I realised how big a problem this was for me when I went on an off-the-grid trek in the Himalayas for 3 weeks a few years ago. Not being able to access my phone, the Internet and all its endless distracting possibilities felt nearly physically painful. The first three or so days of the grid were terrible. Then it was as if my brain woke up from a slumber and I enjoyed the nature around me, my own thoughts and the silence.
Spending some time in nature sans all electronic devices is my go to when I find myself falling into a bad pattern with Netflix etc. Highly recommend even 1 hr walk in the forest or whatever you can get to easily.
Thanks for writing this. Recently had a baby and am finding myself seeking escapist entertainment instead of using the little free time I have to do things that expand my mind. Your piece is a great reminder to try harder.
I'm noticing that many in the younger generation have experiences like yours. There's a kind of spiritual experience of unfolding and expanding into silence that people have when they put down their technology, even for a few days. My wife and I grew up just before cell phones swept in, and we've never quite had that experience, because to us they've always seemed unpleasant, bizarre, an extra and unnecessary burden. We're aware that technically some upsides to cell phones do exist, but they don't really register as upsides emotionally.
We never made a conscious decision to raise our children without them. But since our kids grew up with us as role models, they never had phones, and their attitudes are much the same. I recently asked our older children "If your mother and I hadn't raised you, do you think you would have different attitudes towards phones?" The response was "probably, but when you really look at cell phones they're just less good laptops that you have to pay a monthly fee for." When I responded that phones allow you to always stay in touch with people even when they're gone, they shrugged as though that were completely meaningless.
When you grow up without cell phones, life in the Himalayas is just what life is.
I have been feeling similarly to this blog post for a while now as well, and I want to thank you for putting into words what I have not yet (or cannot). It's gotten to the point that I even find working unsatisfactory (which is why I'm typing out this comment rather than doing my job or even the various personal projects that I have on my plate). The whole thing is quite a wicked problem, because clearly the killing time with leisure is a symptom of a larger societal problem: we have no positive vision for the future that we're building towards. The Roman Republic had the res public and the glory of the state, the medieval christians had god and their cathedrals, the romantics (and jugn/freud) had gnostic self discovery, and even the rationalists had their history as unending progress. All of these goals in life I think have proved to be false or similarly flawed in some way (expect maybe gnostic individuation), and we have failed to replace them with anything, which is why chopping wood and carrying water are so unsatisfactory. I think you can see a similar malaise in the later Roman Empire: it's not just the phones, it's a serious spiritual problem. We live in a dying society that no longer believes in the things it claims.
That said, the passive entertainment isn't helping. The only way out is thru, and we can't possibly move forward towards a more meaningful engagement with life if we are numbing ourselves with entertainment for a quarter of our waking life. My screen time is not so bad compared to the average (it's similar to yours), but this post has inspired me to try and get back on the anti digital entertainment horse once again.
That's good, but don't push yourself too hard. You might be experiencing a case of the blahs from wandering around in an electronic rut, but there was a reason I'd become so mired in distractions, and the reason was that my marriage had become really awful, and I wasn't able to fix it by myself. Some people kill time with addictions to drugs or gambling, others by using electronic media, and others to "hobbies" pursued mechanically, but who really tries to kill time unless they're suffering?
Most problems which lie at the root of that suffering are completely beyond our control, and just like the great joys in life, they come from others around us. This is the most obvious reason why national IQ and education would be so powerfully linked to subjective well being at a national level (with correlations near -0.5), while having so little impact on subjective well being at a personal level. (See Nikolaev, B., & Salahodjaev, R. (2016). The role of intelligence in the distribution of national happiness. Intelligence, 56, 38-45. and compare those results with, e.g., Wigtil, C. J., & Henriques, G. R. (2015). The relationship between intelligence and psychological well-being in incoming college students. Psychology of well-being, 5, 1-19.)
All of that matches my personal experiences perfectly. Yes, obviously our lives are sometimes not being lived well, but a year ago I was working hard, making time for family, listening, being patient and kind to others, fulfilling my responsibilities, exercising, drinking in moderation, and looking to the future in exactly the way most people never bother to do, and my life was still miserable. I simply had to wait for my wife to work things out for herself. In the meantime - that long, bleak meantime - there was YouTube, Netflix, and video games.
