Grace Pečar-Yannotta is Sage Mode’s editor, but this week, she’s writing something of her own: how do you step away from screens when they’re where you do your work and how do you keep up with people you love? She hasn’t settled on an answer.

I watched The Truman Show for the first time recently, which sounds like a lie to everyone, because who hasn’t, and to myself as well -- I studied film in college, Philip Glass is my favorite composer, to the point I could identify him immediately in the one scene he was in, and, most importantly, I’m a reality television devotee.

The screen went black, and I started to unpack. It’s a really weird, really sad movie. It’s poignant -- people’s lives have revolved around what they’re watching, and in a cruel sequel to the film, now also revolve around how they’re watched on other people’s screens. I’m a writer who works online with people online, only ever working remotely. Computer classes at 3. The first iPhone released when I was six. Sneaking onto social media behind my mother’s back at 11. And then Covid smashed through my freshman year of college.

We all were. Kids and screens. Kids on screens. Watching, being watched.

So, I sat, knees up to my chest, thinking awfully hard. I’m thinking, “I can’t put my child in front of a camera,” knowing full well I have no children. I’m thinking, “Maybe the Luddites were right,” knowing full well my generation completely bastardized an entire history, smashing their cause with our definition. I’m thinking, “Look what they’ve done to my blue heaven,” knowing full well I evacuated Durham, leaving my homeland to keep watching, being watched.

I’m thinking, “No more. No more screens. Just me and these… thoughts,” knowing full well when the time came to write this, I wouldn’t even try to get it down on pen and paper. I started writing in 2008, on a clunky desktop followed by a clunky laptop followed by a beautiful generation of MacBooks.

At the very end of The Truman Show, Truman looks into the black unknown, amidst the watercolor-blue sky. I felt each breath I took in and out. I knew he would choose the unknown -- see, that’s why everyone thinks I’m lying -- but for that moment-minute-hour, I didn’t think he would. I didn’t think he could. How could he?

Because it’s not going anywhere, this great big digital world. I have to work, after all, and I like what I do. I like to scroll the Bravo subreddit, and consume the Vulture write-ups that drop the next morning. I like to send my best friend, thousands of miles away, anything that could be potentially related to the Madagascar franchise, because I can almost hear her laugh. And the white gold feeling of my fingers on keys, words spewing out at 70 wpm. There’s no way I could trade that for anything.

Right?

So, I sit, legs crossed at a cafe, thinking awfully hard, with no one to blame but myself (Leo sun, Scorpio moon), earbuds in to muffle the Europop that’s playing, eyes locked on the screen.

Out of my periphery, I see it: the black doorway, the great unknown, the screenless, timeless, dry, sad, unfathomable, all real, entirely real unknown. The door stays open, swinging back and forth as the crisp Alpine winds whisper, “We accept the reality with which we are presented.”