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The Joy of Quiet

nytimes.com

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Re: The Joy of Quiet

#21

Post by wpietri »

smugengineer69 wrote: post #5

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 n…

Attention has limits. Focus, by its nature, excludes.

When scarcity quickly turns to abundance, people take a while to adapt. That's most obvious right now with food; people are learning how to live with a vast surplus of unnaturally delicious things.

The same thing is happening with information. When I was a kid, I was a vacuum cleaner. I read every word on every cereal box, because that was only thing I could find to read at breakfast. My first 300-baud modem was a gateway to miracles. Now there is more text available to me than I will ever finish.

Once abundance forces you to start making choices, you must ask yourself "how much of this do I need?" I don't keep cookies and chips in the house for the same reason I've blocked Facebook on my work machine: I want more than is good for me.

Or, so I can be more specific, remember that we're made out of meat. The meat wants more than the more thoughtful part of me wants. If I want more thoughtfulness, that means less distraction. Fewer blogs, less Facebook, disabling notification sounds and blinks and rumbles. More quiet.

I love technology, but I don't always love what it does to me.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#22

Post by wpietri »

fzzzy wrote: post #19
pasbesoin wrote: post #15

This is a bad comment, in that I can't bring myself to complete reading the article. What steams me about the recent "quiet", um, "discovery" and advocacy, is that many of those proclaiming it are the same fools who, last decade, were proclaiming the value of "collaboration" and cramming me into smaller cubes that eventually started to lose their walls (sort of a notched "ueber-bullpen", without naming it such). I've…

Agreed completely, I have always hated the bullpen and complain at every company I work for that thinks it's a good idea. So far the trend in tech companies still seems to be "more bullpen" though. I tend to work at home as much as I can, so that I can actually get some work done. I'm starting to see going into the office as more of a social thing than a work thing. I like what you had to say about being done with wo…

I agree with one caveat. I love quiet, but I also love collaboration.

The solution for me is in purpose-fit team spaces. If everybody in a room is working on the same thing, and all the conversation is team-specific, it can be a joy. It is tricky to get both the space and the cultural discipline, but I really love it when it works.

Which means I thoroughly hate the way "collaboration" has been used to thoughtlessly bully people into cheap-ass, disruptive working spaces.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#23

Post by chris_mahan »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #10

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 o…

Did the same three weeks ago with the 7 year old. We watched a blue jay go from tree to tree, coming back to the same one several times. We walked around looking for him, waiting for him to sing. In the church ground where normally my son races about. It only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was very nice.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#24

Post by fzzzy »

wpietri wrote: post #22
fzzzy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely, I have always hated the bullpen and complain at every company I work for that thinks it's a good idea. So far the trend in tech companies still seems to be "more bullpen" though. I tend to work at home as much as I can, so that I can actually get some work done. I'm starting to see going into the office as more of a social thing than a work thing. I like what you had to say about being done with wo…

I agree with one caveat. I love quiet, but I also love collaboration. The solution for me is in purpose-fit team spaces. If everybody in a room is working on the same thing, and all the conversation is team-specific, it can be a joy. It is tricky to get both the space and the cultural discipline, but I really love it when it works. Which means I thoroughly hate the way "collaboration" has been used to thoughtlessly b…

What about online collaboration? In my experience, that is the only place collaboration has actually happened. There's something about asynchronous collaboration that seems to make it more effective than synchronous collaboration, at least sometimes.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#25

Post by enraged_camel »

The more I disconnect from various information sources, the more I realize how utterly unnecessary they were to begin with.

It started with quitting Facebook back in February. After going through a short withdrawal, I deeply appreciated the "silence" that came from not knowing every single thing about every single "friend" I had on there. These days, not having Facebook is just a minor inconvenience: sometimes I don't find out about upcoming events until the last minute. But even that seems to happen less and less often, as my friends find out I don't have FB and the ones who are my real friends make sure to invite me via email or SMS.

Then I implemented GTD for work email. I use Outlook (sad face) so I disabled the utterly annoying desktop notifications, then went from checking email every few minutes (out of habit) and responding to every email then and there, to checking email twice a day and responding to emails en masse. At first I thought people would be annoyed by not receiving email responses right away, but then realized that's what instant messages are for. With personal email I was more brutal: I disabled push notifications on my iPhone, and started checking it once every other day.