I understand your feelings and also feel you're a bit excessively negative about them. To me, at least, there is a very big difference between passively scrolling through random things on your phone, alone, and watching things together. Yes they are both passive in a sense, but one is at least social and prompts conversations, and the other does not.
It's easier to just give examples than try to give a theory here. But when I first moved to Utah around 20ish years ago, I was completely astounded by the fact of Mormons. I had never been around true-believing religious people before, and what's more, many of them were actually intelligent, doctors and scientists and such, and I simply could not comprehend this. The nation was also in a period of religiousity surrounding GWB and 9/11. This caused me to find a forum online for Ex-Mormons (which I'm not) and start spending time there discussing religion. Eventually I became quite popular there, and it was intellectually stimulating for me debating people, and I ended up spending basically every evening there getting into long debates with strangers about religion and philosophy and society. This was a HUGE waste of time. My views never changed, ultimately, eventually I lost interest, and all those people I'd spent a year or two talking two were ultimately just strangers with a screen name and I have no idea who they are.
In contrast, I DO spend every evening watching Netflix (or HBO Max, or Prime, or whatever it is) with my husband in the evenings. You assume it's just staring glass eyed at the screen and that really is not true. It's a social activity much like any other. We push pause about 20 times during any show, to discuss what's going on or ask questions about it, or something might happen that brings up a question or historical issue we want to know about so then we end up looking it up, we get into debates, we end up talking stories, etc. A one hour show will often take us 3 hours to watch, because of all of this pause-pushing and digressions and discussions. I don't think that's particularly uncommon...we might be a bit more extreme than most, but people aren't just sitting like zombies, if you're watching with other people it's a social activity. It really isn't that different than playing a board game...it's a sort of meaninglessly entertaining activity that's a prompt and excuse for social interaction. Then if our siblings or other couple friends have watched the same show, it leads to more of the same.
Similarly, at work we all had a group that would meet and discuss the show Succession. These were fun discussions. We met up for lunch and everyone gave their theories and predictions. We had a betting pool and a prize for the winner who guessed the most plot points. I think there is more of this type of thing that goes on than you are assuming, but you're out of the loop with what other people are watching, so you don't participate in it.
I know you are probably reading this with a little contempt and revulsion, and it probably seems like a very low brow waste of time to you. I can understand that because that is how I feel when I watch my husband's family and how they are about sports. They watch them during daylight (which thoroughly disgusts me) and it seems SO pointless and stupid and like a gross waste of time to me, because I see nothing interesting there whatsoever. But it is also how they bond. It's what they talk about, and it brings them together. So how can I really look down on that too terribly?
FWIW, I do plenty of real "stuff" that you seem to privilege. I go on a walk every day. I've planted over 45 trees of different varieties on my property the past two years, which took a lot of muscle and research. We hike, we go camping, we sing karaoke together at home. We learned to rock climb. He's constructed various infrastructure on the property. Etc etc. But I'm not really sure why you think some of those things are inherently better than others. I appreciate the conversations I get into with my husband that are often prompted by what we watch on TV...I've learned stories about him from his childhood I wouldn't have otherwise, I've learned a lot about history, we know each other better because of it. It has not prompted any more or less conversation than it does when we play board games when we're camping. Sometimes that stuff is just a prompt for what you're really doing, which is spending time with someone and enjoying their company.
FWIW, I do have a problem with a Substack addiction that is likely somewhat wasting my time just like the Ex Mormon board did. And I'm ignoring my husband to type this right now, when he wants to start a show. Anyway, have you tried watching something engaging with your wife or kids?? Not saying you have to, but also saying I don't think it's quite as bad as you make out.
Hello Mr. Pie. I am sorry to say that I was immediately distracted from your post about distractions. Specifically, by the line about philosophy in your second paragraph. I am not exceptionally smart, but I am rather inquisitive, and I love a good existential puzzle. Is there any chance I can contribute to your endeavor to move the field forward? Any specific questions or fields of inquiry you're looking to have answered?
