Doomscrolling is the act of reading depressing or worrying content, especially on one’s handheld device. My goal is to pay less attention to my phone so that I might be less anxious and more present in the moment. Step one: remove my social media apps.
But I still pulled out my alienation device to check the time, which meant I inevitably checked email or news. Before I knew it, I lost time and attention in the vortex of my tiny, bright screen.
My parents had given me a beautiful silver watch for formal occasions. I needed an everyday timepiece. Of course, Google offered a zillion and one options. Then I remembered the watch from my childhood.
In the fourth grade, my buddies and I all had calculator watches. No, we couldn’t play games on them like Oregon Trail (that was reserved for the big desktop computers in the school library). But calculator watches displayed the date and day of the week. They had alarms and stopwatches. They could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. And it was even more entertaining to turn the watch upside down so that the numbers looked like letters and you could spell bad words. For instance, 7734 spelled hELL, and 58008 was BOOBS. Ah, middle school…
My new Casio calculator watch is actually sold as “vintage.” It is dark blue, shock-resistant, and (somewhat) water-resistant. It can be sprinkled, like a Presbyterian, rather than immersed, like a Baptist. The biblical book of Ecclesiastes says that, in a changing world, there is a time for every season. Pete Seeger taught us to sing, “Turn, turn, turn,” but no one can turn back the clock.
My goal, however, is to spend more time in the present moment, and now dudes of a certain age do a double-take when they see what has adorned my left wrist. Complete strangers will then exchange high-fives with me as we wait in the checkout line. One guy laughed, “I used to turn my calculator watch upside down and spell words! Remember that?”
7734 yes.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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