I Was Publicly Humiliated at an Indian Wedding for My Phone Addiction. The Shame Nearly Destroyed Me.

Please learn from my experience.

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"Even during his own family's wedding, he can't put that thing down."

The words hit me like a slap across the face. My cousin's grandmother-in-law was pointing at me, speaking to a group of aunties who were now all staring in my direction. Her tone said everything.

I looked down at my hands. There it was – my phone, glowing in the dim light of the wedding hall. While traditional drums echoed through the ornate mandap, while my cousin was taking sacred vows that would bind him to another human being for life, while five thousand people celebrated one of the most meaningful moments in his existence... (Yes Indian weddings have almost the entire city invited)

I was scrolling through Instagram stories of my friends eating brunch in Montreal.

The shame was instant and crushing.

But what came next was worse: the realization that I couldn't stop.

Not because I was particularly interested in Sam's avocado toast or Mike's gym selfie. Not because I was bored by the wedding ceremony. Not because I didn't love my cousin.

I couldn't stop because I had forgotten how to be present for my own life.

The withdrawal hit me three days later, back in my room, when I finally had the courage to turn the phone off. Not from the device itself – I'd done digital detoxes before, failed spectacularly, and crawled back to my screen like a beaten dog returning to its master.

This time was different.

This time, I wasn't trying to quit my phone.

I was trying to remember how to be human.

Let me explain what I mean, because when you understand this distinction, everything about entertainment, happiness, and what it means to be alive in 2025 will never be the same.

Standing in that room, staring at my reflection in the dark window, I realized I wasn't craving my phone.

I was craving escape from the devastating loneliness of being disconnected from my own experience.

The Lie That's Destroying Every Generation

Everyone's talking about phone addiction like it's a technology problem. Digital wellness experts are making fortunes selling you apps to block other apps. Therapists are prescribing "digital detoxes" like they're antibiotics for a bacterial infection.

They're all missing the point so completely it would be funny if it weren't ruining millions of lives.

You're not addicted to your phone. You're not even addicted to dopamine.

You're addicted to “numbness.”

Your phone isn't your dealer. It's your anesthesia.

And once you understand this – really understand it – everything changes. The way you think about entertainment. The way you think about boredom. The way you think about what it means to be human in a world that profits from your numbness.

The Neurological Prison We Built Without Realizing It

Here's what no one tells you about constant stimulation:

It doesn't just change what you pay attention to. It changes your capacity to pay attention to anything.

Your brain has this ancient system designed to notice what's important and filter out what's not. It's how our ancestors survived. Rustling bushes might mean predator. Running water might mean life. Silence might mean danger.

But your phone has hijacked this system and turned it inside out.

Now your brain thinks everything is important. Every notification is a potential threat or opportunity. Every stimulus demands immediate attention. Your filtering system is broken, so you're drowning in information that feels urgent but isn't important.

You're not distracted. You're overwhelmed.

And when you're overwhelmed, your brain does something predictable. It shuts down. It stops processing. It goes numb.

This numbness feels like relief at first. But numbness doesn't discriminate. When you stop feeling bad things, you also stop feeling good things. When you stop noticing unpleasant stimuli, you also stop noticing beautiful ones. That’s what happened to me at my cousin’s wedding.

You become a ghost in your own life.

The Day I Chose to Feel Everything

The flight back to Montreal gave me 22 hours to think about what had happened in India. 22 hours of forced disconnection from the digital world. 22 hours to sit with the shame of missing my cousin's wedding while physically attending it.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, I made a decision that would change everything.

I wasn't going to try another digital detox. Those had always failed because they focused on the wrong problem. They treated my phone like the enemy when my phone was just the symptom.

The real problem was deeper, more terrifying, and more human than any tech addiction:

I had lost the ability to be present for my own existence.

Back home, I started an experiment.

Not a detox – an investigation.

I wanted to understand what I was really seeking every time I reached for that screen.

What was I running from? What was I trying to find?

On day four of watching myself, something happened that changed my understanding of human nature forever.

I was walking to the grocery store – a ten-minute journey I'd made hundreds of times before while staring at my phone. But this time, with the memory of wedding still burning in my chest, I forced myself to look up.

At first, it was agony. My mind felt like a caged animal.

Every step without stimulation felt like an eternity. I found myself reaching for my phone automatically, then stopping, then reaching again. The urge was physical, desperate.

Then, something shifted.

I started noticing things. Really noticing them.

The way the light filtered through the leaves created these intricate shadow patterns on the sidewalk. The sound of my footsteps had this rhythm that almost felt musical. The smell of someone's dinner cooking drifted from an open window and triggered a memory of my grandmother's kitchen that I hadn't thought about in years.

But what broke me was a realization that all of this had always been there. Every time I'd walked this route while staring at my phone, this entire symphony of sensation had been playing around me. I'd just trained myself not to notice it.

Just like at the wedding. Just like everywhere.

I sat down on a park bench and cried.