No guarantee that I'll actually be of any help, but I tend to enjoy thinking about this sort of thing regardless, so I thought I'd ask.
Possibly you might be able to contribute. The problem I see is this: Mathematicians have made steady progress over the last 2500 years, while scientists have made incredible discoveries in perhaps a fifth of that time. Philosophers' progress by comparison has been modest, and I'd like to do something about it by reconsidering the processes they use in the field.
Mathematicians use mathematical induction, symbolic language, the substituting of equal quantities in expressions, and so on. Scientists generate hypotheses, test them according to statistical rules, and try to build simple models to explain multiple observations. Why are philosophers not as successful? What might be done to improve their ability to explore and reveal the truth?
Huh, interesting. Could you narrow down your definition of philosophy for me, if you don't mind? I tend to regard stuff like science, math, religion and such as philosophies in their own right, but that's probably too broad of a definition here. By that metric, any advancements made by science and co. are directly tied to advancements made in philosophy, which kind of upends the entire idea that philosophy has stalled out.
Pragmatically, define philosophy as the collection of fields such as aesthetics and ethics in which I am extremely interested. Or, just define philosophy in terms of common usage, which would also include fields like metaphysics and epistemology. If you are really interested in this, you shuold probably take a look at https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/philosophy-is-a-residuum-of-failure and respond there.
I’ve been thinking of this problem ever since I was a little girl. I have always been astonished at the boring activities that people around me indulge in and I have never really understood if they are genuinley interested or if they follow these things just to blend in smoothly (watching soccer on TV, following the Euovision Song contest in all its part contests, social media, etc, namely all these things that doesn’t interest me a bit). On the other hand I could spend hours contemplating what to grow in my little garden (I had one aleady at a very early age) something that would have struck many people as really boring. I gladly read very dry scientific reasearch on subjects that are important to me, but I get bored to tears by reading about the whereabouts of Harry and Meghan and other worldwide celebrities.
What is the factor that makes the difference?
Probably that the activity is induced from within. I myself looked for and found and decided that this or that is interesting for me. Also when I accidentally stumbled over some random information it could be enriching if it belonged to a subject that I have an ongoing, but perhaps not so active interest in. I have a lot of different interests and unfinished projects and thought-threads. Like in this case, where a subject that I have thought a lot about earlier and really not got ready with got a new spark of interest, thanks to this blog post. (I also really look forward to the one on God that you promised to write, another subject that has occupied me a lot in earlier years)
When, on the other hand, I’m overwashed with celebrity info that I would never request, this makes me very tired and drained of energy. Is this the case also for other people, or are there some people that are genuinely interested in celebrity news? Probably. If most people avoided it like I do, it would not be a good thing for advertisers to spend money on, so why would it even exist?
So what is the definition of time waste?
It makes me feel tired and devitalized. I try to choose what to do according to what instead makes me feel renewed and inspired, wiser and stronger and more competent than before. I’m happy to listen to advise on what to read and do from likeminded friends, IRL or on the Internet.
Another very good way to get the feeling of using time well is to produce something, or improve it, like in renovating a house or a car or making clothes (or developing new or old friendships). A really well done piece of carpentry can give you a lifelong satisfaction as well as one badly done can give a lot of annoyance. The feeling that comes from having a vision about something in the garden and then work in that direction and suddenly one day see that the vision has now been realised, that is a very special feeling. And all time spent weeding is done with that vision before your eyes, which is an extremely satisfactory feeling. If you have visions about a lot of areas in life, then you will always have enough inspiration not to have patience with passtimes.
But of course there are times when passtimes take too much time, namely when you are ill or otherwise disabled. Then Sudoko can become an addiction, hard to get rid of afterwards. When you start thinking in visions again you know you are back to your normal healthy self.
It's exactly when activities are pursued as distraction that they signal one's life is in a rut. I think Sudoku is absolutely wonderful, but I also probably solve two puzzles a year, on average. I've read spiritual teachers advize their students to "chop wood and carry water" in an effort to reach enlightenment, but it seems to me impossible to progress meaningfully through the same tasks performed the same way every day.
