I say rhetoric because, it’s clearly written to be very persuasive, and in my new self-described Kegan 4 state, I’m wary of being immediately swayed by sexy rhetoric and diving straight into someone else’s prescriptions
So that’s why I’m here, to do a me-focused thing. What personally resonated from the first reading? How did it relate to my own life? Do I want to consider making some changes as a result of reading the post?
1. What I took away from my first reading
No one wants to waste their life
I found this section soothing and compassion-generating re: my frustration with my family
Unity of experience
AKA the importance of, the profundity of, the flow state
Vervaeke talks about this too, in one of the early “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” posts → humans love the flow state, it feels great. It’s a profound signal of things going well. It’s actually the “success criteria” of participatory knowing. To be fully in flow, to be absorbed, to be skillfully interfacing with the affordances in your environment, to have profound agent-arena fittedness
And therefore, the terribleness of modernity
Constant entertainment, multi-tasking, living in “the shallows”
Unlike the ipod years, where you’d have to untangle the wires and sync stuff etc. With airpods it’s very easy to use them all the time, whenever you’re making a cup of tea or going to the toilet or going on a walk, etc. They couldn’t be more convenient, truly
Solo-task much more
Constant micro context switches
Wake up, check twitter, check messages, listen to a voice note, send a voice note. Put a podcast on whilst I make breakfast. Get to laptop. Flashcards, check email, check Slack. Go on twitter. Prioritise day. Multi-task, messenging apps open or a keyboard shortcut away. Refresh email, feel overwhelmed, lock in for a pomodoro. Make another cup of tea, listening to podcast. Etc etc
There’s constant micro-context-switches happening throughout the day
A thing that the Bonesaw post points to that I really like is depth of concentration, and unity of awareness. Cultivating the flow state, and protecting it.
Why not batch things ruthlessly?
Why do I check my emails 20 times a day, despite not wanting to reply to any of them? Why not reply to them ever 2 or 3 days, clearing the decks and then refusing to look again?
One answer is → because it’s not the default behaviour. There’s no effortless way to tell your computer “I only want to be able to access emails during email time”. Conversely, there is an easy keyboard shortcut to go to my email client, either via spotlight, or via my window manager. Multi-tasking is baked in, single-tasking, deep work, is a constant struggle
Why the need for entertainment?
Why listen to podcasts during any down time? Why is making a cup of tea unstimulated so scary?
I’ve known for ages that the constant comedy podcast usage is probably dumb. I’ve read “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, I’ve read Infinite Jest (twice!). But, idk, I don’t have access to good in person connection, is my reasoning - why, am I supposed to be totally isolated? Surely laughs with my parasocial fake friends is better for my brain? It’s good to laugh!
I think there’s truth in this. But there’s also truth in this - I’ve probably listened to enough comedy podcasts. I know where they lead - they don’t cumulative, there’s not that much to be gained, long term. And perhaps their value in keeping loneliness and boredom away is actually counterproductive - perhaps loneliness and boredom would be very useful. There’s an obvious way in which listening to podcasts is a rejection of the current moment - “this isn’t stimulating enough, this isn’t fun enough, I can’t just brush my teeth without being entertained, that would be a waste of time, why not multi-task?” But there’s a depth of experience in being present. And there’s a unity of experience in always single-tasking, treating the day as an unbroken sequence of events that you are fully present for (or at least, endeavouring to be fully present).
3. What I’ve done so far
My airpods are now hidden in the shed
My apple watch is turned off
Notifications on your wrist - why?
Sleep tracking - why? I can tell if I’m tired or not
Fitness tracking - I do like being able to see my cardio health. But if I work out and swim for a few months, I’ll get more fit
My iphone is downstairs
I put my iphone in its box, and put a post-it note on the box, and wrote what time it went in the box. It went in the box at 8pm, and I got it out of the box at 9am, after waking up early and going on a walk with no technology on me at all.
4. What about assessing the rhetoric before making changes?
I’ve been aware for a while, especially since starting at my contractor job, that I’m juggling far too much, day-to-day. Juggling a bunch of things and never really making progress on anything. Wild amounts of procrastination on certain admin-y things.
I’ve also been aware of the ridiculousness of my comedy podcast habits for months, and half-hoping for something to nudge me into giving them up
I haven’t done anything radical as a result of the rhetoric. I haven't bought hundreds of pounds worth of “minimising the pull” equipment. I’m just running some free experiments and seeing how it feels
So far, I’ve been slightly bored, dove into some aversive tasks in a flow state-y way (taxes), locked into writing this post (and linked posts, like Airpods are kind of insidious)
5. What I could do next
Make batching and solo-tasking easier
Block messaging apps from my phone and laptop for certain hours of the day?
Set up more ruthless entertainment blocks?
Currently I can only access youtube and reddit for 30 mins a day, but this keeps them as things that I think about daily. Maybe I could e.g. make them things I can only access 3 times a week, or something
Batch and timebox more, somehow, idk how… I don’t like too much routine, like “you will always do this task at this time every day”. But perhaps some version of this is worth it?