Not sad tears. Something deeper than that. Tears of recognition. Of coming home to myself after a long absence.

I'd been walking through my own life like a sleepwalker, and I'd finally started to wake up.

The Ancient Secret That Pharmaceutical Companies Fear

Your brain produces its own entertainment chemicals. Not just dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. Oxytocin. GABA(a neurotransmitter, primarily known for its role as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system). A whole cocktail of natural compounds designed to make you feel good, connected, and alive.

But the catch is: These systems only activate when you're actually present for your life.

When you're constantly stimulated by external sources, your brain stops producing its own.

Why would it? You're getting your chemicals delivered from outside.

It's like having food delivered to your door every meal for years, then wondering why you can't cook. The equipment is still there. The capacity is still there. You've just forgotten how to use it.

This is why digital detoxes fail.

They take away your external chemical delivery system but don't teach you how to restart your internal one.

You feel miserable because you are miserable. Your brain's natural happiness factory has been shut down for so long that you've forgotten it exists.

What I Learned…

The first week of my experiment wasn't about missing my phone. It was about remembering what it felt like to be human.

Day five: I noticed that silence had texture. Different kinds of quiet. The silence of an empty room versus the silence of a forest. The silence of snow versus the silence of rain.

Day eight: I discovered that boredom had layers. Surface boredom that felt restless and annoying. Deeper boredom that felt almost meditative. And beneath that, something that wasn't boredom at all, but a kind of aliveness I couldn't name.

Day twelve: I realized that my thoughts had thoughts. That beneath the constant mental chatter was another layer of consciousness that only emerged when the chatter quieted down.

Day eighteen: I started having dreams again. Vivid, strange, meaningful dreams that I could remember when I woke up. I'd forgotten that dreams were supposed to be memorable.

Day twenty-three: I caught myself staring at a tree for forty-five minutes. Not thinking about the tree. Not analyzing the tree. Just... observing it. And it was the most entertaining forty-five minutes I'd had in years.

This wasn't about entertainment anymore. This was about remembering how to be alive.

Don’t think I am immune to this addiction. It’s been 6 years and I still find myself falling through the cracks.

But at least, now I know why I fall and what I must do.

The Attention Economy's Darkest Secret

The goal of smartphone companies isn't to entertain you. The goal is to prevent you from entertaining yourself without a smartphone.

Think about it. If you could entertain yourself with your own mind, with simple observations, with basic human activities, you wouldn't need their products.

Every moment you're present with your own life is a moment you're not consuming their content. Every moment you're satisfied with reality is a moment you're not escaping into their artificial one.

Your ability to find the ordinary world fascinating is their biggest threat.

So they've designed a system that makes the ordinary world seem insufficient. That makes your own thoughts seem boring. That makes reality feel like it's not enough.

They've convinced you that you need constant external stimulation to be happy. That boredom is a problem to be solved rather than a gateway to be walked through.

They've turned you into a consumer of your own life instead of a participant in it.

The Philosophical Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight

Here's the question that haunts me:

What if the way we entertain ourselves is actually a form of suffering?

Ancient wisdom traditions understood something we've forgotten. The constant pursuit of pleasure is the root of misery. Not because pleasure is bad, but because the pursuit becomes addictive.

When you need external stimulation to feel good, you become dependent on circumstances beyond your control. When the stimulation stops, you crash. So you need more stimulation. Then more. Then more.

You're not enjoying entertainment. You're serving it.

You're not using your phone for entertainment. Your phone is using you for engagement.

The whole system is backwards. Instead of entertainment serving your happiness, your happiness serves entertainment.

The Moment Everything Changed

Day thirty-seven of my experiment. I was sitting in a waiting room at the doctor's office. No phone. No book. No magazine. Just me and my thoughts and twenty-three other people doing the same thing.

Except they weren't doing the same thing. They were all staring at screens.

I looked around and realized I was witnessing something unprecedented in human history:

A room full of people who were physically present but mentally absent.

Bodies without consciousness.

Humans who had outsourced their awareness to machines.

And for the first time in my life, I felt genuinely sorry for them. Not judgmental. Not superior. Just sad.

Because I remembered what it felt like to be them. To be so disconnected from my own experience that sitting quietly for five minutes felt like torture.

But I also knew something they didn't:

What was waiting on the other side of that torture.

The Change I Did’t See Coming

Week eight of my experiment brought a revelation that destroyed everything I thought I knew about entertainment:

The most entertaining thing in the universe is consciousness itself.

Not consciousness of something. Just consciousness. Awareness. The simple fact of being aware that you're aware.

I discovered this accidentally while washing dishes. No podcast playing. No music. No thoughts about what I was going to do next. Just the sensation of warm water on my hands and the movement of the sponge across the plate.

Somehow, this became fascinating. Not intellectually fascinating. Viscerally fascinating. Like watching the most engaging movie ever made, except the movie was just me washing a dish.

