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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

#361

Post by 20kHz »

zkmon wrote: post #357

The only problem is, when you are alone and not looking at your phone, you tend to observe people around. But unfortunately, looking at others is seen as being a weirdo, while looking at phone is considered super normal. Also, the reason people feel comfortable with dogs is because, you don't need to act or talk in way to impress the dog, while technically not being alone. You don't get this freedom while being with…

> But unfortunately, looking at others is seen as being a weirdo

No it’s simpler than that:

1) sitting alone - you’re a weirdo

2) sitting doing nothing public, staring off into space like you’re a zen master - no, you’re a weirdo

3) blogposting how you sat alone in a public space for 30 minutes and how this is an “unbearable joy” - do I need to spell it out?

This person needs help. They are having an episode. If someone has gone so far as to have this level of emotional outburst by leaving their phone at home, there’s deeper issues to unpack.

For the rest of us, sitting down at the cafe to have a nice drink and something to eat while we look at the cars and foot traffic going by is a perfectly normal activity.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#362

Post by garretraziel »

et-al wrote: post #183
zwnow wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 500€ in my bank account, 3k debt and 30 years of work left ahead of me and I take a lot of idle time in cafes or trains or the park. I don't see the issue. The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time. If you get something out of working hard, like joy, sure go ahead. But dont lie to yourself and think that working hard will actually ever…

You don't see the issue because you're not squeezed yet. Imagine there are no more cheap places to rent anymore and American work culture invades Europe. Shops are no longer closed on Sunday, you're expected to be on call on weekends, and you have a paltry 14 days of vacation for the year.

Wait, I live in central Europe, shops are normally open on Sunday and I do have to be on call on weekends (albeit only once a month). Did I miss the part where we became America?

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#363

Post by 20kHz »

spudlyo wrote: post #79

I struggled greatly with this article. There was something halting about it. Something precious. I felt that the author desperately wanted to elevate the mundane into the realm of the sublime. I found myself annoyed. I thought to myself "Are paragraphs a renewable resource? Is it wrong to waste them?" It doesn't matter. In neuroscience, there is a thing called the "default mode network" which is best known for being…

That neuroscience bit sounds like complete bullshit, but your annoyance is justified and I think shared by others in this thread.

There are many walks of life and some people are wired in ways that annoy us when they present themselves, or talk about themselves as this individual has. It is not only to elevate the mundane to the realm of the sublime, rather it’s to beat a profound lesson of life into us by proxy of whoever the characters are. Notice the shift from the friends, to I, to “you”. Notice the use of “you” in the blog post. You are being lectured. You need to be taught things that this individual just discovered, because you are clueless and they are wise. That is why you feel annoyed.

Whenever you hear someone using the royal “we” to lecture you, you’re always welcome to ask “who is we?”, because it’s appropriate to understand who is actually being discussed. This individual thinks that we are clueless and they are carrying the stone tablets to teach us. They have a long way to go.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#364

Post by sph »

20kHz wrote: post #363
spudlyo wrote: post #79

I struggled greatly with this article. There was something halting about it. Something precious. I felt that the author desperately wanted to elevate the mundane into the realm of the sublime. I found myself annoyed. I thought to myself "Are paragraphs a renewable resource? Is it wrong to waste them?" It doesn't matter. In neuroscience, there is a thing called the "default mode network" which is best known for being…

That neuroscience bit sounds like complete bullshit, but your annoyance is justified and I think shared by others in this thread. There are many walks of life and some people are wired in ways that annoy us when they present themselves, or talk about themselves as this individual has. It is not only to elevate the mundane to the realm of the sublime, rather it’s to beat a profound lesson of life into us by proxy of w…

> That neuroscience bit sounds like complete bullshit

If only there was a way to learn more about things you don’t know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#365

Post by matwood »

bradlys wrote: post #247
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…

People talk about this with exercise and I’ve never understood it. As someone who has exercised continuously for years - it has never gotten better. Which, to me, makes sense because you’re supposed to always be pushing yourself. You’re not supposed to ever feel comfortable or feel better from it. You should always feel shitty because if it doesn’t hurt then you’re probably not making optimal development. The only th…

I love working out and have for over 25 years. You should never be in real pain or feel 'shitty'. It should be challenging of course and part of that challenge is being uncomfortable. Learning to embrace being uncomfortable, IMO, is one of the super powers of being a person that translate to all other areas of life. Once a person learns to embrace uncomfortable moments, everything else just becomes...easier.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#366

Post by matwood »

joevandyk wrote: post #360
bradlys wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about this with exercise and I’ve never understood it. As someone who has exercised continuously for years - it has never gotten better. Which, to me, makes sense because you’re supposed to always be pushing yourself. You’re not supposed to ever feel comfortable or feel better from it. You should always feel shitty because if it doesn’t hurt then you’re probably not making optimal development. The only th…

I finally started getting stronger in the gym when I stopped going to failure on everything. I got in the best endurance shape by going on a steady comfortable pace for progressively longer periods of time. Harder is not always better.

One of my favorite styles of weight training is volume based. The premise starts with something like I need 10 reps of a certain weight, but it doesn't matter how many sets it takes to get there. Each set ends if I cannot do another perfect rep. If I can't do a single perfect rep, then the exercise ends and I move on to the next thing. By requiring the rep to be perfect, it naturally keeps you from going to failure and lowers chance of injury.

There's more to it like how to pick the weight, etc... but the perfect rep piece I really enjoyed.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#367

Post by matwood »

2ap wrote: post #219
jddj wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get so much work done on flights because I can't take meetings.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#368

Post by wolframhempel »

I used to work in investment banking in the city of London and later in Canary Wharf. I loved working in the city as it was a beautiful old place, people were very social and having 2-3 hour boozy lunches with someone who you might do business with one day wasn't a rarity (mind you, I moved out before covid, I understand things have changed quite a bit).

Then I switched jobs and ended up in Canary Wharf. For those who don't know it, Canary Wharf is a newly built finance district in the London Docklands. If you've been to Singapore, Dubai, La Defense in Paris or Songdo in Korea, you know the kind of place. Everything is clean, new, modern. Everything has 90 degree angles. Everything has cameras, security guards and cleaning stuff. What it doesn't have is any resemblance of a real city, any organicity or soul.

I hated it. Every morning I saw the streams of suite dressed worker drones pouring from the tube directly into their office towers (Canary Wharf has a huge underground shopping mall/railway station that allows you to go from the subway directly into your office without ever seeing the sun).

I was unhappy. So I did similar things to the OP. I got up earlier and walked there. (I lived in Mile End). It was a nice walk along the canal for a while and then a not so nice walk through smog and traffic, but I didn't mind. I took my lunch outside on the remaining docks. And finally, I got up so early that I arrived an hour before work began.

I spent this hour in a Cafe. Alone. Having breakfast. I loved this hour. I sat there, as the only one not rushing in, getting their "strong capo", beeping their card against the reader and rushing out. I observed the grey and black dressed stream of people. I day dreamed.

It helped - for a while. It was a band aid before I left London all together and moved to Berlin. But most of all, it is a uniquely calm and joyful experience. It decelerates you. The boheme in Paris or Prague has long figured this out. Sit in a cafe. Enjoy a coffee or a glass of wine. Look at people. Daydream. Reflect, be enough - there's a lot to it.

Re: The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

#369

Post by thunfischtoast »

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…

A great exercise while being still is to put your attention to various parts of your body: what does the air smell like? What do you hear? How does the chair under your butt and the ground under your feet feel like? Try not to think too much, let the thoughts come and go like cars on a motorway, but observe closely in and around you.
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