Almost 6-7 years ago, I read about a 30min challenge to sit upright without doing anything in a chair challenge. That changed how I think about distractions. If I had written about it, there surely will be people who would just like here say... What is so crazy about it? I do that all the time...
To me, this post is someone's joy and curiosity shared through a well written piece. Everybody discover certain things at different stages of their lives. What's so bad about that?
Was able to bring a smile on my face. A good post. :)
Inevitably when you're still with no distractions, your subconscious starts surfacing various thoughts. There is a random element to what pops into your head, but there will also be patterns. Just sitting there and observing, and maybe asking yourself a few questions about what emerges, is an incredible way to become aware of your emotional state, stay grounded to your goals, and remember what truly matters to you. This exercise frequently reorders my plans for the rest of the day.
There's also value in stillness when you're in public or with other people. Just shutting up and taking in your surroundings for 30-60 seconds is kind of like a mini superpower, you start noticing little things that other people don't see. Many of the little decisions you make automatically throughout the day get better if you just, y'know, sit there and think about them quietly for 1 minute. You end up going to a better restaurant, or remembering to call a loved one, because you simply took a moment to just pause and reflect.
It's the best thing in the world really. All this mindfulness stuff has profound benefits.
And you have the added benefit being to able to pick the god of your choice that resonates with you and recite their mantras.
It doesn’t mean I might not have a drink, but I’m aware it’s triggers a “get the poison out” response from my body.
Disengaging the prefrontal cortex is one thing, lowering the inhibitions and increasing emotional volatility in the rest of the brain is hugely different.
Those things can vary between people.
Understanding we chan shift our default mode network is critical.
Meditation actually increased the connection between areas like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex allowing you to have greater calm, focus while at peace minus the racing thoughts and emotions.
Having an overdeveloped amygdala is fairly common resulting in an under developed prefrontal cortex.
Luckily neuroscience is showing the past few years that neuroplasticity is available to everyone to continue improving for their entire life.
I wonder if the author’s use of “you” rubbed some people the wrong way: “You are alone and powerless. You encounter a deep challenge,” “When you let your thoughts wander, they take you on a journey you’ll never think possible,” etc.
The pronoun seems intended to refer to the author’s own experiences, but I can see why some readers might think it refers to them. I had a bit of a negative reaction to those “you”s myself, as I experience cafés very differently from the author.
I have a similar negative reaction to op-ed articles that use “we” to refer to some sort of personified zeitgeist. From some essays currently appearing in the Opinion section of the New York Times:
“We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it.”
“But we spend much of our lives in weaker friendship markets, where people are open to conversation, but not connection.”
“Over the past six decades or so, we chose autonomy, and as a result, we have been on a collective journey from autonomy to achievement to anxiety.”
Too many "I" sounds self-fixated and irrelevant for the reader. "You" is way too presumptive, unless addressing a specific person or specific group with actual evidence. "We" can also read as too presumptive, but I feel like it works in the case of processes the reader could volunteer to be part of. However, it must not be used to project emotions or experiences onto the reader.
For now, I've personally settled on "we" for most things (because the reader could hypothetically choose to follow along actively), but switching into "I" if I need to discuss something negative or a failing of my own. In other words, I would never project "a constant state of grief" on my readers – that I can only attribute to myself.
When I refer to something that cannot be experienced by myself, only by my readership (e.g. because it happens only to people who do not know where the article is going), I prefer "the reader" over "you", because while it might be true for the median reader, it might not be true for each and every individual reading.
I'm glad someone else also cares about this! I don't find it discussed very much.
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Here's a decent example of what I mean: https://entropicthoughts.com/packaging-perl-and-shell-for-ni...
(1) It starts out with "I" having trouble packaging – my readers are generally more intelligent and experienced than I am, so I won't assume they have the same trouble.
(2) Then we go into my experience, but phrased in a way where the reader could hypothetically follow along. Thus, I ask the reader to imagine "we" have a Perl script.
(3) Somewhere in the middle, the article refers to something that might be noticed by "the very attentive reader". I do not expect everyone to, not even the median reader, but I realise some readers might.
(4) The appendix contains a note in case "you" are very curious, because here I do address each and every reader individually.
In case the irony isn't clear, I disagree. Clarity first, and stylistic choices after that.
German also has "man" which almost directly translates to "one" (the pronoun).
I know for some people it's just how they speak – instead of saying "I get the urge to scream" they say "one gets the urge to scream" and they mean themselves only. But my computer-diseased brain interprets it literally and I get the urge to contradict them and say, "No, I don't!"
In this case, the use of "we" is also funny, because the opening sentence is such an unusual take.
When feeling too busy, I always make time to go to a sit at my local Vipassana center, spending an hour sitting actually frees up so much more time in my life that it's well worth it. Gandhi definitely had it right when he said "I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one"
This is a bit like excercise. When you first start, 30 minutes of exercise can be torture as your is out of shape and not used to the effort. Keep doing it and it feels better and you feel better.
Work on becoming a source of thoughts rather than a consumer of thoughts.
I had to sit still a lot as a child, since I wasn't allowed to have friends or go anywhere. I read a lot, but a lot of the time I was to tired or bored to read, so I'd just defocus my eyes, and disappear into my imagination. It would look like I'm reading, so I wouldn't get punished. In hindsight I'm not sure it's terribly healthy, as I now find it impossible to put up with boring people (which is basically everybody who has time to sit around chatting, almost by definition).
You're being judgemental to call them boring. Plus widening your opinions to be a "definition" sounds like an unhealthy worldview. You likely appear boring to others.
Then again I have a saying I use when anyone says they are bored - I say they are boring!
This is a very clever come back, I wonder if it might qualify as the best thought terminating cliché I've seen this year!
I never say I'm bored. The universe is too interesting a place to be bored. I did mean it, that most people, individually, are what I find boring. I'd rather withdraw into my mind and work on something interesting, whether it's about figuring something out, or trying to design something. The painful part is pretending to care long enough to get away without somebody getting butthurt.
The "almost by definition" is that the people I find interesting are usually busy doing interesting things, so the boring ones are the only regular people at social gatherings. I do not go to those anymore.
That is certainly the best back-handed compliment I have received in the last hour. Thank you. Your writing molests me.
> is that the people I find interesting are usually busy doing interesting things, so the boring ones are the only regular people at social gatherings.
That comes across to me as a refreshingly honest self-centred view.
You recall me of a friend who does contemporary dance as part of a troupe. I find them interesting - however I also find sewage plants and stink beetles interesting.
What's I'm trying to say is that finding people interesting (or boring) probably says more about you than it does about them.
The smartest people I know seem to be interested in everything. I often find people interesting for reasons I would find difficult to admit to them. I'm not that smart.
I find myself boring - contemptuous through familiarity?
And yeah, I'm rather cynical about "norms" too.