The lather, the bubbles, the sponge, the feeling of softness was enjoyable.

I started experimenting with this. Bringing total attention to simple activities. Eating an apple and actually tasting it. Walking and actually feeling my feet hit the ground. Breathing and actually noticing the air entering and leaving my lungs.

Each time, the same thing happened. What seemed boring at first became absorbing. What seemed ordinary became extraordinary.

I wasn't doing anything different. I was just... there. Fully there.

The Neuroscience of Presence

When you're fully present, everything lights up.

Your sensory processing centers become more active. Your emotional regulation improves. Your creative networks start firing. Your stress response calms down. Your immune system strengthens.

Presence isn't just psychologically healthy. It's physiologically healing.

But presence is also the enemy of profit. Because when you're fully present with your life, you don't need to buy your way to happiness. You don't need to consume your way to fulfillment. You don't need to escape your way to peace.

You just need to be where you are.

This is why presence is revolutionary. Not because it's spiritual or mystical, but because it's economic su!c!de for every industry that profits from your dissatisfaction.

Three months into my experiment, I had another devastating realization – this time in my own bathroom.

I was brushing my teeth, something I'd done thousands of times while mentally elsewhere. But this time, I actually looked in the mirror. Really looked.

And I saw the same person who had sat in that wedding hall, physically present but spiritually absent.

I'd been doing this my entire life. Not just at the wedding. Not just while walking. In every conversation, every meal, every moment that mattered.

How many dinners had I eaten while scrolling? How many conversations had I had while thinking about my next post? How many sunsets had I photographed instead of witnessed? How many moments of my actual life had I traded for the artificial lives of strangers on my screen?

Standing there, toothbrush in hand, I realized that missing my cousin's wedding wasn't an isolated incident. It was a symbol of how I'd been living – or rather, how I'd been avoiding living.

I'd become a tourist in my own existence.

The Protocol That I Want You To Try. “JUST TRY”

Week 1: The Recognition

Notice every time you reach for stimulation.

Don't judge it. Don't stop it. Just notice it.

What are you really seeking? Connection? Escape? Validation? Stimulation? Understanding this is everything.

Week 2: The Substitution

Instead of reaching for your phone, reach inward. Literally feel your body. Notice your breath. Observe your thoughts. Spend five minutes just being present with whatever you're feeling.

Week 3: The Exploration

Start paying attention to one ordinary activity each day. Really paying attention. Washing dishes. Walking. Eating. Breathing. Don't try to make it interesting. Just notice what's actually happening.

Week 4: The Connection

Have one conversation each day where you're completely present. No phone. No distractions. No thinking about what you're going to say next. Just listening and responding from presence.

Week 5: The Boredom

Deliberately seek out boredom.

Sit quietly for 15 minutes with nothing to do. Don't meditate. Don't think positive thoughts. Just be bored. Notice what happens when you stop running from emptiness.

Week 6: The Emotions

When difficult emotions arise, don't numb them with stimulation.

Feel them fully. Cry if you need to cry. Feel angry if you need to feel angry. Let yourself have your own emotional experience.

Week 7: The Observation

Spend time observing the world without judgment or analysis.

Watch clouds. Study a leaf. Observe strangers. Look at art.

Just see what's there without trying to understand or categorize it.

Week 8: The Integration

Start living from presence instead of visiting it. Make every activity a practice in awareness. Not as a spiritual exercise, but as a way of being fully alive.

Now What?

The future isn't about better entertainment or leisure or engagement. It's about remembering that you don't need them at all.

The change isn't about finding healthier ways to stimulate yourself.

It's about discovering that you are the stimulation.

The answer isn't in your phone or outside your phone. It's in the awareness that's reading these words right now.

That awareness doesn't need to be entertained. It is entertainment. It is the most elevated feeling in the universe, and it's been with you your entire life, waiting for you to notice it.

Your phone trained you to look everywhere but where you are.

Your entertainment addiction trained you to be everywhere but when you are.

Your stimulation dependence trained you to be anyone but who you are.

The cure isn't another app or another technique or another strategy.

The cure is coming home to yourself.

The cure is remembering how to be human.

The cure is presence.

And presence isn't something you do.

Presence is something you are.

You've just forgotten.

But you can remember.

Starting now.

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If you’ve read this far, please turn off the phone NOW. Not because phones are bad, but because you are beautiful.

Turn off the stimulation. Not because stimulation is wrong, but because stillness is where you live.

Turn off the entertainment. Not because entertainment is evil, but because your own consciousness is more enjoyable and sustainable than anything that could ever be created to distract you from it.

You are not a consumer.

You are not a user.

You are not an audience.

You are consciousness itself, having a human experience.

And that experience is the greatest show in the universe.

You just have to be present for it.

Best,
Darshak

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P.S. If this email made you uncomfortable, that's your mental prison recognizing the threat. The programming that's kept you small for years is trying one last desperate move to keep you "safe." Don't let it win.

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