Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Maybe the default settings are too high

raptitude.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 332 posts

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#11

Post by powvans »

I find walking can be a similar experience. It really crystalized for me this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago because of the effect of exploring another country. When you walk, you see everything. The world is huge. Everything is slower, higher fidelity, and for me, richer. You can spend an entire day walking from one town to another. Think of everything you will see! Compare this to driving. Driving is like compression. You could drive between the same two towns in less than an hour. You may see many beautiful things while driving, but the experience is fleeting and momentary. You will miss so many details along the way.

As always, there are tradeoffs, and you can't walk everywhere or always have these types of mindful experiences. On the other hand, life is short and perhaps paradoxically, slower experiences can yield richer days.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#13

Post by maplethorpe »

projektfu wrote: post #5

Does Dostoyevsky really need the slow treatment? Some parts of crime and punishment merited rereading but, at least in English translation, I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it was more thematically interesting and suspenseful.

Were you reading it in the original Russian?

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#14

Post by irishcoffee »

delichon wrote: post #6

My dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water, but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and ordering us around. About an hour into that,…

My spouse and I dealt with this on our honeymoon. We were both working 50-80 hour weeks for months leading up to our trip. The first day we got to this all-inclusive resort we spent the whole time trying to min/max and be as efficient and calculated as possible. It was a stressful, miserable day.

Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#15

Post by JumpCrisscross »

maplethorpe wrote: post #13
projektfu wrote: post #5

Does Dostoyevsky really need the slow treatment? Some parts of crime and punishment merited rereading but, at least in English translation, I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it was more thematically interesting and suspenseful.

Were you reading it in the original Russian?

Haven’t gotten around to re-reading Dostoyevsky. But Turgenev’s English translations absolutely benefit from slow reading.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#16

Post by wredcoll »

Morizero wrote: post #4

LotR is a product of a slower era. I wonder how a modern/recent example would compare

There's certainly slow books still being written but most fantasy books in specific assume a certain amount of knowledge about a tolkien-esque world. You can do entirely new worlds, and some people do, but most stories are about people and the choices they make.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#17

Post by tetromino_ »

projektfu wrote: post #5

Does Dostoyevsky really need the slow treatment? Some parts of crime and punishment merited rereading but, at least in English translation, I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it was more thematically interesting and suspenseful.

In the original Russian, Dostoyevsky requires the slow treatment. He loves the sort of 1/3 page long sentences that perplex the fast-path parser and force the reader's brain to swap; as if he wants to drive you mad so that you can better understand the madmen whom he writes about.

Re: Maybe the default settings are too high

#18

Post by dsubburam »

Music is an interesting case. You can't slow down the consumption of music (you have to let it play at the speed the performer intended), but you can dial up the attention you give it. Listening with headphones, eyes closed, and phone+doorbell etc. switched off would be close to max. Sitting at a live concert (I am thinking classical) is up there too, because you've given yourself permission to not think of/work on anything else in that time. For music, we can say that the default settings are too LOW.

And similar to the point OP made, you get more out of it when you attend more closely. And similarly, most music does not withstand this level of scrutiny.

Post reply on HN