May 20, 2026 · 27 min · 12 segments
Pre-Order My New Book “Mysterious Things” and Help Us Spread the Word: invisiblethings.co --- Listen to this episode if: 1 - You are sick of trying to prove yourself on the internet. 2 - You need to…
Uh, raise your hand if you feel like your phone is ruining your cr- [laughs] creativity.
Is it, is it just me? Uh, who, who's got their hand up? In 2007, this stupid phone dropped out of the sky and freaking clocked us unexpectedly and completely threatened our humanity ever since.
It didn't really come for artists specifically until about 2011 when Instagram really hit, and that's when follower count meant everything.
And all of a sudden, I needed something from this phone to prove who I was as an artist.
If I wanted to be like, "I'm an artist," like, "Well, let's see how many followers you have." Like, people did that, and they still kind of do.
And it became tempting to give this thing your everything, to give it all you had, to put everything you've got creatively and stuff it into this freaking phone.
So when your identity gets completely wrapped up in this phone, the proof of who you are is determined by this thing, it is really easy to be tempted to give it all you've got, to give it everything you have.
I find myself constantly pouring myself into this thing when I should be-Being present with the important stuff that is around me, like my family and my kids.
Like recently, I was at a hockey game, and I should have been connecting with my family, and instead I was looking at this stupid black rectangle at God knows what.
And luckily, at our local hockey team's arena, when they score a goal, you might miss it, but you won't miss the chance to celebrate because they fire a freaking cannon.
And so you just, boom, blast, get filled with adrenaline, and I jumped up, threw my hands into the sky before I even remembered that they weren't empty.
I launched my phone up into the sky like it had come from that cannon, and we watched it go up, up, up, and then down, down, down.
We were like, "Oh, no." And we watched it go smack, crack, right on top of some guy's head, and he was freaking pissed.
He was sat next to who I assume was his girlfriend, and just from his body language, I could tell this guy's manhood has come into question.
And I just felt like, whoa, it's just like when the phone metaphorically dropped down on all of us back in 2007 and threatened all of our collective humanity, isn't it? And Sophie looked at me and she's like, "Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Get down there and get your freaking phone, you moron." Except she said it in British, so it was much nicer than that, but [laughs] it was her ja- Okay, she...
Um, I only saw the metaphor in retrospect, but I just jumped out of my freaking seat and ran down there to get my phone and apologized profusely.
Now, I was really hoping that I'd go down there and he'd be like, "No probs, bro.
Uh, raise your hand if you feel like your phone is ruining your cr- [laughs] creativity.
Is it, is it just me? Uh, who, who's got their hand up? In 2007, this stupid phone dropped out of the sky and freaking clocked us unexpectedly and completely threatened our humanity ever since.
It didn't really come for artists specifically until about 2011 when Instagram really hit, and that's when follower count meant everything.
And all of a sudden, I needed something from this phone to prove who I was as an artist.
If I wanted to be like, "I'm an artist," like, "Well, let's see how many followers you have." Like, people did that, and they still kind of do.
And it became tempting to give this thing your everything, to give it all you had, to put everything you've got creatively and stuff it into this freaking phone.
So when your identity gets completely wrapped up in this phone, the proof of who you are is determined by this thing, it is really easy to be tempted to give it all you've got, to give it everything you have.
I find myself constantly pouring myself into this thing when I should be-Being present with the important stuff that is around me, like my family and my kids.
Like recently, I was at a hockey game, and I should have been connecting with my family, and instead I was looking at this stupid black rectangle at God knows what.
And luckily, at our local hockey team's arena, when they score a goal, you might miss it, but you won't miss the chance to celebrate because they fire a freaking cannon.
And so you just, boom, blast, get filled with adrenaline, and I jumped up, threw my hands into the sky before I even remembered that they weren't empty.
I launched my phone up into the sky like it had come from that cannon, and we watched it go up, up, up, and then down, down, down.
We were like, "Oh, no." And we watched it go smack, crack, right on top of some guy's head, and he was freaking pissed.
He was sat next to who I assume was his girlfriend, and just from his body language, I could tell this guy's manhood has come into question.
And I just felt like, whoa, it's just like when the phone metaphorically dropped down on all of us back in 2007 and threatened all of our collective humanity, isn't it? And Sophie looked at me and she's like, "Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Get down there and get your freaking phone, you moron." Except she said it in British, so it was much nicer than that, but [laughs] it was her ja- Okay, she...
Um, I only saw the metaphor in retrospect, but I just jumped out of my freaking seat and ran down there to get my phone and apologized profusely.
Now, I was really hoping that I'd go down there and he'd be like, "No probs, bro.
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