Be careful that there are social penalties for behaving like that way. When people smell an air of arrogance, they implicitly punish you.
I recommend to trick yourself into believing that people around you are worth your time. Even if it's not really true. Even if it makes you die a little inside. Just try to make it work.
And when the opportunity comes to get rid of those people from your life, grab that chance with all your heart.
they can't punish me if I'm not there and don't depend on them.
Why not? Is this some form/culture of parenting I’m not familiar with?
This idea of not allowing a child to have friends or go anywhere just sounds like actual emotional abuse.
it was. my father assured everybody that he and I were best friends and I didn't need anybody else. I was allowed to go to school, that was it.
I also find it problematical to deal with people who live 'normal/standard' lives who are not curious about the world and how everything works. Being put in a conversation talking about sports, gossip, celebrities is intolerable for me.
I've come to accept (and I think some people here may resonate with) that this is can be a blessing or good filtering mechanism.
Which, to me, makes sense because you’re supposed to always be pushing yourself. You’re not supposed to ever feel comfortable or feel better from it. You should always feel shitty because if it doesn’t hurt then you’re probably not making optimal development.
The only thing I ever “feel” good about is purely a mental thing. Eg I hit a new PR (progress), didn’t skip a lift (perseverance), or whatever. The act of exercising itself is always painful and it’s why I always dread it.
We are chaotic and beautiful bundles of dozens of trillions of cells that evolved over 4 billion years. We breath. We feel. We are alive. We aren't math problems that need to be "solved" or "optimized".
> Which, to me, makes sense because you’re supposed to always be pushing yourself. You’re not supposed to ever feel comfortable or feel better from it. You should always feel shitty because if it doesn’t hurt then you’re probably not making optimal development.
You are way too demanding of yourself my friend :(
this is almost certainly wrong - 100% balls to wall training will surely be suboptimal (on avg) to achieving most fitness goals - eg within a running training block there will generally be recovery and "general aerobic" runs which are easy in effort relative to the harder work in the block. These easy efforts are necessary to optimally achieve the desired physiological adaptations acquired through increased volume and "nailing" the hard workouts. The easier runs enable this by getting volume at lower risk of injury + conserving energy/will for the key workouts.
This also doesn't consider how important recovery is to optimal results (as in sleep, rest, self-care etc).
Harder is not always better.
There's more to it like how to pick the weight, etc... but the perfect rep piece I really enjoyed.
Also late to the party, but creatine is the body and more importantly the brains friend too.
There's also something to be said for seasons of maintaining a level of fitness rather than pushing for the next level!
https://stories.strava.com/articles/a-productive-weekly-trai...
I say this because my experience is very different from yours: I get a very perceptible "high" once I get into the rhythm of a good workout. Think mild euphoria, mood lift, and general feeling of "rightness" in my body once it's been well wrung.
This only happens if I'm in decent shape, though. If I've fallen out of shape it's a slog.
Edit: I can't remember the podcast, but I recall some discussion of emerging clinical evidence in exercise response variability along many dimensions that may help explain the disconnect.
There's no way I'm going to run for 2 years on the hope that one day it will stop hurting and get enjoyable.
Time to find support that you trust and face whatever is going on under the hood.
For me, the three major turning points were quitting my job, later starting somatic therapy with the right therapist, and then finally getting diagnosed with ADHD. Good luck to you :) wish you the best
> Work on becoming a source of thoughts rather than a consumer of thoughts.
This is the classic “sounds deep but actually means nothing” vague statement that’s only meant to massage one’s ego and try to reenforce an unsubstantiated idea in a faux-philosophical way.
You are always “sourcing” thoughts even when “consuming”.
Being able to sit still, quietly without having to stimulate oneself is, by all means, exactly that: avoid stimulating oneself. Looking around and trying to come up with small stimulations based on your surrounding is merely replacing one object (say, your phone) with another.
Generally, I prefer just sitting quietly and not worrying about the definition of stimulation or whether I'm doing it correctly.
However, for each new scanning protocol, I like to have had it myself - so I know what the children go through. And, at times lying inside a MRI scanner, detached from the world, with only the noise of the scanner (very reduced with our new noise cancelling headphones), is almost meditative, and a welcome escape from the constant connection and pressures of being immediately available at work. Sounds like the writer achieves something similar in the coffee shop.
What works to get children to stay still though?
But for kids over 8, a nice long form video works well. That, and having enough time so that they don't feel like we're in a rush, but also not taking to long to load them onto the scanner...
For the younger ones, it's very much dependent on the child. So we take a bit of time to get to know them before we get them to attend. We have videos to prep them, and can follow a script when loading them (e.g. becoming an astronaut and blasting off into space...).
2-6 days of just riding your bike, eating, sleeping outside. Yeah it can be hard but nothing makes the MS Teams chime in the woods.
I get a break from constant availability from air travel, but that's slowly eroding as it becomes more connected.
I would say it is very enjoyable 30 minutes every time I do it. I don't think anyone would describe that kind of experience as hard to do?
Some would, especially the younger generation. Their attention span - or probably their brain chemistry - is strongly affected by constant stimulation, to the point where disconnecting from it causes anxiety and restlessness.
Not just the younger generation either, millennials are probably the first generation to be affected.
I try and think about this often.
As a related aside, that's why I continue to find it odd that many people take their phones when they're using the bathroom. Just further limiting the few places (with the shower being #1) where circumstances does force your brain to review and assess like it clearly wants to do.
The overwhelming majority of humanity's problems, such as they might be described, stem from the biological drive to survive and procreate. The quip presupposes that man naturally has a room to sit quietly in; this is not the case. The procurement of a room to sit in requires a significant amount of effort. It can entail the securing of territory and building of the shelter oneself, or it can entail the education, advanced skill development, and daily labour required to pay to reap the results of other people having secured the territory and built the shelter. To say nothing of food, mating, and rearing of offspring.
Pascal was born well-to-do, so perhaps he was removed from the general human experience. He was provided with the room to sit quietly in by the efforts of others, and may never have had to work a day in his life, affording him the luxury to make that statement. He also did not marry or reproduce. If everyone had lived the life he lived, there would be no rooms to sit in and indeed no men to sit in them. Being charitable, I suppose it's true that if all mankind were to stop reproducing, there would shortly be no more problems for humanity on account of humanity no longer existing.
Pascal also stated...
> as we should always be, in the suffering of evils, in the deprivation of all the goods and pleasures of the senses, free from all the passions that work throughout the course of life, without ambition, without avarice, in the continual expectation of death
while going so far as rejecting medical care for an illness that eventually led to his death at a young 39. In other words, his attained enlightenment was suffering in the name of his religion to the point of dying. He certainly committed to his beliefs, but I don't find his form of enlightenment inspiring, and do not believe that humanity should strive to follow in his footsteps of fatal self-deprivation. The only way sitting quietly solves all of humanity's problems is if all of humanity commits to doing only that until they wither away and die without any pursuit of the things they need to survive. He framed it as giving up ambition and avarice, but even without ambition and avarice you will endure struggles merely to sustain yourself if you are not born into wealth. I, personally, am quite content dealing with those struggles and have no interest in solving them by dying prematurely as Pascal might prefer to do.
