Nothing sucker punches the dopamine goblin quite like dropping your carcass into a chair and wrenching the cap off a frost slick bottle of bubbly brain fuel…
(Iced latte before 8pm is a good idea lol)
Followed by reading, your very own, palm sweat absorbent printed thingamajig…
Magazine, book, ransom note looking love letter…
Anywho…
Being able to touch, clutch, and violently yeet yourself offline, if only for a heartbeat, is crawling back into fashion like I dunno? A zombie in fishnets?
One of my favourite word nerds Chuck Wendig just wrote a love letter about magazines.
But I’ve been talking about this for years (in emails, on the socials, tattooed on my left thigh, duh)
…nothing beats a slab of atoms you can actually grip, flip, and inhale like weird paper cocaine. Then slink off to your blanket fort and devour words in peace. Your world and your world only.
We used to do that often as kids. Why did we stop?
The thing is. Look around.
Brains = fried courtesy of TikTok jump cuts, Insta dopamine drips, and the looming possibility of WW3
(Politics? Pass me the bleach cocktail)
It’s exhausting and soul sucking-ly depressing to try and juggle all of this bullshit.
Nobody yanks their eyes off the their sadness rectangle long enough to meet another human.
When did we auction off our humanity for infinite scroll?
I hate that we’re all living 0 to 120mph in two seconds instead of taking the scenic route, sniffing a pine tree, maybe getting mildly possessed by forest gremlins and just letting our imagination take us anywhere but here.
Don’t worry. Irony noted. This email is being punched out via keyboard.
But the second I smack SEND.
I’m going back to pen and paper.
Yes. I know a heap of us keep the rent paid by flinging pixels at the internet and charging for it.
But we also need to look after our sanity. Best way? Write something analogue or, bare minimum, snatch a physical mag. Could be The Onion so you can ugly laugh, or a niche zine about cataloguing the 311 species of frogs in Madagascar…
Just do it.
Your dopamine receptors will build a tiny shrine in your honour probably.
Stephen Walker
P.S. Craving something hand written? I gotchu. Drop a reply with your details and I’ll make it happen even if I’ve gotta duct tape the note to a slightly unhinged carrier pigeon.