I didn’t quite understand why sitting alone in a café makes you a weirdo (is it an American thing?), but the piece was very well written. We all should learn how to be without electronics for every now and then, accompanied only our thoughts. It is good for the soul. I think the important part is leaving your phone and other devices home. Be alone, without even a possibility of connecting (apart from the old-fashione…
> (is it an American thing?) I don't know if the author is American but americanos are not an American thing so they are likely not in the US.
Most cafes even chains like Starbucks sell americanos in the USA.
I am not “buying” this… if craigslist or facebook marketplace you can buy any equipment you desire dirt cheap (from new year’s resolutions done unfullfilled). pool has always been vacant or filled with senior citizen classes etc when I used to go and I doubt this has changed. I do not have any numbers to back this up but my gut feel tells me less than 10% of people that have gym memberships go to the gym more than on…
A lot of people don't have room for larger exercise equipment in their houses--if they have a house. Heck, I just had some reconstruction/reconfiguration done after a fire and I'm figuring out where to now put my rowing machine and I have a decent-sized house. That many/most people don't really utilize their gym memberships is a separate issue from some people getting value out of them. You seemed to be arguing that…
I apologize if my comments made you think I implied stupid, most definitely do not think that. I do however think you absolutely do not need gym membership to work out and I do believe that vast majority of gym memberships are waste of money. in my personal “circle” no one that works out regularly does so at the gym.
Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me.
>"Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me" I've done more than that. Summer time I often swim in open water up to 2 hour at once as one of the ways to stay fit. Obviously it becomes routine and not very entertaining. So I usually doing some high level software design work in my mind at this point, exploring some concepts, thinking busines…
Try ultra running for at least 10 hours. You run out of things to think about, plus you are so tired that you cannot concentrate for long on the same subject.
After some struggle you will enter into a weird state that I think should be similar to what they achieve through meditation.
>"Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me" I've done more than that. Summer time I often swim in open water up to 2 hour at once as one of the ways to stay fit. Obviously it becomes routine and not very entertaining. So I usually doing some high level software design work in my mind at this point, exploring some concepts, thinking busines…
Try ultra running for at least 10 hours. You run out of things to think about, plus you are so tired that you cannot concentrate for long on the same subject. After some struggle you will enter into a weird state that I think should be similar to what they achieve through meditation.
Not that I want to be necessarily contrarian, but just a few months ago I decided to stop worrying about using my phone, and it honestly feels like the most liberating decision of my life. There is nothing wrong with it. I think that many people feel like their lives suck in some way that they can't define or explain, and they want something to blame it on, and their phone is an excellent target. It's relatively new.…
>I think that many people feel like their lives suck in some way that they can't define or explain, and they want something to blame it on, and their phone is an excellent target. They will blame anything but the billionaires. But to be a devil's advocate: I think most phone issues arise from a child's use of them. They don't have the discipline to put a phone down, and then it enshrines habits that last into adult h…
The turn-off-the-phone crowd tend to be in situations where parents, young kids, doctors, interview calls, etc. getting in touch isn't a priority. Yes, voicemail is a partial answer but an imperfect one in this day and age. Didn't even used to have and just got messages on a voicemail device (after the mid-80s or so) but there's a much greater expectation of being able to reach people easily today.
Why? What happens if you don’t have it, just as parents didn’t have them for centuries?
Child care now requires parents to be readily available, especially to pick up children who are sick. A century ago, child care providers were expected to care for sick children until the parent arrived. Failure to be responsive would be a violation of the child care agreement.
Is this really true? There are millions of parents who are unreachable while working. A surgeon isn’t going to be able to leave in the middle of surgery to pick up their kid from child care.
My kid got sick at daycare one time when I was over an hour away. They just had to stay there while I worked my way back.