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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

#311

Post by 0xCMP »

moooo99 wrote: post #25
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #9

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…

> I think the important part is leaving your phone and other devices home. The annoying part is that this becomes increasingly difficult to impossible. For example, I can't use public transport without my phone anymore, because my ticket is bound to my phone and the provider does not issue paper tickets or smartcards anymore. Less severe but equally frustrating, many restaurants choose to use QR codes for menus rathe…

I can't open the exterior doors of my apartment without an app (despite having an option for RFID dongles. they heavily advise against it)

At least I need my apple watch with cellular enabled so I can dial myself in.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#312

Post by cal_dent »

vlod wrote: post #211
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.

"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.

Me too. I heard this phrase at maybe too young and age and took it completely literally, so it clouds my judgement of it a bit, but I still cannot shake the view that it is 100% on the money. The brain wants to "solve" your issues, ideas, hang-ups, anxieties, ("solve" because sometimes having no solution is the solution and that is valid) it just needs us to give it the space to meander through it. But we keep finding more and more novel ways to interfere and stop it from doing that most noblest of things.

As a related aside, that's why I continue to find it odd that many people take their phones when they're using the bathroom. Just further limiting the few places (with the shower being #1) where circumstances does force your brain to review and assess like it clearly wants to do.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#313

Post by cal_dent »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #253
vlod wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I don't think it's very much worth thinking about. It's a pseudointellectual quip that sounds superficially insightful but which holds zero substance. The overwhelming majority of humanity's problems, such as they might be described, stem from the biological drive to survive and procreate. The quip presupposes that man naturally has a room to sit quietly in; this is not the case. The procurement of a room to sit in r…

just go to a park mate. an open field. an empty car park. everyone can find a place to sit or stop. no one has taken that away from you

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#314

Post by SubiculumCode »

I spent much of my youth at cafe's alone an hour or two until someone I know comes by. Before everyone had cell phones, such places were used by us as a place to be, waiting to see who comes by, waiting to see what the world was going to bring. There is part of me that misses that way of being. But I suspect that it would be like video games. It sounds funner than it is, and so while I may buy a game or two, I rarely spend my time doing it.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#315

Post by hattmall »

gniv wrote: post #102
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #9

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.

The 4 weeks of Vacation was the biggest thing to make me think not American.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#316

Post by hanklazard »

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…

> Too many negative comments here.

On this post specifically or HN on the whole? ;)

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#317

Post by foobarbecue »

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…

> a 30min challenge to sit upright without doing anything in a chair challenge

Quakers call this "silent meeting."

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#318

Post by hliyan »

safety1st wrote: post #295
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…

Stillness isn't only enjoyable (for some), it's incredibly valuable. Stoicism and Buddhism both talk a lot about it and they're not the only ones. I make a point of sitting comfortably and doing nothing with no stimuli for 5-10 minutes every morning. Inevitably when you're still with no distractions, your subconscious starts surfacing various thoughts. There is a random element to what pops into your head, but there…

There's an argument to be made that what alcohol achieves, and what meditation aims to achieve (and often fails) is the same thing: disengaging the prefrontal cortex. Once our basic needs are met, our higher brain functions can become an impediment to happiness, since they have neither a shut off switch nor a goal threshold -- it is insatiable, and will continue to analyze threats and manufacture problems to solve.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#319

Post by hliyan »

2ap wrote: post #169
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.

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)…

This reminds me: I experience a similar "welcome escape" sensation when I'm hospitalized. My work responsibilities are manifold and tend to intrude into my thoughts even when I'm at leisure. But when I'm in the hospital, there seem to be some sort of physical and psychological clean break. Hard to describe.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#320

Post by scubbo »

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.

Right, exactly. Cafés _used_ to be meeting places; now, they are "coffee, solitude, and WiFi acquisition places"
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