Practical Magic: Turning off and Tuning in

Freya Blom
2 days ago
4 min read

Hello and welcome to July’s issue of Practical Magic.

This issue is all about automatic taps (and no, not because of the heatwaves…although it all seems amazingly timely!), and our need for friction.

I have been thinking a lot about a recent phenomenon I have witnessed on three separate occasions, in different cities, across three months. The phenomenon is that of people leaving taps running. Something so seemingly basic, and yet it caught my attention and got my mind whirring. Each time, someone had been to the bathroom, washed their hands, and left the bathroom tap running, causing water to flood out under the main bathroom door. The first time it happened, I thought there was an actual flood, and was shocked when I went to the staff and reported it only to be told “someone has left the taps running again”.

It made me ask myself what conditions need to be in place for this to be able to happen? Mindlessness. Distraction. A lack of embodied experience and connection with our physical reality. Rushing, moving at brain pace rather than the speed of life. In short - frictionlessness. The assumption, or expectation, that the tap will stop itself, because we have been trained that way. An underlying blindness to the consequences of our actions, abdication of responsibility, and/or lack of care (would we do this at home? Surely we cannot expect the tap to care…).

In the same way that automated taps save resources with minimum effort on one hand and take away the need for our presence and resourcefulness in the world with the other, all of our devices and ways of living are creating this strangely frictionless and seemingly efficient experience, while ultimately leading us to the waste our most precious human resource - being present in our own lives.

Who or what is responsible in this scenario? Our desire for an easier life is understandable given the pressures of modern living and the constant capitalist narrative of ‘more is better’. Pioneers of the digital age, in the name of progress, lead us to this pinnacle of innovation, and the price has been our quality of time and attention. We have been whisked into a kind of rushing, mindless yet anxious form of dissociated oblivion.

We could argue that another kind of automated tap - making card payments - saves time and hassle, and yet it also pulls our attention away from how we are using our resources. We could argue that using AI to generate solutions and answers saves time and money, or using AI to conduct relationships allows for an emotionally painless and fearless interaction - and yet how are we growing, honing or caretaking our human creative and relational skills? When our free will and thinking atrophies, our experiences and ability to express ourselves narrow. Frictionlessness is actually fragmenting us, rather than acting as an integrative bridge between us, it is removing our integrity, agency and coherence both individually and at scale.

A note on AI…

AI in my opinion is a processor rather than a creator, a service rather than a sentient entity. It might feel like a mystery due to its vastness, but we must remember that we are the actual mystics. There are things that humans can only learn from other humans and lived experience. Being alive is our intrinsic value as a human. Theory and data without lived experience is less than half the story. AI is inorganic, and therefore unable to access the fullest context, perspective and depth that is required for genuine information and truth. Those who are capable of human relationships and communication, understanding nuance and complexity, and wisdom and discernment, hold the keys to making the best and most careful, ethical use of this tool.

Back to taps

What happens if we replace water in this metaphor with our wider resources - money, energy, attention, effort, time. When it comes to our resources and how we shepherd them, think of them, respect them, use them, caretake them, there is so much to be said. Being conscious about where we put our attention and our resources can make an enormous difference to every aspect of our lives.

Useful questions to ask yourself:

Where do you get your resources from?
What resources do you create for yourself?
What is required to do so?
How do you make decisions about what resources you use??
Who and/or what else is involved?
Is the process of using them efficient in the right ways?
Are they regenerative?
Are they sustainable?
Where does the output end up?
Where does the process end?

And yet more useful questions to ask yourself:

Is there anything you have hastily moved on from that might be causing a problem for yourself or someone else in the background? Have you left anything running that needs to be stopped?
Is there any overflow, or are there any leaks that need to be tended to?
Where might an automated system save you time and effort without dampening your connection with your own resources?
What requires your human presence and effort to go well?
When was the last time you did some maintenance?
When was the last time you did an audit of your resources to get an understanding of your capacity?
Who/what would alert you to an issue? Who/what would be required to make it good again?
Where does my responsibility for this end and someone else's begin?
Who around you is being asked to clear up after your haste or lack of presence?
How aware are you of what is in your immediate environment?