With iOS 6, I've been experimenting with keeping my phone on DND mode most of the day. I changed my voice-mail message to say that I only answer calls between 6pm and 9pm, and tell them that if it's urgent, they can call me again within 3 minutes to override DND mode. I've found that most people don't in fact have anything urgent (maybe they realize it wasn't urgent after hearing my VM message) so that seems to be going pretty well also.

It's difficult to overstate the benefits I've seen from limiting my information consumption. For the longest time I had felt like my life was controlling me, and I was simply reacting to stuff happening. But once I started voluntarily restricting my exposure to stuff that demanded my attention (usually overblown in importance), I realized that it was all bullshit. I have become calmer, more productive, and happier. Feels good, man!

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#26

Post by nollidge »

enraged_camel wrote: post #20
moheeb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps some of us were wise enough to not fall for the "bullshit"? " It will happen " seems a bit condescending. Your envy reminds me of an old man wishing he were younger.

It's not that you were wise enough to not fall for the bullshit, but that you have not yet realized that it is bullshit. The real wisdom comes from the realization that the only reason people are consuming so much information today is because it's a habit that feels like a necessity.

> It's not that you were wise enough to not fall for the bullshit, but that you have not yet realized that it is bullshit.

Are you a mind reader, that you can see what this person does or does not know?

I am disinclined to accept "wisdom" alongside such presumptions.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#27

Post by omegant »

For those looking for ideas to break away, just try the St. James way in northern Spain(or any similar walking experience). You only walk, eat, rest. There is nothing else to do for a month(if you start from the Pyrenees). You sleep mostly in pilgrim hostels, or cheap hotels. You can start alone but surely will finish with at least 10-15 new friends (if you want to of course). Every day you´ll walk for 5 to 8 hours, get to the hostel relax, talk to people from around the world, have an amazing dinner in some cheap small town restaurant drink some wine. Just awesomely simple, but really enjoyable. I really recommend it. It makes you think how we are somehow a nomad species.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#28

Post by lotharbot »

smugengineer69 wrote: post #5

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 n…

I would not describe the Amish relationship with technology as "fear". It's not emotional; it's very reasoned and deliberate. Modern shop tools are common in Amish villages, but anything that connects with mass media is rejected, as is easy transportation. The idea is that they want to keep people connected to the local (self-reliant) community and make it difficult to connect to outsiders. It's reasoning we on HN don't agree with, but it's definitely reason rather than emotion.

Much of the "war over little pings from inboxes" strikes me as similarly deliberate. It's not a fear of technology, it's just a recognition of certain consequences we wish to avoid -- excessive distraction, possibly even addiction. So we reason about which technologies are really worthwhile, and reject the ones with too much downside.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#29

Post by dredmorbius »

fzzzy wrote: post #19
pasbesoin wrote: post #15

This is a bad comment, in that I can't bring myself to complete reading the article. What steams me about the recent "quiet", um, "discovery" and advocacy, is that many of those proclaiming it are the same fools who, last decade, were proclaiming the value of "collaboration" and cramming me into smaller cubes that eventually started to lose their walls (sort of a notched "ueber-bullpen", without naming it such). I've…

Agreed completely, I have always hated the bullpen and complain at every company I work for that thinks it's a good idea. So far the trend in tech companies still seems to be "more bullpen" though. I tend to work at home as much as I can, so that I can actually get some work done. I'm starting to see going into the office as more of a social thing than a work thing. I like what you had to say about being done with wo…

I've pretty much turned around and walked straight out of shops that were excessively open-floorplan.

Re: The Joy of Quiet

#30

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

That's still something I recall from the days immediately following 9/11.

No airplanes overhead.

Occasional fighter overflights excepted. But where normally every 60 seconds or so a commercial transport (or two) would be heard ... nothing.

This actually impacted weather patterns too -- cloud cover notably diminished as was reported at the time (subsequent studies dispute some of the findings):

http://www.nature.com/news/2002/020808/full/news020805-7.htm...

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