Yes, it's hyperbole, it literally will not get rid of all the problems but the ethos of the view is being conscious of your needs and your actions and you only truly get that by having the space to think. As opposed to just go go go and not taking a step back and implicitly treating your mind as a hostile place you need distraction from.
I'll throw in another quote that sits nicely with the Pascal quote, from Ursula Le Guin:
> Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive
just discrimination can only come from being comfortable to be with your thoughts, which can, but is not limited to, happen in a quiet room
The second quote does not comport with Pascal, because Pascal was not advocating for a path that led to internal happiness, but rather the abandonment of the desire for happiness altogether. He believed that suffering on Earth was the purpose of being Christian and would lead to salvation through God.
Also, a lot of folks think it's easy to do. Until you try it, that is.
I also remember reading somewhere around the lines of handling the chaos in your-self. Or controlling the chaos within yourself.
And always thought this exercise showed what that is about. (Sorry, forgot the expression. Been a while. It's definitely more nicely put than the above.)
I've done more than that. Summer time I often swim in open water up to 2 hour at once as one of the ways to stay fit. Obviously it becomes routine and not very entertaining. So I usually doing some high level software design work in my mind at this point, exploring some concepts, thinking business ideas etc. etc. So my body does monotonous work of not very high intensity and my brain is busy with everything else. Not board at all.
I once spent 1.5 hour standing in a church listening to a priest for more than an hour (funeral). Same thing I mentally solved the problem why some piece of my code did not work.
Without this ability I would go nuts. My brain always has to be busy with something. It is like a drug for me.
After some struggle you will enter into a weird state that I think should be similar to what they achieve through meditation.
Not my cup of tea. But I do get your point.
You end up hearing conversations more clearly, environmental noises you wouldn't normally hear and I find more clarity for the environmental area.
Those of us over 40 have already had plenty of this in our lives, it used to be such a common part of life! Waiting for appointments, waiting for the bus, etc. before smartphones. My first job had two hours between lunch and dinner service. I only had about 15 minutes of work during that time, so it was hour plus of almost entirely idle time every shift.
Nowadays when I'm feeding her or napping her I admittedly do have a phone behind her head, but I'll always cherish those two hours where it was just us two.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/people-pr...
The mind finds entirely new areas of stimulation when it’s not being distracted or purely having sensory experiences.
The thing with a café is. OK, it exists. But it just isn't for me. I like being on my own, and you don't go to a public place for that. I got coffee at home (not as good as in a half decent café). If I really do need coffee on the go it is while travelling, and then I don't sit inside (no, not on a crowdy terrace either).
I could write you a post about the the unbearable joy of listening to hypnotic music while on a train or bus ride.
I could write a post about sitting stoned in a squat with everyone going to bed slowly but surely, and this girl still playing her guitar smiling friendly at me, and eventually guiding me to a place where I could sleep. Cause at this point, I had no clue where to go.
But in the end, it boils down to mindfulness and meditation.
Quakers call this "silent meeting."
We sit together quietly for 60 minutes. If someone feels inspired, they stand up and speak. Then they sit down and the Meeting continues in silence. Some Meetings are silent from start to finish; others have speakers the whole time.
While there is no creed, people often speak about truth, equality, peace, and simplicity. I found it when looking for a belief system to pass on to my kids, should I have some.
If you’re curious, try it some Sunday. It’s an interesting experience.
On this post specifically or HN on the whole? ;)
Too many folks scroll right past the opportunities.
Some of the negativity is because many people out there were used to this slower way of living only for capitalist techbros to optimize every waking moment everything and hasten the rat race.
So now the only people who can sit idly at a cafe would be those who've already have a few million in the bank. It's similar to the CEO goes to a yoga retreat in Bali (or Burning Man) trope to rediscover being part of society.
The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time. If you get something out of working hard, like joy, sure go ahead. But dont lie to yourself and think that working hard will actually ever pay off.
I do not earn enough to ever afford a house without going into debt for the rest of my life. As long as I can afford a cheap place, one new book a month and a hot shower in the morning I am content with never owning anything. As thats the world all the "hard working" people shoved us into.
Well, it sounds like you're not american. You have trains to use and clean parks, for one. That's nice.
>The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time.
We're given decreasingly less choices, sadly. Work hard and cheap or be unable to pay rent and be kicked to the streets. The Social network over here is so broken that many have zero safety net, in terms of both government and community. Let alone a new book and a shower (well, maybe you get a gym subscription. I've heard that as a "life hack" for homeless people).
As for relying on your democratic process: I hope you are right.
Imagine there are no more cheap places to rent anymore and American work culture invades Europe. Shops are no longer closed on Sunday, you're expected to be on call on weekends, and you have a paltry 14 days of vacation for the year.
I thought the same thing
- US citizen
Then I switched jobs and ended up in Canary Wharf. For those who don't know it, Canary Wharf is a newly built finance district in the London Docklands. If you've been to Singapore, Dubai, La Defense in Paris or Songdo in Korea, you know the kind of place. Everything is clean, new, modern. Everything has 90 degree angles. Everything has cameras, security guards and cleaning stuff. What it doesn't have is any resemblance of a real city, any organicity or soul.
I hated it. Every morning I saw the streams of suite dressed worker drones pouring from the tube directly into their office towers (Canary Wharf has a huge underground shopping mall/railway station that allows you to go from the subway directly into your office without ever seeing the sun).
I was unhappy. So I did similar things to the OP. I got up earlier and walked there. (I lived in Mile End). It was a nice walk along the canal for a while and then a not so nice walk through smog and traffic, but I didn't mind. I took my lunch outside on the remaining docks. And finally, I got up so early that I arrived an hour before work began.
I spent this hour in a Cafe. Alone. Having breakfast. I loved this hour. I sat there, as the only one not rushing in, getting their "strong capo", beeping their card against the reader and rushing out. I observed the grey and black dressed stream of people. I day dreamed.
It helped - for a while. It was a band aid before I left London all together and moved to Berlin. But most of all, it is a uniquely calm and joyful experience. It decelerates you. The boheme in Paris or Prague has long figured this out. Sit in a cafe. Enjoy a coffee or a glass of wine. Look at people. Daydream. Reflect, be enough - there's a lot to it.
I think the important part is leaving your phone and other devices home. Be alone, without even a possibility of connecting (apart from the old-fashione way of talking to an actual human being). People used to do this y’know? Back then.
The annoying part is that this becomes increasingly difficult to impossible. For example, I can't use public transport without my phone anymore, because my ticket is bound to my phone and the provider does not issue paper tickets or smartcards anymore.
