I recently took an abstract art class for the first time. I am not a painter. I had no idea what I was doing. I was standing in front of a blank canvas with a brush in hand and a small, worried voice in my head asking, what now?
With the encouragement of the passionate teacher, I dipped the brush in paint, touched it to the canvas and watched a streak of color emerge. The voice in my head became quieter a little. The studio smelled of turpentine and quiet joy. I could hear the bristles dragging across the surface. There was no algorithm telling me what to do next. No information. For once there is no measure of success. Just paint, canvas and whatever was going to happen.
I left that first painting class feeling something I hadn’t felt in a while: completely busy. Not because I didn’t do anything, but because I had nowhere else to be for the entire three hours.
I left that first class feeling something I hadn’t felt in a while: completely busy. Not because I didn’t do anything, but because I had nowhere else to be for the entire three hours.
It turns out I’m not the only one who feels this way. Quietly, all around us, something is changing.
Revisiting analog life: a cultural turn
People are buying film cameras again – not because they can’t afford a digital camera, but because they really want the grain. They want the uncertainty of not knowing how the photo will turn out. They’re filling their bags with paper journals and puzzle books and keeping their phones in their pockets. There has been an increase in the search for analog hobbies. Sales of film photography equipment have more than doubled since 2020. Craft kits are flying off the shelves. Even called a viral trend analog bag-A curated small collection of essentials (a journal, a puzzle book, a film camera, a journal) so that when your hand reaches out to occupy something, it’s got something other than your phone.
Forbes called it the year of analog living. Design platforms are calling it the year incomplete view: grains, hand drawn lines, messy textures. Interior designers have moved from sterile minimalism to what they call dopamine decoration: Bold colors, personal heirlooms, material collections that make up a room feel Something more than just taking good photos.
A phrase that has caught my attention recently brain wealth. The idea that mental longevity comes from slow, meditative activities: reading for long periods of time, writing by hand, making something with your hands. a survey found that almost a quarter of Britons are actively looking for creative, non-digital hobbies specifically to help them switch off after work.
This is a quarter of the country that is silently raising its hand and saying, There’s something wrong with the way I live.
Why does the brush in your hand change things?
This is what impressed me in abstract art class. The information available to me was, in a sense, much less than the information available on my phone. There is no infinite scroll. I won’t get tutorials playing automatically. There is a distinct lack of comments and likes. and yet i felt MoreNot less. More awake. more here.
Every piece of digital technology we use is brilliantly, expertly designed to remove friction. To make things faster, easier, more seamless. You don’t have to wait or be patient. You don’t have to sit with uncertainty. On the surface, this sounds wonderful.
But the point is: some friction is the issue.
Why does holding a physical book feel different from reading the same words on a screen? Why is a handwritten letter different from an email with similar content? Why does a grainy, slightly imperfect photo feel better? alive Compared to a lossless high-resolution image?
I think one answer is friction.
Every piece of digital technology we use is brilliantly, expertly designed to remove friction. To make things faster, easier, more seamless. You don’t have to wait or be patient. You don’t have to sit with uncertainty. On the surface, this sounds wonderful.
But the point is: some friction is the issue.
When you turn the film camera, you only have thirty-six pictures. that obstacle really forces you Look Before pressing the shutter. When you write by hand, you can’t type as fast as you can think – so you slow down, choose your words, get immersed in an idea rather than rambling on about it. When you stand in front of a canvas with a brush in hand, paint doesn’t care if you’re running late or your inbox is full. It’s just what it is, and it demands your full attention.
In mindfulness, we sometimes call it beginner mind. The quality of accomplishing something anew, without the cover of habit or expectation. Analog activities seem to invoke the beginners’ mind almost by default. There is no algorithm to predict what will happen next. There is only this moment, and what you do with it.
There is a deep question in our awareness
Now, I could stop here and tell you to go buy a film camera or sign up for a pottery class. And that wouldn’t be bad advice! But I want to go a layer deeper, because I think this cultural shift points to something that no analog hobby can fully solve on its own.
Here’s the question I keep returning to:
Who wants to switch off?
We talk about digital burden as if it’s a problem – the apps, the notifications, the powerful and persuasive algorithms. And those things are real. But the deep uneasiness, the thing that drives someone to a puzzle book or a movie camera, isn’t really coming from the phone. It is coming from within.
This is restlessness. Constant low-level mental agitation. A feeling that you never calm down HereBecause some part of your mind is always somewhere else – planning, comparing, scrolling, performing.
The phone expressed uneasiness. It gave the restless mind somewhere to go, constantly, without respite.
The phone expressed uneasiness. It gave the restless mind somewhere to go, constantly, without respite.
So when people say they want to switch off, I think what they’re really saying is: I want a break from constantly being me. With constant commentary. Self-monitoring. the performer. The quiet undercurrent of not being good enough.
