Analog Things: Art Journals

My art journals...

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by Laurie Allee

Making your own illuminated manuscripts...

Okay, so maybe they don't rival these illuminated manuscripts, but art journals have taken my regular blank books to a whole different level.  They've also given me a meditative practice that I look forward to doing.  Illustrating my journals adds another layer of creativity to my life, and provides a great alternative to scrolling on my phone.

Instead of Social Media: Log Into Nature Livestreams...

 

Hang out at the Banzai Pipeline surf break on the north shore of Oahu

Livestream hours: dawn to just after sunset, Hawaii time

by Laurie Allee

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Seeing the World Despite Travel Restrictions

     Finding the analog in the digital 

Readers of this blog know that I have a love/hate relationship with technology.  Before COVID-19, I felt like I was living in some kind of Matrix where everyone was willingly plugged into devices, ignoring each other while staring hour after hour into endlessly scrolling screens.  I basically started this blog as a kind of rebellion against my phone.  I dedicated myself a life more tactile and less digital. I unplugged to get my hands dirty and "sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" -- or to at least avoid the toxic political howling on Twitter. 

When Real Life is Virtual...

by Laurie Allee

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Together Apart
     Finding the analog in the digital

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a love/hate relationship with technology.  The last few years have made me feel like I'm living inside a dystopian technocracy, where people have been mindlessly sucked into screens, where tech billionaires determine what we see and how we see it, where real life is superseded by social media with everyone corralled into digital echo chambers, crouched behind their highly-filtered avatars.  

Trees that Hug Back

By Laurie Allee

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Celebrating the many benefits of forest bathing...

Occasionally I stumble upon something so obvious it seems revolutionary:

In a tech dystopia, we need to connect more with trees.  

Maybe you can relate...

Away from Keyboard: Embracing Slow Tech

by Laurie Allee

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So I've been offline a lot in the last few weeks.  While I think I can say I've successfully relegated my phone back to the status of a phone instead of a tiny monitor that never leaves the palm of my hand, I still feel the siren call of the internet when I'm working on my computer.  

And I have to work on my computer.  

Unplugged

Come out from behind the screen!

by Laurie Allee

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See my Life Analog introductory post here.

Phone junkie me.

When I first realized I might need to rethink my relationship with technology, I took baby steps.  You know what I mean: I only checked Instagram ONCE an hour instead of repeatedly, every few minutes.  I waited maybe five minutes after getting up to check Twitter, instead of taking the phone into the bathroom with me.  I put the phone on my nightstand instead of cradling it to sleep.  I mean, come on, I didn't have a problem.  I wasn't one of those phone people.  I could actually get through a dinner with someone by just sideways glancing at the phone on the table as notifications came in.  It wasn't like I picked it up.  (Well, not much.) 



I really thought I was just fine...

Towards a life less digitally saturated...

Disconnect to reconnect

by Laurie Allee

Welcome to Life Analog
A simple blog for living IRL

Log off.  Tune in.  Opt out.

Maybe you've felt it too: that weird, sinking feeling that something is now missing.  Despite the constant connectivity, the app for everything, the Prime Same Day delivery, the likes, the swipes... something is gone.

There's a feeling kind of like what you get at the end of a long, drunken party.  Sure, it's been fun.  It's been rowdy and wild and exciting.  But we've all had a bit too much, and our heads are swimming.  People are showing off and picking fights and throwing up.  At this point it would be really nice to get away from all the chaos, sleep it off, and wake up to something a little more grounded.

If you're nodding right now, then stick around.  Life Analog is my place to piece together a more truly connected life than the one I can get checking Twitter.  Join me as I try to find the tangible in a world that is becoming more and more virtual.

Explore the tabs and links for help with digital addiction, smartphone overload and the inevitable social media hangover.  Look around for inspiration and validation from a weary but hopeful fellow traveler.

I'm not suggesting we completely abandon the digital party.  But let's go back and find the analog treasures we lost there.  Let's step out from behind the screen.

I post several times a month.  (More than that would encourage you to keep scrolling!)

You can find out more here.