Less severe but equally frustrating, many restaurants choose to use QR codes for menus rather than printing them onto a sheet of paper or writing them to the wall.
I love leaving my phone behind, primarily because I am in the "we're entertaining ourselves to death" crowd considering I essentially grew up with mobile phones already. But our environment is increasingly build on the assumption that we carry a smartphone with us at any given time.
There is no need to leave it behind, just having the right usage control over it would suffice.
This is so true! Surprised how many commenters are saying "just have self control" etc - a phone is close to essential for a lot of services in a city.
I'd be super interested in tips people have to avoid the psychological impact phones have when they do have to take them with them. A lot of phones have "relax" or "do not disturb" modes - curious if that actually works for anyone?
Ever since I've owned a smartphone, they have been on "do not disturb" 24/7. People that know me know they won't reach me directly, but that I will call them back eventually. I do have a couple of voice calls every day; I schedule them ahead of time based on my own actions, and set an alarm to take out the phone.
I am typically involved in something and I don't want to be disturbed during it; it may just be thinking, or reading, or actually talking to a human being present with me; why would I ever want to be disturbed? I only check my phone when I want to actively perform some task with it anyway, e.g. to look at maps, and then I put it away again. I don't mind carrying it around and needing to use it increasingly for tickets and such. I do not experience this as "self control". I don't have the urge to take out my wallet or keys or umbrella unless I need them either. Why would I.
I typically (also) carry a paper book to read on public transport or in cafés.
It's difficult for apps like chrome that are distracting but also useful, I personally also limit chrome, if this means I can't look something up so be it, it's worth it for me.
Why more people aren't doing this is one of the main things that confuses me. People are constantly complaining about using their phone too much, but they don't just do this. I guess I'm an extreme outlier in terms of how willing I am to restrict the actions of my future self.
I think people need to really lighten up sometimes.
Am I supposed to get upset with what they choose? I'm not saying I would leave. I'm saying I would stay and let someone else pick something for me to eat.
Parental controls are underrated.
I've been postponing writing a guide on how to set this up for a while, but I think I'm motivated to do it now, I'll try to have something up by the 8th here https://tim2othy.github.io/ws/screen-time/, maybe useful for you.
Ours do the same but I just ask and are normally happy to talk. Personally I think the staff enjoy it as they get a few minutes of talk time rather than rush rush next order.
I can sync music to it and use it for contactless payments, which is just about enough.
It’s possible to do a bit more but it’s more basic than an Apple Watch as a smartphone alternative (but much better for everything I want it for), and as I mostly use it for sports tracking and being phoneless, I haven’t set any other apps up.
Their marketing is geared towards the p*rnography addiction crowd but from my own experience, it works equally well for those easily distracted by screens (I have ADHD).
At least I need my apple watch with cellular enabled so I can dial myself in.
My kid got sick at daycare one time when I was over an hour away. They just had to stay there while I worked my way back.
It happens, and it is handled normally.
When we looked at in-home child care, one of the options was a nanny who would care for kids even when the kids were sick. So I'm sure the rapid-pickup-of-sick-kids policy isn't universal. However, our day care had that policy and we made sure we knew who was "on-call" to get kids when important meetings or work travel impacted our availability.
I've personally struggled with adherence to my reduce screen time goals and while exercising more self control has helped, making active choices about my environment did help a lot more. And I like it that way, and I hate to see these choices be torpedoed all the time
To quote the Gorillaz:
> That's a fallacy
Self-control is not a "have it or don't" thing. It can be developed and exercised, often simply by trying and failing, and then trying again (like any exercise!).
I'm not saying it's not harder for some people than others. I'm also not saying that it isn't harder to exercise on some circumstances than others. However, it's absolutely not a binary thing, and it is achievable, in some form, for anyone.
but i am genuinely glad for people who find that level of self-control readily accessible, that's just not me.
There's some interesting implications around the "default mode network" that's worth thinking about, and the sort of world we might be inadvertently bending toward [building] when everyone is constantly struggling to engage internal control mechanisms and depleting their ability to do other unconscious sorts of processing: https://archive.is/fYqtB
One of the reasons I don't see much value-added from meditation is that it seems like a ritualistic wrapper around something I already do and value: clearing one's head, quiet time without consuming visual stimulus and without brooding. We are prone to bombarding ourselves constantly and wonder why we're fatigued partway through the day.
I like to reserve the "thinking" component to journaling time, as that seems to help organize thoughts. Or else, do it while walking.
>It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.
I had the same feeling as you. Why is it weird to do something alone ? - and like you I thought this must be an American thing. Mostly, because stuff like "eating out alone" or "going to the movies alone" was describe as weird by American authors before.
Sure, it's close to impossible to not "auto-socialize", when you are alone. It's one of the reason I like to do things alone. Either being a regular to the cafe/restaurant host or you get into contact with other people,
It doesn't. That was pure projection on the author's part.
But yeah, I found the whole intro section a bit confusing because it’s just extremely common to find people enjoying an hour alone at a café here and certainly not “against the reasons cafès exist”.
I don't know if the author is American but americanos are not an American thing so they are likely not in the US.
Certainly every coffeeshop here in Seattle has them and and I expect most do elsewhere too.
Espresso has taken over coffeeshops such that some won't also have drip coffee anymore and if that's what you want, an Americano is approximately how to get it.
No brand new iphone or new macbook means poverty which is usually not cool.
It blows peoples minds if you read a book. Not a college textbook but something for fun. Homeless people don't read so they get confused.
Its like riding the bus. There's nothing wrong with public transit, its just that its somewhere warm for poor homeless people to sit all winter, so its not very cool.
Public transport often is the best and most efficient way to move within a city where I live, or in places like London, Stockholm, Berlin or quite a lot of other European cities.
> Its a social class thing. Homeless people sit alone
Really? Anyone sitting alone is a homeless one? Anyone without a shitty Apple product is poor?
> Homeless people don't read
WTF. This one made me laugh out loud. You must not have had much contact to homeless people. I have had quite a few acquaintances in my lifetime being homeless, worked with them, did social work on the side. And I got to know so many different people with different interests. Yes, a few were the stereotypical homeless person depicted in mass media. A few were highly functional members of society, had a day job 9to5 - and still lived on the street. Many had read way more books than myself - and I am an avid reader.
What is it with this stereotyping of people.
Here we take the bus if it’s the best route. We also read books and sit alone in cafés (sometimes at the same time).
Where do you live that reading a book will blow people's minds? I've been in many places and see people reading books and newspapers regularly and no thinks anything of it.
Without phone it would be too cringe, even with phone its cringe. I behave as if though I'm texting someone. It's the societal weight of being the one who is alone.
If I want to see a movie, I see a movie. If I want to travel, I travel.
