What I Carried From Sleeping With My Phone: A Quiet Rebellion in Digital Shadows

I used to think success was measured in likes, but now I measure it in breaths—how long I held silence before replying to a DM at 3 a.m., when the city slept but my thoughts didn’t.

My mother, who left Seoul with her hands full of quiet grace, taught me that stillness isn’t empty—it’s where truth lives. My father, raised on Harlem corners where jazz played like a whispered prayer, showed me that rebellion doesn’t roar. It murmurs.

I don’t play games to win. I play them to remember what it felt like to be small—and real—when everyone else chased the spotlight.

There’s a forest inside my phone: not wild beasts roaring through pixels, but the slow pulse of a child typing ‘this hit me right in the chest’ at 2 a.m., then saving it—not sharing.

I once received a comment from someone who wrote: ‘I’ve been scrolling for days… waiting for something real.’ That wasn’t an algorithm. That was your soul asking to be seen.

We’re told to be loud to belong. But I’ve learned that belonging begins when you stop performing—and start breathing again.

The game isn’t out there. It’s here—in the muted pastels of your late-night scroll, under soft shadows cast by streetlights and half-read books.

What did you carry today?