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Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

quintusertorius.com

11–20 of 126 posts

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#12

Boredom is useful for creativity, I’ve found. How do you set yourself up to be creative?

I find that boredom is death for creativity, but tedium is a goldmine. If I'm not doing anything, I don't think of anything. If I have a tedious but active chore, I need to bring a notepad along with me to capture all the ideas.

You can best figure out how you want your next vacation to go during you dayjob.

Go to the beach for a couple of days to get a groundbreaking work related idea.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#13

Boredom is useful for creativity, I’ve found. How do you set yourself up to be creative?

I find that boredom is death for creativity, but tedium is a goldmine. If I'm not doing anything, I don't think of anything. If I have a tedious but active chore, I need to bring a notepad along with me to capture all the ideas.

I had a friend in college who was a writer. He intentionally spent a summer lettuce farming for this specific reason. He was pretty happy with the results creativity-wise.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#14
There's just so much of this that is the author insisting that his preferences are right and anyone else is wrong.

"Modern music is like junk food." There's amazing modern music, and total crap. Labeling the millions of hours of modern music as all bad is at best lazy, and at worst has undertones of racism (the only good music is that produced by dead white guys).

"Let me tell you: regulating your emotions with an external tool is dangerous. You start depending on it. You crave it when you don’t have it. It is called addiction." - again, just insanely lazy generalization. I regulate my emotions with an external tool most days. It's called exercise. It is a very good thing, not an addiction (trust me, I'd love to stop, I really don't enjoy exercise at all).

The bit about photos? I visited my mom's house recently and looked at the photos of my deceased grandparents. According to this guy, that's going to keep me in a slump.

This piece is generally pretty lazy ("I bet that 95% of Millenials start their day by looking at the phone." - first of all, if you're going to criticize a whole generation, at least spell it right, and second of all, why don't you do some kind of research instead of making unsupported assumptions about the behavior of a group of millions of people?) and extremely arrogant.

I award OP no points and may god have mercy on his soul.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#16
post #14

There's just so much of this that is the author insisting that his preferences are right and anyone else is wrong. "Modern music is like junk food." There's amazing modern music, and total crap. Labeling the millions of hours of modern music as all bad is at best lazy, and at worst has undertones of racism (the only good music is that produced by dead white guys). "Let me tell you: regulating your emotions with an ex…

You do realize that lots of popular old music was written by all races?

Stop trying to see racism everywhere where where there is none, it'll do wonders for your blood pressure.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#17
post #11

I think Deep Work is a much better discussion of this problem; without the shame/disgust/morality play that's being enacted here.

Do you mean Digital Minimalism? Cal Newport is the author of both Deep Work and Digital Minimalism but the latter book is the one that deals with the topic of the article.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#18
post #14

There's just so much of this that is the author insisting that his preferences are right and anyone else is wrong. "Modern music is like junk food." There's amazing modern music, and total crap. Labeling the millions of hours of modern music as all bad is at best lazy, and at worst has undertones of racism (the only good music is that produced by dead white guys). "Let me tell you: regulating your emotions with an ex…

You do realize that lots of popular old music was written by all races? Stop trying to see racism everywhere where where there is none, it'll do wonders for your blood pressure.

I exercise for my blood pressure (you might've caught that in the comment you were responding to), but thanks for the suggestion!

He specifically says classical music is the only acceptable kind, and the vast majority of the history of classical music was devoid of non-white people.

You should read the things you're responding to a little better - it'll do wonders for your comprehension.

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#19
post #14

There's just so much of this that is the author insisting that his preferences are right and anyone else is wrong. "Modern music is like junk food." There's amazing modern music, and total crap. Labeling the millions of hours of modern music as all bad is at best lazy, and at worst has undertones of racism (the only good music is that produced by dead white guys). "Let me tell you: regulating your emotions with an ex…

[deleted]

Re: Stop overstimulating your mind with digital entertainment

#20
I don't exactly disagree with the premise but the tone is so authoritative and harsh that it's difficult to take seriously.

Not to mention pulling out "A Brave New World" after the first paragraph. This reads like a college freshman essay, including the typos. It's "time and time again" not "times and times again".

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