Now with my last vacation I happened to be on the same continent as a long term friend who I hadn't seen in very long time. We met up, and it was like we were hanging out in college again.
But I had a great time traveling solo before that.
If you have the mentality that you need to be around your friends constantly you'll never try anything new.
Maybe you should treat cafes the same?
It's just different so their initial thought of it being awkward without further reflection is based on reality not some blown up fear.
I also say this as someone that has no trouble striking up conversations with strangers. So not like I barely go out.
What if you are going from A to B, but in the middle you go to a cafe to grab a coffee, and maybe wait a bit for your connection?
When I take a picture, I get the luxury of immediately see what I got. When I wanted to hear some music, I can search it up, and hear an entire album in a question of seconds.
It's an incredible privilege to do that, but at the same time, we got so used to speed, that pausing can be new for us.
This year I had the opportunity to travel to Europe and just sit in a café, sipping coffee, just observing, and it also felt new and different for me.
I shot with an analogue camera because I enjoy the feeling of waiting for the results, not being able to see the results at the split of a second.
This blog resonates with me because I've been feeling I want to pause more, to create more memories, to be in the moment. I should go to a café without phones and a notepad.
Your comments make me glad I spent a childhood having to use analog phones to connect to the information superhighway - much pausing and reflection involved.
I guess we’ve come full circle with the spend of our societies, when we have a new generation rediscovering how to pause.
A lot of my Gen Z friends do it in a couple ways, like with analog and now old digital cameras, some abstaining from social media almost to a religious level of deterrence where posting a story on a holiday is the rebellion
makes me, a millenial, feel like all of my social friends pretending to be influencers are doing something outdated, and everyone that's otherwise unregulated on their social media consumption are the same as chain smokers or opium addicts before the Opium Wars (dopamine wise, I'm aware of the exact similarity)
I'm interested and intruiged
I found myself annoyed.
I thought to myself "Are paragraphs a renewable resource? Is it wrong to waste them?"
It doesn't matter.
In neuroscience, there is a thing called the "default mode network" which is best known for being active when a person is not focused on anything in particular. The mind is awake, but at rest, like when you're daydreaming, bored, and have no goal oriented tasks. All sorts of neat stuff happens in this network, things like "shower thoughts", self reflection, autobiographical memories, thoughts about future goals and events, trying to figure out the people in your life -- their desires, intentions, emotions and thoughts. In boring situations like when I'm on the bus, or waiting in line for something, I'll spin it as an opportunity to spend time with the ole' default mode network. It's a good time observe people around you, as they're often completely engrossed in their devices. Occasionally I'll seek out other folks who are also chilling in the default mode network, and we'll sometimes share a knowing look.
For example, I read your first four sentences/paragraphs. When I got to your last paragraph, it was so long that I started skimming halfway and then just gave up.
I think a mix and match of small paragraphs and single line sentences for emphasis is a pretty good writing format for holding my attention, but I can see how others might be annoyed by it.
I think it is more suited to the ways people consume text these days, kind of like how digital platforms moved to sans-serif fonts. Long dense paragraphs are fine in books and newspapers but hard to read and don't flow right on web browsers.
Books have also always had sections of short paragraphs for dialogue or pacing effect. I find myself breaking my own writing into more succinct paragraphs/thoughts that start to feel like jumbled run-on sentences without line breaks.
There are many walks of life and some people are wired in ways that annoy us when they present themselves, or talk about themselves as this individual has. It is not only to elevate the mundane to the realm of the sublime, rather it’s to beat a profound lesson of life into us by proxy of whoever the characters are. Notice the shift from the friends, to I, to “you”. Notice the use of “you” in the blog post. You are being lectured. You need to be taught things that this individual just discovered, because you are clueless and they are wise. That is why you feel annoyed.
Whenever you hear someone using the royal “we” to lecture you, you’re always welcome to ask “who is we?”, because it’s appropriate to understand who is actually being discussed. This individual thinks that we are clueless and they are carrying the stone tablets to teach us. They have a long way to go.
If only there was a way to learn more about things you don’t know:
All this time, I would intentionally forget my phone at home and all my notifications except calls were turned off.
EDIT: I must say having a dog made a lot of difference, I don't know if I would feel the same being just alone. That might be an experiment for another time :-).
I suspect this depends on the location, given this contrast. It seems the Author might be from Delaware, USA? I haven't been to any coffee shops there. Maybe this is an exception? Of interest, it does not match my experience in coffee shops elsewhere on the East Coast (Va, NC, Mass for example). Not my experience in various European countries as well.
I've seen a few cafes in the UK push back against this, in particular people who buy a drink and then sit at a laptop for hours. One I visited last week had a large table set aside for laptops and the rest were marked as laptop free.
> They are designed as meeting spaces. There is no table with a single chair.
I'm so confused by this, because every cafe I've ever been to is full of people there alone. It seems to almost be the default, honestly.
Go to any coffee shop in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, and you're bound to see students and tech workers sitting alone, typing away on their laptops. Even in LA, you'll see people editing videos and posting stuff on social media.
I think it's perhaps very American to go to cafes alone, especially if you are going there to get work done. Anecdotally, I had a French tennis partner back in 2022. One time, after our match, we went to a neighborhood cafe to chat and talk about life. He remarked to me how strange and foreign it is that Americans work so hard. He finds it stupid, even off-putting, that people work in cafes, which to him is a place to relax and socialize. He used slightly stronger language than stupid, so I didn't have the heart to tell him I plan to work in a cafe later that day. Maybe it's just a cultural thing.
Cafés can be both of those spaces.
If you're not into bar life, it's not that easy to just have spontaneous conversion here. Any invasion of space is seen as odd at best and threatening at worst. Even for neighbors.
I really do not get the tendency to reduce everything down to one singular reason or cause. Is this a monotheistic religious thing? Is this a binary thing? I just can't wrap my head around this. But that might just be me - having originally studied literature and history (after graduating from high school with mainly stem subjects) I always felt I had one foot in each of those worlds - one in the "hard sciences" one more in the humanities. Never able to reduce myself to just one reason of being or one interest - and never able to attribute only one reason/meaning to a work of art.
So my long winded way of saying, that I just did not buy the premise.
That's why it was so nice when I recently found a nice little mom-and-pop cafe that was quiet. I can't remember if there was music, but if there was, it was very quiet. Again, my partner was at a meeting, but this time I just sat and enjoyed my latte with no damage to my ears. I probably did look at my phone a few times. :)
And most thankfully are in my area (just don't go to the one near schools on weekdays). Really hope it stays that way.
Some venues are really just not designed for solo travelers. You have all these couples and social groups having fun with each other and then the tables they give to social travelers don't tend to be the nicest.