The problem is that there is a *reason* people bury themselves in these repetitious tasks, and that reason is a general emotional malaise - social problems, financial trouble, bad memories, a cloying weariness of the soul. It isn't possible to just banish the empty activities because they are themselves a bandage for problems that cannot be solved. Very much of human happiness is either imposed externally, or else arises internally as an expression of our genetic inheritance, in ways that we have relatively little control over. One can pursue the very best and wisest life and still never overcome the curses of the gods.
As for who is drawn to celebrity gossip, that's easy, and in fact interest in celebrity gossip is an important tell for people to avoid. If this were a proper post I'd break these studies down with some quotes and analysis, but I honestly, I think you can get message just from the titles.
Ashe, D. D., Maltby, J., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2005). Are celebrity-worshippers more prone to Narcissism? A brief report. North American Journal of Psychology, 7(2), 239-246.
Ash, S., Greenwood, D., & Keenan, J. P. (2023). The Neural Correlates of Narcissism: Is There a Connection with Desire for Fame and Celebrity Worship?. Brain Sciences, 13(10), 1499.
Huynh, H. P. (2021). Humility is inversely related to celebrity interest and admiration. North American Journal of Psychology, 23(1), 95-95.
Yes, life consists to a large degree of problems that cannot be solved. That's known since long and one of the essential ideas of e.g. buddhism. I also know from much personal experience. How to handle this is really just the art of living (I've read a lot of books on that). Different people find different strategies. Some go to alcohol and/or drugs. Some use empty passtime-strategies to fill their heads with cotton, not to feel the pain.
But there are better strategies. Problems that cannot be solved must not be allowed to take all energy away from life. Maybe there are other problems to work a little with? The impossible ones must be laid in the hands of God (just a matter of speaking, I'm not really religious, but you see what I mean). I do what I can with them for the moment, then let them rest and make sure that I don't do anything to make it worse. Take them up once in a while to see if anything has developed, otherwise give them as little attention as possible. A few of them are old by now, thirty, forty, fifty years. Some has improved a little, some not at all. Some has been possible to solve altogether after a long time. It would have been much nicer without them. Unfortunately there are also new problems that cannot be solved, very severe ones. Old and new, they can all be found in my diaries, since writing about them is the best way to get them sorted out from the head, without risking that they will be forgotten. Writing down the thoughts about them also frees my mind to come up with new ideas and could help with getting closer to solutions.
But there is also much else in life. Taking care of the people that are important to me has always been very helpful for me to feel better myself. And to focus on the things that are doable. Also small problem solving is very valuable in this sense. And when you manage to be constructive with some things in your life it gives you energy which in some strange way also helps you with the unsolvable problems (or was it perhaps God...) Anyway, it is possible to feel better without sinking into heavy abuse of passtimes.
Sorry if I sound too cheerful. I'm not, just old and a bit wiser than before :)
Best wishes for coming out the other side of your funk. This reflection certainly bodes well for that, and is an inspiring reminder to make the most of every day. That, of course, shouldn't mean being busy all the time, because investing time in rest and contemplation is also vitally important to our growth and productivity.
This is the next question to ask, isn't it? What should we be doing rather than consuming passive entertainment? Just being productive - as though the sake of living is productivity - seems as though it can't be the better way.
I think you're right to bring up rest and contemplation as almost surely better, but what if they don't bring any resolution or happiness? These little habits I've developed for entertaining myself came after rest and contemplation seemed to bring nothing useful.
Truthfully I think what was really helpful was being able to express myself to people like you, to know that I was understood, and to read insightful responses like these at the end.
I've had to sit with this a while, though when I say "sit", I mean contemplate my response while going about my day. It sounds trite to say that everyone is different, and respond differently to activity and inactivity, but it's true. What struck me in your response is that you gave yourself rest, and while it felt like it didn't achieve anything, eventually it stimulated activity. A need to *do* something. I think that shows you were well-enough rested, and ready to move on to a new state. I am the same. I can be passive for longer now than I could years ago, but eventually, I need to get moving. You also say you found inspiration for your inability to finish writing articles *by writing an article*. Many writers seem to innately feel that need to work things out by writing. I'm not a writer, but my inspirational needs are met through menial tasks, being creative, exercise, and nature. The hardest part of any task is getting started. Once you do that, anything is possible.
