Me and My Dumbphone

After Vipassana, I wasn’t ready to jump back into the noise. So I bought a dumbphone. A simple, old-school Nokia. No Instagram. No emails. No camera. Just calls and texts.

The silence was immediate. So was the stillness. I could feel my shoulders soften, my mind slow down. My headaches reduced. My eyes stopped burning. It felt like I had come back to myself.

There was no dopamine rush from notifications. No pressure to respond to everything instantly. Conversations became intentional. Life became quieter.

For over a month, that Nokia was my portal to presence. I still used the iPhone—for music, for social media work—but the dumbphone was my primary. It reminded me of a time when life was slower and attention wasn’t so fragmented.

But slowly, the pull began again. The iPhone found its way back into my hand. Just for music. Then messages. Then scrolling. Before I knew it, I was back in the loop. My dumbphone now lives on my side table.

But it’s not gone. And neither is the silence it brought. Some days, I pick it up again. Just to hear it ring. Just to remember what it felt like to truly be present.

At Farm Aavjo, I found that same silence. The kind that doesn’t judge. That lets you begin again.

Maybe that’s all we need. A reminder. And the courage to pick the dumbphone again.