This is annoying if you are hungry and not looking to get another fast food meal. But fast food restaurants are of course perfect for solo travelers otherwise. And there are lots of restaurant types that serve decent food in a bit informal setting where eating by yourself is not that weird. Other good options include hotel restaurants. Because hotels tend to have lots of solo travelers. The bigger the city, the easier it is to find nice places to eat by yourself generally.
Cafes are easier. Lots of people go there to have a coffee by themselves, work, read, or whatever. It's normal. The venue might not like the sub optimal use of tables though. But if it's not too busy and you tip well, they typically don't mind people staying for a few hours and perhaps reading or working on a laptop. I do this a lot.
I don't drink alcohol anymore and getting drunk by yourself in a bar can be a bit weird. Though depending on the bar, it's perfectly normal to have a drink by yourself of course. These days I tend to like to sit down after a day of sight seeing to have a few cold alcohol free beers. Lots of places where this is perfectly normal.
I've been traveling solo for a few decades. I can be quite social but I'm also fine not talking to people for days/weeks when traveling. It's not for everyone. I tend to prefer booking apartments and self catering these days. Going to restaurants for dinner is expensive and not really worth it to me by myself. But I'll have coffees, light lunches, and other beverages.
I'm probably an above averagely anxious person, but after a few trips without disaster, it becomes a non issue.
100%.
Exposure therapy is the cure for anxiety. I have a personal hunch that part of the massive rise in anxiety in the world is explained by many of us no longer being regularly forced outside of our comfort zones. Before the Internet and smartphones, we were obligated to go into the unknown much more often. It was a constant mandatory exposure therapy.
Today, I can't remember the last time I walked into a restaurant without already having seen the inside on Google Maps, read several reviews on Yelp, and perused the menu online.
Except when it is not. Exposure can make an autistic person's anxiety worse.
Exposure therapy can make sense if it always resorts in good outcomes but that’s the issue - bad things do happen. And sometimes bad things happen more often to those who are “needing” exposure therapy.
Just randomly doing shit that causes you stress isn't exposure therapy. It's just hazing yourself and rolling the dice as to the outcome.
> Exposure therapy can make sense if it always resorts in good outcomes but that’s the issue
I think you have an over-simplified notion of "good outcome" here.
It's not necessarily about achieving the goal of the action, it's about seeing that the catastrophizing scenarios in your head aren't based in reality. In the example with the ugly kid, if he's afraid that asking a girl out will lead to her laughing in his face and publicly humiliating him, then even simply being rejected with compassion is enough to thwart that catastrophizing.
But, of course, having him ask out every girl at the school is a terrible example of "exposure therapy". Strangers should not be used as unconsenting test subjects in one's personal therapy.
OP is considering going off social grid as they understand it ... OK, dumping doom-scrolling and sitting in a cafe alone and being obviously alone and then looking around and noticing things.
That sort of "interaction" used to be normal. Having a billion people within ear shot was not normal until about 15 years ago.
> I decided to leave my phone at home
I used to do this too but soon I realized I wanted my phone for payments (say, coffee) and/or unlocking public bikes (like Lime).
Now I have 2 phones: - Phone A with my SIM, internet, payment cards, but unlogged from any internet account - Phone B, no SIM, usually connected to Phone A via hotspot, with email, messaging apps, logged into hacker news and everything.
When I want to take an offline walk/ebike-ride I only bring Phone A with me.
Another thing to try is to go to a diner alone. Same deal.
Oh yeah. This is one of the things I enjoy most when traveling for work (more often than not means traveling alone). I can go to dinner alone, watch people interact, feel the city, the people, the staff.
Discovering dinner alone to me was an interesting experience. And a lovely one at that.
I sit alone in cafes all the time, for many reasons. I don’t feel particularly joyful about it nor weird. I just do it to take a break and have something to drink, or wait for someone or something. Often I don’t look at my phone at all. That doesn’t feel weird either, or rebellious, or whatever the author experiences.
I don’t understand the post at all.
I’d have gone to Japan. I’ve been to Japan, it’s awesome.
When you're so addicted to checking at your phone (like me and many others), it does feel weird to sit and not look at it.
I say this to help you understand, nothing more.
Two people can go to the exact same venue, do the exact same things, and have radically different experiences because of how our different internal worlds collide with that same external world.
And a further part of the magic of being human is that we're then able to share those experiences with each other. I wouldn't want to diminish someone else's experience of a place simply because I didn't have that same experience.
And a gym like la fitness is 30/mo
Personally, I prefer to walk/hike but I understand that isn't enough for everyone.
That many/most people don't really utilize their gym memberships is a separate issue from some people getting value out of them. You seemed to be arguing that gym memberships in general are stupid for anyone.
It really depends on what kind of workouts you're talking about and what your constraints are outside the gym. Though I acknowledge many people are just on autopilot, get gym memberships they won't really use effectively, and waste their time and money.
(and don't say just do an alternative; there is none at those weights and I enjoy it)
A decade ago I was working a boring job paying the bills in a small company. I honestly felt that despite being financially safe I was wasting my life. I didn't believe in the company mission and I wasn't gaining new skills. I was bored out.
I went to a cafe every morning for 30min BEFORE my actual job. I did whatever I wanted, meaning reading, writing, jolting down ideas, being productive or not, but the point was it was MY time to think.
This is so basic. I went with a notebook, a pencil, paid 2€ every morning for a basic black coffee... but what was special was having a dedicated time and place regularly to just inch at it, whatever "it" might be for me.
Well, fast forward ~10 years and I'm HYPED. I'm so excited pretty much every morning that I can't help for the next day to work on more interesting projects.
TL;DR: yes, go to the cafe, alone, for yourself.
- embrace liminal spaces
We tend to see such spaces as waste. We tend to skip them. We use any trick possible, from rushing to having a mobile phone with a podcast. We find ways to avoid being alone with our thoughts.
Guess where ideas come from? Shower? Waiting for the bus? ... they come from our running minds NOT being entertained.
Embrace liminal spaces. Make your own liminal spaces. They are liberating.
What used to feel like 10 minutes between breakfast and lunch while working became a full-blown day. Even though I was spending two hours walking my dog instead of a 30-40 minute rush, it felt like an eternity"
My dog has a way of slowing down time, although he won't tell me how. I think as humans we know what we expect from this other species, but they have a way of reorganizing the walk to suit themselves. I do it largely to bond with my best bud and get some exercise. He on the other hand goes out to catch up on doggy social media, with endless sniffing and donating further smells. Every walk is different - the route's the same but the sensory part is constantly changing. All this takes place, silently. We go back home satisfied but I know my boi gets the most satisfaction from it!
Drifting is a way to push all that feedback in the background. It does not necessarily have to be a staycation at a cafe. It can be a walk in a park, a morning jog with a friend who's comfortable with your silence, a book reading session in the twilight. We need to slow down and relax to truly appreciate the pace of life, and drifting is such an awesome way to do it. Lovely post. It reminded me of good times in the past, and that I need to make time for them in future.