I've very much enjoyed reading your thoughts and this Substack in general. I think that you have original ideas, and though I am a free rider, I've been happy to be a subscribed to this blog.
That being said, I'm disappointed in the way you called me out in this post. I had a good faith objection to your argument in favor of alcohol and made some empirical arguments. You ended that exchange by indicating that you might post further on it.
But then you accuse me of believing that "thinking is more important than checking".
First, I'm not sure you can separate thinking from checking: is it really possible to check without thinking? I'm a bit confused. But it's also not fair to accuse me of not checking--as I noted, historically teetotaling populations tend to live longer. I also made some other arguments based on what you might define as "checking."
Anyway, I might be wrong, but in addition to eating spiders, forging swords and wrecking cars, I'd like to see a good faith response from you.
Fun extra fact: just went apple picking with my kids today. Picked way too many so now we have to make apple pie.
Doktor Zum, please let me offer my sincerest apologies for the cavalier way in which I described your ideas here. I truly was being a bit facetious, and I've taken your comments seriously enough to try to frame my response as a work of fiction, which (frustratingly) I just haven't been able to complete. It's wonderful to think you may actually read it someday, though I can't promise whether you'll actually find it any good or not.
Similarly for me the past few months, but I blamed the fact that it is winter here... so I tried taking up youtube video quicktakes or 'reactions' to a huge list of reading.....
This actually looks like a pretty good reading list you've created! It'll take me a while to see what they're like, and then I can give a better reply.
During the last summer I did more or less the opposite of what you say that you did. I cut down semi-random reading on the internet to a minimum. More or less, I stopped reading all Substacks except the Psmiths, which I decided was kosher because it is timeless and about books. I stopped staying up to date with what people are talking about. For example, I didn't visit Astral Codex Ten for months. Instead, I made an effort to read books instead - books about subjects I want to learn more about. I also specifically read homepages and Substacks by Orthodox Jews. That is, I read someone else's entertainment but not my own.
The main result is that I'm afraid my ideas are actually drifting a bit to the crazy side, as you mention. I have a weak but steady feeling of losing my intellectual foothold. I don't know if it is good or bad or something in between. But I can clearly feel that there is something like being too rigid in steering one's own influences too.
Well, your strategy isn't a failure, anyway; Wood From Eden is brimming with likes. Your half has always been the more experimental/speculative side, and all you have to do is make sense, not be thorough or punctilliously correct. I just wish the caliber of your comments were higher, and in all sincerity I have no idea how to improve that without getting Anders' post count and post quality up.
I like our comments section. It is not an exclusive club where only geniuses are allowed, but I learn a lot from it. And also, people are surprisingly nice and civil.
But I do agree that Anders raises the level of the whole venture. When he complains that his posts just make us lose subscribers I say that I like the kind of people who can't tolerate his posts better anyway.
The comment section at WoodFromEden makes me freeze up and yearn for YouTube shorts. Every time I read it, I'm faced with the gim judgment of three gatekeepers:
An Arabic proverb begins, “The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers.”
The first gatekeeper asks, “Is it true?”
The second, “Is it kind?”
The third, “Is it necessary?”
____________________
I pass the first gate without effort, but the second and third gatekeepers lock my words away so that they moulder, fester and die.
It's one thing to tweak people I actually like and respect, or respond irreverently to things that I found stimulating and enjoyable to read, but I can't say that about comments I find there. But hey, if you want to see what happens when the latter two gatekeepers are ignored, OK! Just go back to https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/oppression-of-males-is-the-gender/comments and ctrl-f "deliberate mistake" to find my contribution to the discussion.
Much, much more effective than this is for Anders to write a nice long post about the logistical difficulties of mining operations in prerevolutionary Serbia. (Coming from him, that is something I would read.)
Yeah, I saw that and wondered why you just can't just ignore the agenda people. They drop in once in a while, but they don't tend to stay for long.
Personally I enjoy the Orthodox Jews the most. I really have learnt a lot from them during the last few months.
