How to Exist • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Exist

#261

Post by sean2 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 7:20 AM UTC

alun wrote: post #243

Maybe it's just me, but I don't actually feel any discomfort while sitting for 3 minutes doing nothing. Do most people actually struggle with that like the article says?

I struggle, I think I'm most people: First, I procrastinate getting started because of all the things that I should be, want to be, or am doing. Then I start and its like taking the lid off a boiling pot of to-dos and thoughts that have been suppressed in the constant busyness of doing stuff. I want to attend to them all now, but I deny myself. Then I want to at least make sure to keep them all in mind so I can attend to them when the exercise ends, but I deny myself. This struggle boils up and down until the exercise is finally over. I get a few moments of peace of course.

Sure, I spontaneously zone out sometimes, but purposely meditating is always the experience above.

Re: How to Exist

#262

Post by dguest » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 7:38 AM UTC

augment_me wrote: post #29

In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…

David Graeber goes into this a lot in "Bullshit Jobs".

Farming will keep you very busy (as a few people have pointed out), but it's mostly caring for projects you personally own. As the title of the book suggests, Graeber is more concerned with why people don't seem to be content in hourly jobs, but he's an anthropologist not an economist so he says a lot about historical work too.

Re: How to Exist

#263

Post by Cider9986 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

zkmon wrote: post #42

I used to sit alone for 30-40 minutes, 100's of meters below ground, in absolute darkness, absolute silence, no life around, no movement around, not even a breeze of air. Only mild thoughts to stop myself from falling asleep. Above ground, I slept under the stars and sky, in the wild, with no buildings around. What I learnt is, recent generations have too much of self awareness, causing the communities and groups to…

Most people are distracted and lack awareness of the present.