There is nothing wrong with it.
I think that many people feel like their lives suck in some way that they can't define or explain, and they want something to blame it on, and their phone is an excellent target. It's relatively new. Of course it's the source of recent problems. It's CONVENIENT. You can do something about it by simply not looking at it.
Your phone is not the source of any of your problems.
They will blame anything but the billionaires.
But to be a devil's advocate: I think most phone issues arise from a child's use of them. They don't have the discipline to put a phone down, and then it enshrines habits that last into adult hood. Gen Z is the testing grounds for such a phenomenon.
Sadly, working adults who need to chat with work, get calls for interviews, schedule and get updates on appointments, and check on family do need to have their phone on the ready. I don't think anyone is condemning the people here. Just the system.
And of course,culture.30 years ago, if your kid got hurt you wouldn't be considered an ignorant parent if the school took an hour to get a hold of you on a phone. They may even call your work and have that relayed over to you. Now, good luck even having the chance to speak to a human that can receive the message, let alone relay the message to the right branch and team to you.
Fresh out the gate just wrong and confused.
It was absolutely glorious. I got to think my own thoughts, get bored, get into conversations with random people.
I should do it more often.
In that situation I can usually last about 5 minutes before my brain says write that thought down, you'll forget it so forcefully that the bath gets cut short. Rampant unmedicated ADHD has a lot to answer for. So I can second the physical writing recommendation, if only because having a laptop in the bath is a really stupid idea.
My thinking is clearest when I am not working. It tends to be when I am: - Seated in a neutral place - My inbox is closed - There are no tasks to work on - I am free to think It feels like I am not doing anything, but often I’m making decisions I won't regret.
I think of it like this: - Input (reading, meetings, slack, other activities) - Output (creating, writing, executing) - Integration (doing nothing but thinking) Most calendars are packed with no time for the third.
Do you leave space for this? How do you make sure it’s not taken up by work? ~
- provide a strong incentive to go to bed at the correct time for my body every day because that's the only way to not over sleep
- enjoy the joy of waking up without an alarm every day
- provide some of this clear thinking time. Either at night when I'm sitting in bed not quite super tired yet, or in the morning when I woke up a bit early before everyone else
Also, the reason people feel comfortable with dogs is because, you don't need to act or talk in way to impress the dog, while technically not being alone. You don't get this freedom while being with people, unless you are the boss of the gang. The lack of freedom is usually offset of by the benefit of sharing, laughs and a feeling that you have achieved your goal of impressing others.
No it’s simpler than that:
1) sitting alone - you’re a weirdo
2) sitting doing nothing public, staring off into space like you’re a zen master - no, you’re a weirdo
3) blogposting how you sat alone in a public space for 30 minutes and how this is an “unbearable joy” - do I need to spell it out?
This person needs help. They are having an episode. If someone has gone so far as to have this level of emotional outburst by leaving their phone at home, there’s deeper issues to unpack.
For the rest of us, sitting down at the cafe to have a nice drink and something to eat while we look at the cars and foot traffic going by is a perfectly normal activity.
When I discovered the whole "doing things alone" stuff a decade ago, it felt like a pressure was lifted off me. It's been good. It brings me extra joy when I take people to places that I frequent as well, it just feels like I'm introducing them to my own little spots. Hope you enjoy more of it!
Not at all. I've never been a huge cafe person, so I don't have much firsthand experience with this, but I do recall a time before laptops and cell phones when people would go to cafes to just read the newspaper or a magazine. Heck, some cafes even had the daily paper there for you to borrow if you wanted.
On the second day, I decided to leave my phone at home, so
I lived those two hours to the fullest. I didn’t take any
device that could connect me to the internet or to other
people.
Certainly not with pen and paper. Lol that skill gone these days can't write a sentence I can read later.
i used to leave my copy of the weekend FT or the economist at one and there were people who would wait for me to be finished with it. others would have been reading it for months without knowing i was the one who supplied it.
friends knew where to find me and could show up and sit at my table for a bit on their way places. covid policies killed most of those cafes in my city, and nothing can replace a multi decade family run restaurant that anchored a neighbourhood. its part of why i don't forgive what happened. it was my culture they dismantled in their hysteria. i am glad nature is healing and younger people are learning how to be welcome and open to the serendipity of participating in the city. i was worried i was the last of the boulevardiers. get a book, turn off your phone, dont look at the prices and just sit somewhere for a while, eat and drink as much as you enjoy, and just be a quiet pleasant presence. the world rewards it.
This is good enough for me. Yeah I have a family and a son, but I enjoy sitting alone with a cup of coffee (doesn't have to be in a Cafe), programming my own project.
As the article hints, sitting in a crowded place sometimes actually REDUCES distraction, because those white noise around me reduces the need to pull out my cell phone. I think I always perform better in such an environment.
> There were a few moments I put my hand into my pocket to take out my phone to look up something I was curious about. My phone wasn’t there.
That is the level that smartphone addiction is on. Literally ruining peoples lives.
What is that exactly? A cup of percolator coffee with a double shot of espresso into the cup? Or a long black (a double shot of espresso filled up with hot water) plus two extra espresso shots? Or just a long black expressed in a complicated way?
Presumably this. Coffee terminology is (apparently) not global. I've never seen the term "long black", and I visit cafés quite a lot. Wikipedia lists it as a thing primarily in Australia/New Zealand.
Because at the same time they themselves sound entrenched in it by making an effort to take a step back and appreciate something as simple and normal as sitting alone in a cafe.
- None of my colleagues, and nobody in any of my social circles, would ever be seen dead there
- You meet the best people, everyones really nice
- Nobody judges anybody, we're all just there go get a bit pissed, lots of people socialising, some people are there doing a crossword, I'm just a guy sitting on my laptop coding, nobody cares
- I can focus better with lots of background noise
- Cheap beer
If you've not tried it, try it!
Worth it though for ~£1.30 unlimited tea and coffee.
It's the sort of place you can go at 9am and see people having a full English breakfast with a large glass of wine. It's people who want to drink a lot of alcohol for not a lot of money, but not quite at the point where they're buying very cheap cider (which is always alcoholic in the UK), and sitting in the park with it. There's a veneer of high-functioning about it.
They do vary a bit (the "posh pub" in central Hull is the 'spoons, one of the roughest pubs I've been to in West London is also a 'spoons), but the clientele are typically white, working class, pro-Brexit (the founder is very anti-EU and publishes an in-house propaganda mag to that effect), pretty right wing, heavy drinkers.
It's not my preferred crowd, I'd rather spend a bit more and go to a pub where there's a chance somebody is reading something other than the Daily Mail or The Sun, but each to their own.
