Proton, Photos, Phones, Protein, Podcasts

Hello!

Welcome to the first issue of The Five. My goal for this newsletter is to spend the week gathering five words that have had a recent impact on me, for any of a number of reasons, and share them with you. I am sure this format will evolve, but for now here goes nothing!

1️⃣ Proton

When I saw that the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, and the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, were in attendance at Trump’s inaugeration, I went into a tech panic.

To support my ethos and valueset around big tech, centi-billionaires, and the attention economy, I stopped shopping at Amazon and all of its subsidiaries (including Whole Foods!) in 2017, deleted all of my social media apps between 2020 and 2023, and went smartphone-free at the end of the 2023.

But fully separating myself from Google and Apple felt like a larger beast to battle.

Until this inaugeration.

The first big shift that I made in terms of my relationship with Google and Apple was to migrate my various email addresses, cloud storage, calendar and password manager over to Proton (note: this is a refer-a-friend link, and I will get account credits if you choose to join). I had known about Proton for years but hadn’t ever fully dove in. But just days before I found a job posting that excited me and it was a communications position at Proton.

Within hours of each other, I signed up for Proton mail and applied for the job. What followed was 1. a job application rejection and 2. a week of tranferring all of my email accounts, calendars, photos, documents, passwords, and more over to Proton’s various apps.

But wow, was it worth it.

Not only does the company align with my values, I can already feel some of the addictive qualties of Gmail and Google Calendar subside. Not to mention, I had Google Drive (multiple), Dropbox, AND iCloud and was able to consolidate all of my files and documents to Proton Drive. And I was able to move all of my digital photos to one space.

There are still some ducks to get in a row, some cracks to fill in this big switchover, but I’m thrilled with the change and can’t wait to see how my relationship to these tools evolves.

2️⃣ Photos

Speaking of photos… as an elder millennial I have photos in all sorts of places.

I have photo albums full of printed images from film camera.

I have an archive of digital photos from a Canon Powershot pre-smart phone.

I have a Google Photos album and Photos from my old smartphone.

And I have tons of old iPhoto libraries that I’m not even sure would open up at this point.

Proton Drive has a great photo storage section. I moved everything into that space from all of those other digital spaces. It felt like an archeological dig. I uncovered a folder of unnamed images that were sent over from a camera shop that developed some of my partner’s film. The digital images were part of his order and we both completely forgot about them. I was reminded of former camping trips, silly inside jokes, and the joy I felt last year when I adopted my dog, Ebi.

I then looked into replacing my old Google Home device which served as a digital photo album above all else. And thanks to many a podcast ad, I remembered the brand Aura Frames. I bought one and then loaded a curation of my now-consolidated photo library onto the frame. The frame sits on a shelf in my office. It’s a nice way to take a break from various life and work tasks. It’s also a really cool way to brainstorm stories. The photos show up at random and have the potential to transport me back in time, place, and emotion. It’s also a great way to brainstorm new stories to tell!

3️⃣ Phones

I’m just over a year into having a light phone and am finally able to track the growth I have felt in terms of presence, lack of fomo and panic, and my relationship with the real world versus an online one.

Halfway through last year, the light phone team announced the next iteration of their phone and I pre-ordered it. All of the additions and improvements were the exact parts of the current model that I had qualms with. I also trusted that they weren’t just turning a dumb phone back into a smart phone.

There have been some delays with the light phone 3’s release, so in the meantime, the founder offered to do a livestream to keep all of the pre-ordered patrons up-to-date and to answer any and all questions.

The livestream happened on Monday and I watched the entire 90 minute stream. If you are interested in the phone, or curious about how a founder of such a radical tech company communicates both his personal worldview and his company’s this is well worth a watch.

Like Proton, I have a referral link for the light phone. I’m happy to answer any questions about using it as well. They are not paying me to talk about it, I’m just a passionate customer!

4️⃣ Protein

I chose this word partially because I wanted to choose all P words, and saying Proton and Protein back and forth out loud is a fun vocal warm-up.

If I had to choose a small set of thematic words for last year, protein would be one of them. As part of my passion for fitness and weightlifting, I worked with a nutritionist last year to figure out what foods would fuel my workouts and support my current lifestyle and age.

The answer was protein…. which I know feels like the pop culture/pop medicine answer for a lot of health and nutrition concerns.

My favorite protein source is fish, but at the moment my pantry has an abundance of lentils. My plan is to get creative with lentil-based recipes and try to convince myself that it’s a legume that I can stand by. (Is it a legume? Now I am doubting myself.)

5️⃣ Podcasts

Question for you: do you listen to podcasts on a phone or other audio-based application? Or do you prefer to WATCH podcasts on YouTube?

I am struggling at the moment with the state of podcasting. It appears that most podcasts are pivoting to video. This concerns me because podcasts were meant to be heard. Plus, there is a full generation of audio storytellers who were trained to write, produce, and edit for the ear. This is a completely different skillset from video storytelling/editing. Because of this, there are less job opportunities for audio makers.

Yet, there are some podcasts that I prefer to watch. They are ones that miss the mark quality-wise for shows that I would add to my light phone’s podcast tool. They typically have a celebrity host or guest, people that are trained to be on film. And they are shows that lack a beginning, middle, end.

But if I look through both my audio and YouTube podcast lists, I prefer the shows that are “audio only audio only”*

*This is a niche reference from my alltime favorite podcast, Who? Weekly. If you know, you know.

Thank you for joining me in this weekly writing experiment/adventure. If you enjoyed this, please forward it to a friend. Word of mouth is much appreciated.

Hit reply any time and I will respond. I know some of you have written to me via my old newsletter and I will get back to you soon!

Thanks,

Hillary