I rather liked this essay, although it could have been trimmed significantly without significant loss of meaning. Making the same point a dozen different ways is less important when the audience already agrees with you. Perhaps that's the point though - I found myself wandering from reading this several times, so it took multiple sittings to finish. Which is good! Better than a skimmable #content digest that I'd not reflect on later.
When was the last time you (or me, or anyone under the age of 50) sat down and read a book for 2 hours? I think you are exactly right -- we have a problem. No one can focus...and the capacity to be bored is wrecked. Thanks for your comment...
It's actually been a good year for book books...The Mind Reels, The Cult Of Smart, IABIED, The Burning Wheel, (rereading) Land Is A Big Deal. Currently I'm attempting to hack my way through Ulysses, which is a real struggle. For me, it's less about not-reading period, and more that the form has trended over time towards blogs and webfiction. Sometimes these can be real doorstoppers too - I rather enjoyed epic fanfictions of Moby Dick and The Odyssey recently. But yes, far easier to wander off distractedly to some other tab versus a classic page-turner. Something is certainly lost.
This is an interesting article, but I find several of the citations less than credible. In "Young Americans are also, according to data, less curious, less willing to disagree and less likely to take risks." the link within the word "take" is simply to a Deepseek chat while several others include the "utm_source" of chatgpt, meaning that it was sourced from there ie: " Furthermore, 64% of social media users report experiencing anxiety as a result of their usage..."
Hi, thanks for pointing this out. I just repasted the original Google Doc, which has all the correct links, and rechecked several (including the one you mentioned) to ensure they’re properly sourced. Everything should now be accurate. I appreciate you catching this.
I used to get bored all the time, but meditation pretty much cured it. This is called "monkey-mind" in the meditation community and is one of the first things you learn to deal with in meditating. Boredom while meditating is the failure case of meditation.
(Lots of different perspectives on meditation, this is mine)
Can I laugh now because I am bored? Let's see...if we assume, as the scientists claim, the universe is about 13.8 billion years old and then assume we manage to live to be 100 years old...we can conclude that we spent about 0.0000007246% of the entire universe's life living in it.
Who the fricking heck has time to be bored? You are here for a blink of an eye.
I rather liked this essay, although it could have been trimmed significantly without significant loss of meaning. Making the same point a dozen different ways is less important when the audience already agrees with you. Perhaps that's the point though - I found myself wandering from reading this several times, so it took multiple sittings to finish. Which is good! Better than a skimmable #content digest that I'd not reflect on later.
When was the last time you (or me, or anyone under the age of 50) sat down and read a book for 2 hours? I think you are exactly right -- we have a problem. No one can focus...and the capacity to be bored is wrecked. Thanks for your comment...
It's actually been a good year for book books...The Mind Reels, The Cult Of Smart, IABIED, The Burning Wheel, (rereading) Land Is A Big Deal. Currently I'm attempting to hack my way through Ulysses, which is a real struggle. For me, it's less about not-reading period, and more that the form has trended over time towards blogs and webfiction. Sometimes these can be real doorstoppers too - I rather enjoyed epic fanfictions of Moby Dick and The Odyssey recently. But yes, far easier to wander off distractedly to some other tab versus a classic page-turner. Something is certainly lost.
This is a fantastic essay! Thank you for researching and writing it.
This is an interesting article, but I find several of the citations less than credible. In "Young Americans are also, according to data, less curious, less willing to disagree and less likely to take risks." the link within the word "take" is simply to a Deepseek chat while several others include the "utm_source" of chatgpt, meaning that it was sourced from there ie: " Furthermore, 64% of social media users report experiencing anxiety as a result of their usage..."
Hi, thanks for pointing this out. I just repasted the original Google Doc, which has all the correct links, and rechecked several (including the one you mentioned) to ensure they’re properly sourced. Everything should now be accurate. I appreciate you catching this.
I used to get bored all the time, but meditation pretty much cured it. This is called "monkey-mind" in the meditation community and is one of the first things you learn to deal with in meditating. Boredom while meditating is the failure case of meditation.
(Lots of different perspectives on meditation, this is mine)
Can I laugh now because I am bored? Let's see...if we assume, as the scientists claim, the universe is about 13.8 billion years old and then assume we manage to live to be 100 years old...we can conclude that we spent about 0.0000007246% of the entire universe's life living in it.
Who the fricking heck has time to be bored? You are here for a blink of an eye.