That's a massive stretch. In my experience, the common denominator with Wetherspoons is it's somewhere people go for the cheap drinks and food. You get people of different backgrounds, age ranges and political beliefs going to Wetherspoons pubs (including plenty of apolitical people). The only undeniably true statements is that Tim Martin was pro-Brexit and there was anti-EU material in the Wetherspoons magazine around the time of the Brexit referendum, but beyond that it's not an issue that's particularly high profile anymore, it's not part of daily conversation like it once was, many people have moved on from discussing it.
In the centre of the city there are three spoons. One for the people with tattoos on their knuckles (near the magistrates' court oddly - I used to pick up gossip in the barbers round the corner but he has been bought out so the building can be converted in to 'luxury apartments'), one for the old geezers with leather jackets and a third very large one opposite a conference centre. This latter one very well managed and always a seat. All kinds of people but never rammed.
That isn't alone though. People are anxious to sit alone in a cafe because they think it's weird being all alone. But when you're with a dog - it's a different story.
Some of my most interesting moments have come from simply sitting still and doing nothing.
Highly recommended.
Very well written title though.
The post is eloquently written, and if it inspires people to take a little time for themselves the world will be a little of a better place because of it. And posting it makes the author a little vulnerable; I’d much rather people write posts like this than self-censor because they’d be exposed to ridicule.
Except the dog thing. PLEASE do not bring your dog into a cafe. Somehow people like me are in the minority though so I will stop here.
https://www.ft.com/content/db5bb7a8-f7f3-4953-9c8f-870073943...
The writing style...
quickly loses it's luster.
After you make it past the title.
This reminds me of a experience that I encountered in my own life that i wish more people felt when explaining. I am not the best at telling stories but i will try to keep it short.
There was a time i lived in Florida for a few years and it was joyous i must say. I love nature and Florida sure does have that to offer, ignoring the politics and the obstacles that take the joy out of Florida. I visited many national parks, exploring animals That i have never seen before that are native to that region, i cant put into words how wonderful it is to see some of these animals living in their habitat going about their business. One thing that stuck out was when i was walking a trail and came across a small box turtle crossing a trail and i picked up to see it not thinking of why it might be crossing away from water, first i thought doesn't thing need to be around water shortly after i realized that it does not " it is a box turtle". I returned the turtle a little further away from where i originally picked it up and sat on a near by bench to watch it continue it's journey. As i sat down the turtle continued to stare at me at disgust as to how dare i touch it and move it from its original location. From there i see the turtle continue walking and returned to the same exact path it was already going before it's interruption from the degenerate up right ape evolved clothed creature , myself. i think about that everyday because despite all of it's interruptions it ignored all of that and continued the slow path towards its goal. At times I think we really don't understand the world nor the reality that is around us, some more than others, some due to the influx of societies pressure that are at times blinders for a horse to on one path.
It's everyone else with the incessant noise; non-stop music; speaker/video calls; and now AI talking back to you via phone. Speakerphones are the worst, I cannot believe we normalized having a two way conversation via speakerphone while holding it up to your ear.
I used to enjoy nature and just sitting and staring, with portable bluetooth speakers and phones blasting music, I can't do that anymore. I used to enjoy the library and just sitting, reading whatever random facts I could find. Last couple times I went, I was yelled at to mind my own business by people when I asked them to take their phone conversations to the lobby. So I went to another library, librarians were loud and several meetings via Teams were going on by different people.
Local rail trails are similar, I can't just take a walk in peace and quiet anymore. Honestly, removing the 3.5mm port is when I started noticing when it all got worse.
It's not normal, those people are rude.
Same goes for not caring about what people in think when you're trying to work on your health and go to a gym.
I don't know, it just feels really bad, no one wants to be treated badly, it's that simple. But if you can manage to find a good spot where it just works out for you, treasure/keep that.
Solitude is precious when it is done with purpose.
"It was pure delight. Every element. Or rather, the non-existence of any element. No phone. No headphones. No tablet. No laptop." I believe I can do this anywhere.
They talk about interactions with people in the cafe but it is primarily avoiding interactions.
Solution: I bring along a flask and use the paper cup as a cup and flask as cache. Means I lose the discount offered on byo but doesn't matter.
I love lingering in cafés. In the summer, I bike from café to café, catching up with my reading and slowly getting to a productive state. I'll do a bit of reading for work, maybe annotate some articles, eventually open my laptop, and if I'm lucky meet friends along the way. I often leave at 9 and come home at around midnight.
If I'm feeling lazy, I just do it on my balcony. Spending the first hour of the day just gathering your thoughts does wonders for your wellbeing. This winter, I created a space for this inside too. I recently got a nice stereo and I put easy listening music on it while I have my morning coffee. No phone, no emails, just me, my thoughts and a warm drink.
When I travel, I do the same. I sketch and make watercolours on the go. I've done this in dozens of countries, and not once have I got the impression that being on your own in a café was odd. What a weird take.
Very related: https://tomaguir.substack.com/p/how-to-waste-a-morning-prope...
Are you in a top tier city? Very very few cafes are open late (later than 8pm) in cities and if youre not in a big city, Chicago, NYC, Seattle etc etc you will likely have none open that late. It's definitely a culture thing. Not many folks are drinking coffee / hanging out that late in cafes. Enough do, but nowhere near as much as Europeans do
I was born and raised in Canada. I manage to keep up my routine just fine when I visit. Sure, the cafes are in the middle of a parking lot by a box store, but in a pinch they'll do.
This is hardly a "top tier city" thing. I went on many road trips and pretty much always managed to start my day with a slow coffee, even in the smallest towns.
Grating.
The Wal Mart plaza is only a mile away, but unfortunately its a fully uphill mile that has me going 200 feet in elevation. And in terms of cafe, it's simply a tiny corner Starbucks. The local joints are about 3 miles out east or west as a start.
My nearest park is 6-7 miles away, meanwhile. I don't know about going there for coffee, but it'd be a nice little bike route. My city does fortunately have quite a few dedicated bike paths as some solace against the usual car centric society.
It's not just the driving that sucks, but the ugly environment it created.
> I smiled. Every. Single. Time.
> On the second day, I randomly walked into a neighborhood café. I ordered an americano with a double shot of espresso.
And then I paid for the coffee with my pho- oh fuck.
This is written not by a human. Because almost every other coffeeshop has tables with a single chair.
There are three classes of people likely to be found alone:
* Geniuses.
* Psychopaths.
* Psychopathic geniuses.Marcus Aurelius likely quipped about pompous resorts during one of his many four day public holiday visits to Alsium (a pompous seaside resort town), although he was known to write at length about the work he did on holidays rather than the time he spent on the beach.
As for retirement .. not a thing for Marcus. He died* age 58 in his military quarters while on active tour of Roman provinces (in either Austria or Serbia apparently).
> Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead.
Not OP, just wondering if the unwritten conventions changed since I was here the last time.
The writing might not be innovative or groundbreaking, but it is a great and relaxing piece of text that helps me connect to another person. It was a good read.