!

I remember all of that, and Loki! How much I miss that feeling! There is nothing magical nowadays about video calls and WhatsApp messages. People do it without even thinking! Messages are sent with no feelings attached to it, just words put together, as fast as it can be typed, and then… send it. Where is the magic about that?

When a person writes a letter, each word is taken into consideration, and with each phrase constructed, a rain of feelings comes together with it. You close your eyes and imagine the recipient’s face and reaction while reading it, and so you think carefully about what you would like to write. And time is not important because there is nothing less real than time when it comes to true feelings.

But I guess that none of the above matters or exists nowadays. Neither true feelings or time. It is all an illusion! We were led to believe that technology would set us free and give us more time. Illusion. We were led to believe that technology would make us stronger. Illusion. We were led to believe that technology would help us to evolve. Illusion. We were led to believe that technology would bring us closer to each other. Illusion. We were never so timeless, weaker, diminished and apart from each other as now.

I still believe in magic, and that’s why I don’t have a mobile phone. I want to feel the power of looking someone in the eyes and the touch of a hand. I want to live breath-taking moments every day and be surprised by life every now and then.