The Joy of Quiet

#1

Post by neel980 » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 1:51 PM UTC

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#2

Post by ryandvm » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 2:49 PM UTC

My own personal version of this happens during my work day commute. No radio, no podcasts, no phone calls.

I've found that unless I have about 30 minutes/day or so of thinking time, I tend to lose focus on my longer term projects.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#3

Post by ek » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

This was wonderful. Pico Iyer is an amazing writer from a family of intellectuals. The University of California obit for his father, Raghavan, notes that Raghavan was "an inspired and inspiring scholar and teacher on the Santa Barbara campus from 1965 to 1986". I have personally had teachers inspired by the works of both Raghavan and his son.

His point, too, is one that I have found increasingly important for myself. Joel Gascoigne's post "6 things I do to be consistently happy" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405127) in some sense echoes similar thoughts. Like Joel, I exercise most mornings, and like Joel, I stop all electronics at 11 most nights and read (fiction) for an hour. While it is often difficult to step away from computers and smartphones and the Internet, I find that exercise and books satisfy me deeply in a way the Internet is frequently unable to.

A friend pointed out to me that books possess a pretty much optimal SNR, which may have something to do with this.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#4

Post by personlurking » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:23 PM UTC

If you travel, you may enjoy Iyer's Why We Travel story.

"If a diploma can famously be a passport (to a journey through hard realism), a passport can be a diploma (for a crash course in cultural relativism). And the first lesson we learn on the road, whether we like it or not, is how provisional and provincial are the things we imagine to be universal."

http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/why-we-trave...

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#5

Post by smugengineer69 » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:30 PM UTC

Robot apologist here, but for some reason neo-Luddism has become fashionable again and it bothers me. Is this really a war over little pings from email inboxes? Are we truly that oppressed by the ability to find out anything about anything? Do we need a virtual Moses to part the red sea of push notifications? I find it really difficult to sympathize with this line of argument. This is either a case of misconfigured notifications or of honest Amish-like fear of technology, and neither of these make sense to me.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#6

Post by maw » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:39 PM UTC

Iyer conflates a number of things here.

Quiet is generally good, but how important it is depends a lot on one's personality, needs at a given moment, and so on.

Not being constantly interrupted is also a good thing, but, again, it depends a lot on one's personality type, work being undertaken, and so forth.

Being disconnected from other people (I suspect but can't prove that Starck is basically full of shit, but there do exist people who could credibly claim such isolation) is something else entirely. Maybe it is good and maybe it isn't: I've never had the chance to try over an extended period. I'll submit that you can have isolation without quiet or lack of interruptions, by the way.

Get those mixed up and there's nowhere you can go, precisely where Iyer takes us.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#7

Post by neel980 » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:46 PM UTC

This is the first piece I have read by Pico and it reminded me of a quote by Gandhi I had noticed on the London Underground "There is more to life than increasing its speed".

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#8

Post by moystard » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC

Having moved in London two years ago, I struggle to find a moment of intense quiet. The reason is mainly the planes that are authorized to fly above the city (a stupidity in my opinion) and even in the middle of a park, you can still hear them, flying just above your head.

At night, cars, ambulances, you name it, will take the relay.. Frustrating.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#9

Post by breckenedge » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

moystard wrote: post #8

Having moved in London two years ago, I struggle to find a moment of intense quiet. The reason is mainly the planes that are authorized to fly above the city (a stupidity in my opinion) and even in the middle of a park, you can still hear them, flying just above your head. At night, cars, ambulances, you name it, will take the relay.. Frustrating.

Yep, same experience. Horses on cobblestones at 4am.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#10

Post by lifeisstillgood » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

  recalling that it’s only by stepping briefly away from my 
  wife and bosses and friends that I’ll have anything useful
  to bring to them.

That is deeply true. I picked my 3 year old son up from school two weeks ago, and sat on a bench in a churchyard near the school. Normally we rush through there hurrying to a playdate or just giddy on scooters with friends.

But this time we sat, ate a sandwich and stopped. I pointed out the bird song and it was like a different world for him - the church had become something new, an extra layer to the world.

I won't try to hold him back from the giddy rush of three wheeled scooters and playground running. But I must try to just show him some stillness - perhaps a little more often too.