"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive." I have never enjoyed feeling busy.
I have the opposite, feeling busy means I am focused and doing meaningful challenging work
Busyness leads to bad decisions
11–20 of 88 posts
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
The opposite is idleness, which we also do not particularly enjoy and will make ourselves play to avoid. It's a spectrum. Too busy or too idle for too long and we break. Some people do not perceive this, they're either workaholics or aboulics. Tiredness and boredom are good things evolved to prevent damaging ourselves. If you ignore these you get burnout on one end, but no idea what is the opposite called.
> The opposite is idleness, which we also do not particularly enjoy and will make ourselves play to avoid [...] It's a spectrum. Too busy or too idle for too long and we break. Nope, there's a hidden axis you're implicitly ignoring. It's possible to be active and "in flow" doing something without feeling "busy". So it's not just a 1-dimensional spectrum of whether one is idle or doing things, but also the psyche/atti…
I found that a very nice observation! I've been struggling with stress lately and I feel like I'm surrounded by a culture where being busy is valued a lot, and people boast about how they stayed up very long to finish something, and it feels like that is a behavior that is reinforced.
I really like tackling things on my own time, and I feel this "tunnelling" a lot and I don't like it at all. Sometimes it can be nice, but I feel like due to stress I tunnel too much.
And I noticed that after being stressed for a while (weeks/months) it is very hard to come back and enjoy idleness. I think this is a problem in cultures with a "busy" work ethic.
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
The opposite is idleness, which we also do not particularly enjoy and will make ourselves play to avoid. It's a spectrum. Too busy or too idle for too long and we break. Some people do not perceive this, they're either workaholics or aboulics. Tiredness and boredom are good things evolved to prevent damaging ourselves. If you ignore these you get burnout on one end, but no idea what is the opposite called.
It is perfectly fine to be idle and bored; lay on grass and watch clouds or just do fishing... Not everyone comes from puritan american culture.
> puritan american culture [ => busy busy busy ]
There's definitely something to that. Calvinistic thinking that labor is pious seems to have been a part of American workplaces forever, especially tech. It's even a part even of the stackoverflow ethos-- god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front.
But it's all over the place. Look at the China tech sector with their popular 9-9-6 workweek. Is that an import from Western Calvinist thinking? I'm not sure, maybe?
Whatever the case, "busyness" certainly has been exploited to serve "the man" and not "god".
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The opposite is idleness, which we also do not particularly enjoy and will make ourselves play to avoid. It's a spectrum. Too busy or too idle for too long and we break. Some people do not perceive this, they're either workaholics or aboulics. Tiredness and boredom are good things evolved to prevent damaging ourselves. If you ignore these you get burnout on one end, but no idea what is the opposite called.
It is perfectly fine to be idle and bored; lay on grass and watch clouds or just do fishing... Not everyone comes from puritan american culture.
I don't like being busy, but I also like to be doing something active. I can only watch a couple episodes of a show before I have to create something or work with my hands or exercise. I don't think this has anything to do with a puritan culture.
BTW, no fishing I've ever done has been idle or boring. Fishing is generally a lot of work.
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#15"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive." I have never enjoyed feeling busy.
I suspect 'humans' is an attempt to avoid stereotyping/sexism - but some people certainly do if not enjoy actually being busy, enjoy talking about how busy they are and how little time they have. i.e. the enjoyment I think is in projecting a certain image of oneself; not necessarily actually embodying that image.
I'm not sure it's about enjoyment. At the extremes I suspect it's more of a compulsion.
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#16"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive." I have never enjoyed feeling busy.
The opposite is idleness, which we also do not particularly enjoy and will make ourselves play to avoid. It's a spectrum. Too busy or too idle for too long and we break. Some people do not perceive this, they're either workaholics or aboulics. Tiredness and boredom are good things evolved to prevent damaging ourselves. If you ignore these you get burnout on one end, but no idea what is the opposite called.
> but no idea what is the opposite called
Acedia
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#17"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive." I have never enjoyed feeling busy.
Most people would surely agree that neither under- nor over-stimulation is ideal on any kind of long term basis.
A 2 week project crunch can be exhilarating, but 6 months? No thanks!
Similarly a few weeks of beach vacation can be wonderfully relaxing, but months, years of "doing nothing" will soon become boring.
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is perfectly fine to be idle and bored; lay on grass and watch clouds or just do fishing... Not everyone comes from puritan american culture.
> puritan american culture [ => busy busy busy ] There's definitely something to that. Calvinistic thinking that labor is pious seems to have been a part of American workplaces forever, especially tech. It's even a part even of the stackoverflow ethos-- god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front. But it's all over the place. Look at the China tech sector with their popular…
I think China has a well enough set of different traditions to gather from (that perhaps have common antique roots), rather than having been influenced by US' or European's puritanism currents. :)
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is perfectly fine to be idle and bored; lay on grass and watch clouds or just do fishing... Not everyone comes from puritan american culture.
Not every American feels like it isn’t okay to be idle and bored. I guess you haven’t been following the real noise about moving to a four day workweek in America. Can we leave the sweeping, judgmental comments on the drawing room floor?
Yet the reality is Americans do work long hours.
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/12/americas-white-collar-w...
You might not realise it but this stuff gets exported to the rest of the world. I frequently see American lobbyists on British TV pushing a low regulation agenda with the intention to weaken workers rights.
Re: Busyness leads to bad decisions
#20"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive." I have never enjoyed feeling busy.
How about feeling idle with nothing to do but consider your own mortality? Not many people enjoy that, and Pascal wrote an interesting paper about it:
http://stmaryvalleybloom.org/pascal-diversion.html
Personally, my main takeaway can be summarized by this passage:
>And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.