#well being | Gray Summers

Put the small black desk back up in The Den. Going back to simply using pen, ink and paper.

A total remix of Rhythm of Lies. Hopefully punchier and now ready for Bandcamp upload.

An Analogue World.

At start of year 2026, the plan was to take a break from blogging. Life is just too crazy. 2025 was basically….a horrible year. So hunkering down and keeping a low profile for a while will be very comforting. A month or two out of the online social platforms is intentional….and essential in reality.

There is a need to get back to analogue basically. The tactile and comfortable way of life. The use of pen, ink and paper; reading real books; choosing vinyl or CDs to pick up a play, etc..

The desk reintroduction has produced a crowded affair in The Den. But the ambience is so comforting.

Blogging, when first starting the format many years ago, was initially a way of capturing thoughts and sharing those thoughts by typing out the experiences of ‘Summers’ life as being lived’. Explaining a life lived where every ten years or so, an intentional change was adopted throughout life. Musician to potter to photographer to Sign Language communicator to Staff Nurse to retirement. All of life and its inclusions regarding many experiences and interests adopted in past, present and future timelines recorded, uploaded and shared. A format of giving opportunities for the World to dip into Summers’ thoughts and reading those thoughts.

When songwriting and playing musical instruments came back into life, a few years after retirement from the Staff Nurse role, WordPress (WP) gave the added opportunity to upload ‘sound’. And so sharing songwriting by capturing the physicality of playing those song experiences was uploaded and therefore became included too.

Travellers notebook is a new passion. I never use an iPhone other than to call someone. No other use and therefore am not one of those that sit at tables in public with a phone screen permanently in my hands and pushed at my face.

Realisation suddenly hit, at start of 2026, that the WP digitally captured content of these thoughts and sounds were not tactile. Vocal/Musical sound and visual reading was no longer touchable. There no longer existed a connection in using the ability to touch and experience journalling idealism. Or listening to music outside of YouTube searching in the main.

As an idealist for ‘vintage’ lifestyle, digital format was getting far too much attention. Books were, and still are, never being picked up. Pens, inks and wonderful blank papers awaiting to be word/image filled are sitting, seldom used, in the dark corners of the Man Bag, cardboard and wooden boxes and various drawers. 2025 developed, mostly, into an act of continuously performing a plethora of internet searching periods, looking for ideas that were never actually physically adopted with intent. Never realising full on analogue conversion. Gentle pursuits were slowly fading into a shadow world.

My new shelf/desk clamped extendible arm that can be pulled out to house the iPad for overhead filming. A lovely LED Light attached to the end allows variable light to be shone down onto the desk. Ideal for filming.

Recently looking around YouTube and searching for ideas for inclusions regarding daily recordings in the small ‘Field Note’ notebook format, it was surprising to find yet another content providers’ philosophical theme. Site presenters determined to explain their need for change and withdrawal from the digital arena and get back to analogue lifestyle. Digital forms of computer/smartphone screen based captures, involving many arenas, being suggested to be dropped from being the majority ‘go to’ for information and sound. The advocation of social media, music, internet searching, book reading off Kindle, etc. to be replaced with the physical tactile. An agenda of promoting getting back to using all of one’s senses. Living an Analogue Lifestyle to increase one’s focus by being Mindful in tangible activities.

It would be nice to actually write some stories about a fictional character called Barnabus Qwilch. A past intention never actually pursued.

In advocating Analogue as a better option, many YouTube site influencers are calculating and pushing a new philosophy of getting back to living daily life in a determined gentle lifestyle way. ‘Deep Thinkers/Thinking’ is an oft used phrase. Maybe AI (artificial intelligence) has prompted these presenters to expand the rationale of using analogue in order to avoid the simplicities of getting at life offered content. Physically searching out the need for both interests and acquiring relevant information by accessing books and recording findings onto paper……using pen and ink. One may cynically say that, ironically, they are developing YouTube digital content structures to promote analogue ideals. Whilst also self promoting by manipulating presentations in influencing others to seek and obtain a gentler existence. The cynic would say that content manipulation, and an intentional ‘jumping onto the bandwagon’, is very evident. But the dreamers and acceptors, like myself, would say that these content providers have best interests at heart. The realist? It is all about balance. Summers has already led a lifestyle of balance. Analogue and digital captures. In adopting a lifestyle of physically capturing the touchable, whilst also using the simulated information model of computerisation, balance has been tolerable.

It is just that digital has become the norm over the many months on months recently.

So back to pens, paper and ink……. Vinyl and CDs records…..Paper Books/Novels.

If you tap on the thumbnails below they expand into the full capture. Cheers.

Lovely.

Below is another YouTube link to one of my songs.

It is another remixed song……Faded Walls.

Its lyrics? A very introspective presentation regarding my condition of Aphantasia. A World of simply having no ability to create a visual Mind’s Eye presentation and therefore having no pictorial imagination. Just a blank grey canvas existing behind closed eyelids. And, additionally, no ability to bring up historical memories visually.