Been talking about it for a while now. U need to let ur brain absorb all of the things you are consuming. Let it marinate.
https://www.unsungnovelty.org/posts/04/2025/you-dont-need-ai...
Hello, me. It's been a while
101–110 of 219 posts
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#102It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored. It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. One passable option is to take a 20 minute walk with no stimulus beyond the scenery. Journaling regularly. Meditation provides a similar experience but feels like a different lane. For me I do find a similar experience to the OP. It’s easy to feel yourself going a little crazy getting sucked a…
The way I write my novels is by reviewing a chapter I'm stuck on and its context, then going on a long run, and 20 minutes out, shutting my music off. I have, at that point, at least 20 minutes, if not 60+, where I'm easily thinking about and brainstorming for the chapter. It's wonderful. It sort of "compresses" the ambient sounds in the same way eating pancakes with syrup temporarily destroys your ability to taste slightly less sweet things.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#103It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored. It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. One passable option is to take a 20 minute walk with no stimulus beyond the scenery. Journaling regularly. Meditation provides a similar experience but feels like a different lane. For me I do find a similar experience to the OP. It’s easy to feel yourself going a little crazy getting sucked a…
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
I have headphones present constantly for the opposite reason. When doing tasks that fail to provide interest (housework, some work tasks) the external stimulus stops me distractedly finding something else (posting on HN for instance!) to do instead of completing the task. Also when running in town, though I don't need it when out on the trails as the scenery is more than enough to sooth my mind into a pleasant state.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. While this is true, I'd word it differently: It's sort of the opposite of an activity, and we've conditioned our brains to hate it. Boredom used to be absolutely normal in our society for pretty much ever, and the urge to do something about it when it occurred was a lot weaker than it is now.
I disagree. I remember when I was a kid and didn't have access to smartphones (didn't exist) or other sources of constant entertainment. My days were basically just kindergarten and dicking around with other kids. But I remember I absolutely dreaded going to the doctor's office, taking a long distance train, or any other kind of "activity" that involved long periods of waiting around. I would find it extremely boring…
Clothes shopping with Mom. I remember how torturous it was. How my brain felt like it was on fire with boredom, and how all-consuming the pain of it all was.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#105> Recently, as I reached for the play button out of habit, I stopped. I thought: what if I just do this chore in silence today? It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice? I just love silence. I can't work in anything but complete silence. In open spaces I wear earplugs. (If I'm not wearing earplugs it means I'm not do…
>most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice? I can't generalize for everyone and maybe some of those people you observe are just listening to music all day long. In my circle, we have earphones all the time because we're listening to podcasts of news, tech industry commentary, macroeconomics and finance, etc. If one is working…
My non expert and personal opinion is that multitasking for a long time is not a free lunch and could lead to burnout for most people
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office. I remember waiting for an hour or so at the doctor's office in France. The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came. Had that with multiple doctors so doesn'…
I typically show up an hour late at the doctors office if my appointment is in the afternoon. It gives the doctor some time to catch up on patients and when I show up I’m the next in line. It benefits both of us.
If you did that in the USA, you would lose your appointment and possibly be billed for a no-show.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#107> Recently, as I reached for the play button out of habit, I stopped. I thought: what if I just do this chore in silence today? It seems most people today have headphones on all the time. I don't understand it. I'm not sure, but it would seem people hate their own voice? I just love silence. I can't work in anything but complete silence. In open spaces I wear earplugs. (If I'm not wearing earplugs it means I'm not do…
> but it would seem people hate their own voice?
Hell yes. And the other bits of me hate me and each other. Being alone with my own thoughts can be a dangerous situation.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#108I’m over the hill, and I’ve found I just can’t handle the distractions of music or podcasts most of the time. I need silence when working, cooking, reading, etc. There are few situations where I feel I can listen to things i.e. driving so long as I don’t need to focus on them. I’m not sure what changed or if it’s a good thing. Music used to be a huge part of my life, played at all times. Now I have to deliberately do nothing but listen, which gives me a weird sensation of boredom or fidgety anxiety, so I don’t do it very much anymore. I suspect an attention disorder worsened by years of overstimulation.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#109> I’m a slow thinker, like really slow. It takes a few minutes just to get my thoughts moving in a direction. But once they pick up momentum, I can easily spend fifteen or thirty minutes exploring an idea, weighing different options Here's to the slow thinking! Cheers!!
When this was posted to HN, a lot of people could relate: https://sive.rs/slow
For me, I'm not sure if "slow" is the right word. I think "delayed" or "sporadic" is more accurate.
Thoughts for me are like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't think of it right away. Often you'll think of the word later: you weren't actively thinking about it, but the thought was simmering in your mind and just randomly pops up.
Re: Hello, me. It's been a while
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk Natural selection might pick for this trait because if you can gather and evaluate and otherwise process a large volume of information you might be able to better find food, avoid getting eaten, and finding a mate to mate with. executive function and intuition filter, but you need a bunch of data to feed on.
Picture yourself in a location where getting eaten is problem. Now intersect those locations with internet coverage. Your statement didn't make much sense anymore
There in lies the problem. The environment these days is evolving far faster than our species. Just because our biological programming is no longer fit for purpose, doesn't mean we've evolved beyond said programming.
Even if we could completely rewrite our programming with each new generation, think about how much the world changes in a single lifetime these days.