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The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

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Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#211

Post by vlod »

cm2012 wrote: post #69
unsungNovelty wrote: post #50

Too many negative comments here. This is just someone discovering something new and sharing it very excitedly. Almost 6-7 years ago, I read about a 30min challenge to sit upright without doing anything in a chair challenge. That changed how I think about distractions. If I had written about it, there surely will be people who would just like here say... What is so crazy about it? I do that all the time... To me, this…

Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me.

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

I try and think about this often.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#212

Post by fencepost »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #173
pm90 wrote: post #88

The part that seems to need emphasis is that the author happened to walk inside this neighborhood cafe while just walking his dog. To many Americans, the idea of just walking into a cafe is probably alien (you need to drive everywhere).

The one downside of non-urban life (and crappy public transportation). It's overall quieter than if I lived downtown and I appreciate that. But in terms of walking, I have a Mexican joint and then everything else takes effort. The Wal Mart plaza is only a mile away, but unfortunately its a fully uphill mile that has me going 200 feet in elevation. And in terms of cafe, it's simply a tiny corner Starbucks. The local j…

If this is something you want to do you might consider a bike. A 6 mile round trip on for for coffee seems a bit much, but 3 miles each way on a bike shouldn't be bad unless you're in a city (in which case there should be things closer). You could also do this same thing with a thermos of coffee/tea and a local park.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#213

Post by fencepost »

I'm a bit surprised to not see mention in comments of "social vs sociable." There's often something nice about being around people that you're interacting with only minimally (sociable) vs being around people you're talking with (social). The shutdown in 2020 did away with a lot of options for"sociable."

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#214

Post by nicbou »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #184
nicbou wrote: post #162

Is this a post I'm too European to understand? That writing style is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I love lingering in cafés. In the summer, I bike from café to café, catching up with my reading and slowly getting to a productive state. I'll do a bit of reading for work, maybe annotate some articles, eventually open my laptop, and if I'm lucky meet friends along the way. I often leave at 9 and come home at around…

>Is this a post I'm too European to understand? Are you in a top tier city? Very very few cafes are open late (later than 8pm) in cities and if youre not in a big city, Chicago, NYC, Seattle etc etc you will likely have none open that late. It's definitely a culture thing. Not many folks are drinking coffee / hanging out that late in cafes. Enough do, but nowhere near as much as Europeans do

Usually you go to a cafe in the morning, and to a pub in the evening. I could wax poetic about the joy of having a beer in the late afternoon, before the place fills up.

I was born and raised in Canada. I manage to keep up my routine just fine when I visit. Sure, the cafes are in the middle of a parking lot by a box store, but in a pinch they'll do.

This is hardly a "top tier city" thing. I went on many road trips and pretty much always managed to start my day with a slow coffee, even in the smallest towns.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#215

Post by patrickmay »

reg_dunlop wrote: post #96
cm2012 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me.

My therapist used to say: this means you must do it for 40 minutes

Meditate for 30 minutes every morning. If you don't have time, meditate for 60 minutes.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#218

Post by zx8080 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #16

> It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist. > They are designed as meeting spaces. There is no table with a single chair. I'm so confused by this, because every cafe I've ever been to is full of people there alone. It seems to almost be the default, honestly.

Because it's just AI output.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#219

Post by 2ap »

jddj wrote: post #190
2ap wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of my job, is that I design protocols to help young children lie in MRI scanners for a living. We have all sorts of techniques to help with this. However, for each new scanning protocol, I like to have had it myself - so I know what the children go through. And, at times lying inside a MRI scanner, detached from the world, with only the noise of the scanner (very reduced with our new noise cancelling headphones)…

Fascinating. How many MRIs have you had? I get a break from constant availability from air travel, but that's slowly eroding as it becomes more connected.

I'm not sure I know (but the database keeps a record - I'll have to look it up!). A couple a year for sure a few years.

Yes, my last transatlantic flight I caught up with a stack of email.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#220

Post by vlod »

exe34 wrote: post #177
Tagbert wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be at first until you get used to it. You can observe your surroundings, make up stories about what is happening. Ask yourself questions. Listen to yourself. This is a bit like excercise. When you first start, 30 minutes of exercise can be torture as your is out of shape and not used to the effort. Keep doing it and it feels better and you feel better. Work on becoming a source of thoughts rather than a consum…

> You can observe your surroundings, make up stories about what is happening. I had to sit still a lot as a child, since I wasn't allowed to have friends or go anywhere. I read a lot, but a lot of the time I was to tired or bored to read, so I'd just defocus my eyes, and disappear into my imagination. It would look like I'm reading, so I wouldn't get punished. In hindsight I'm not sure it's terribly healthy, as I now…

I have a feeling I had a similar childhood to you (strict/smothering).

I also find it problematical to deal with people who live 'normal/standard' lives who are not curious about the world and how everything works. Being put in a conversation talking about sports, gossip, celebrities is intolerable for me.

I've come to accept (and I think some people here may resonate with) that this is can be a blessing or good filtering mechanism.

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