This is the beginning of an inquiry at which meditators and thinkers have been pointing not just for decades, but for centuries. Then no phone around!
That itself is tiring. And somewhere, at a level we don’t usually put into words, we know it.
Why craft is therapeutic—and where it leads
When your hands are full, literally full, of clay, or yarn, or paint, the chattering mind quietens a little. Its attention immediately turned elsewhere.
These activities work with The mind’s natural tendency to rest in sensory experience. They give the thinking mind something to do that doesn’t create an atmosphere of anxiety.
This is why craft is therapeutic. Why is gardening mindful? Why cooking from scratch feels centered in a way ordering delivery never does. These activities work with The mind’s natural tendency to rest in sensory experience. They give the thinking mind something to do that doesn’t create an atmosphere of anxiety.
In my abstract art class, I notice this every time. There comes a moment, usually about twenty minutes in, when something calms down. I’m no longer thinking about whether the painting is or not Good. I’m just there, with the paint, with the canvas, with whatever wants to emerge. It is no different from the moment of meditation when breath It ceases to be an object that you are looking at and there is simply something happening, right here, now.
But—and this is a gentle but—analogs are hobby gateways, not necessarily destinations. Because after the painting class the anxiety comes back. After a beautiful walk without headphones, you get home and are back to being yourself. The deep practice that mindfulness points to is to not be so busy that restlessness can find you. have to learn it meet it. To be curious about it. Finally, without demanding an answer, ask softly: Who is this restless person?
That inquiry is where analog living and deep mindfulness practice can go much deeper than a passing trend.
How to connect more consciously to this analog living moment
If any of these occur to you, here are some suggestions.
Choose friction deliberately. Choose one activity each week where you intentionally use it Slower version. Write a card by hand instead of sending a message. Read a chapter of a physical book instead of an article on your phone. Cook something from scratch that you usually order. The issue is not about efficiency. The issue is friction.
Let the activity itself become the meditation. Resist the urge to put a podcast on in the background while you do your analog work. Let this happen. Pay attention to sensations: the weight of the pen, the smell of paint, the sound of pages turning. This is mindfulness in plain clothes.
Don’t choose the influencer. People often believe that analog hobbies have to be photogenic like pottery, calligraphy, vinyl records. It’s not like that. Making a slow cup of tea is what matters. Folding laundry without screens makes sense. Walking around without headphones makes sense. Hobbies are not the issue. Appearance is the issue.
Choose an activity that your hands already want. Notice what your hands do when you are inactive. Some people like me doodle. Some people play with things. Some people are always cleaning. Some people are attracted to texture – fabric, wood, clay. Your hands have been telling you for years what type of analog activity would suit you. Listen to them.
Choose what your inner critic rejects. I almost didn’t go to abstract art class because a voice in my head said, but you are not an artist. That sound is often a useful clue. the thing it tries to talk to you about That’s silly, that’s trivial, that’s not productive—is often the thing your nervous system needs most.
Pair the activity with a cool question. While you’re doing your analog work, gently put a question in your mind: Who is going to notice this? You don’t need to answer this. In fact, not responding is the whole point. Just hold it lightly. This question, if you accept it, is a thread that leads to something extraordinary.
Let it remain incomplete. Grain on photo. Error in handwriting. That strip of color that you didn’t plan for in the painting. These are not flaws that should be edited out. They are signatures of some real event that actually occurred. Every life that is touched leaves a mark. let it.
walk through the door
The analog movement is giving millions of people a small, daily taste of presence. A moment of real, tangible, here-ness. That taste is the beginning. That is the door.
Mindfulness is what teaches you to walk through it.
So this week, pick an analog thing. Make it smaller. Make it normal. And while you’re at it, instead of just doing it, get a little curious. Pay attention to the quality of attention generated. Notice how the mind becomes still. And then, very slowly, pay attention to what is watching.
That paying attention—that quiet, unperturbed watching—is where it all leads. Move forward, not toward a romanticized past, but toward the life that is actually being lived.
May you find at least one moment this week that is beautifully, imperfectly analog.
Join Us: Seven Forces Global Program
Looking for more ways to slow down and settle into inner peace – even (or perhaps especially) When the world feels so frantic and uncertain?
From May 13-19, 2026, I will join with some of the most respected teachers – including Sharon Salzberg, Rick Hanson, Kristen Neff, Tammy Simon, Mamphela Ramphele, and Mellie O’Brien – for a free, seven-day online global program called The Seven Strengths.
The event is organized by Mindfulness.com in collaboration with Sounds True and DailyOM, and all proceeds support the work of the Global Compassion Coalition to create a more compassionate, resilient world. This means that getting involved is both an act of personal growth and an act of collective generosity.
Part of this resurgence of interest in analog life is that we’re all realizing something important: The world doesn’t need more anxious, tired people trying to keep everything together. It requires calmer, wiser, more compassionate human beings who are willing to show up day in and day out from a place of genuine inner strength.