>>Much, much more effective than this is for Anders to write a nice long post about the logistical difficulties of mining operations in prerevolutionary Serbia. (Coming from him, that is something I would read.)
Me too! (Anders sullenly tells that there was no revolution in Serbia).
That's a good article. You could help millions of people if you could get them to read it.
Of course, I do suspect it downplays the downsides of not having a phone - the logistical difficulties you mention are probably impossible for most people to surmount. Cell phones are now being used for identification purposes, and I often can't access my email without borrowing my wife's.
I realised how big a problem this was for me when I went on an off-the-grid trek in the Himalayas for 3 weeks a few years ago. Not being able to access my phone, the Internet and all its endless distracting possibilities felt nearly physically painful. The first three or so days of the grid were terrible. Then it was as if my brain woke up from a slumber and I enjoyed the nature around me, my own thoughts and the silence.
Spending some time in nature sans all electronic devices is my go to when I find myself falling into a bad pattern with Netflix etc. Highly recommend even 1 hr walk in the forest or whatever you can get to easily.
Thanks for writing this. Recently had a baby and am finding myself seeking escapist entertainment instead of using the little free time I have to do things that expand my mind. Your piece is a great reminder to try harder.
I'm noticing that many in the younger generation have experiences like yours. There's a kind of spiritual experience of unfolding and expanding into silence that people have when they put down their technology, even for a few days. My wife and I grew up just before cell phones swept in, and we've never quite had that experience, because to us they've always seemed unpleasant, bizarre, an extra and unnecessary burden. We're aware that technically some upsides to cell phones do exist, but they don't really register as upsides emotionally.
We never made a conscious decision to raise our children without them. But since our kids grew up with us as role models, they never had phones, and their attitudes are much the same. I recently asked our older children "If your mother and I hadn't raised you, do you think you would have different attitudes towards phones?" The response was "probably, but when you really look at cell phones they're just less good laptops that you have to pay a monthly fee for." When I responded that phones allow you to always stay in touch with people even when they're gone, they shrugged as though that were completely meaningless.
When you grow up without cell phones, life in the Himalayas is just what life is.
I have been feeling similarly to this blog post for a while now as well, and I want to thank you for putting into words what I have not yet (or cannot). It's gotten to the point that I even find working unsatisfactory (which is why I'm typing out this comment rather than doing my job or even the various personal projects that I have on my plate). The whole thing is quite a wicked problem, because clearly the killing time with leisure is a symptom of a larger societal problem: we have no positive vision for the future that we're building towards. The Roman Republic had the res public and the glory of the state, the medieval christians had god and their cathedrals, the romantics (and jugn/freud) had gnostic self discovery, and even the rationalists had their history as unending progress. All of these goals in life I think have proved to be false or similarly flawed in some way (expect maybe gnostic individuation), and we have failed to replace them with anything, which is why chopping wood and carrying water are so unsatisfactory. I think you can see a similar malaise in the later Roman Empire: it's not just the phones, it's a serious spiritual problem. We live in a dying society that no longer believes in the things it claims.
That said, the passive entertainment isn't helping. The only way out is thru, and we can't possibly move forward towards a more meaningful engagement with life if we are numbing ourselves with entertainment for a quarter of our waking life. My screen time is not so bad compared to the average (it's similar to yours), but this post has inspired me to try and get back on the anti digital entertainment horse once again.
That's good, but don't push yourself too hard. You might be experiencing a case of the blahs from wandering around in an electronic rut, but there was a reason I'd become so mired in distractions, and the reason was that my marriage had become really awful, and I wasn't able to fix it by myself. Some people kill time with addictions to drugs or gambling, others by using electronic media, and others to "hobbies" pursued mechanically, but who really tries to kill time unless they're suffering?
Most problems which lie at the root of that suffering are completely beyond our control, and just like the great joys in life, they come from others around us. This is the most obvious reason why national IQ and education would be so powerfully linked to subjective well being at a national level (with correlations near -0.5), while having so little impact on subjective well being at a personal level. (See Nikolaev, B., & Salahodjaev, R. (2016). The role of intelligence in the distribution of national happiness. Intelligence, 56, 38-45. and compare those results with, e.g., Wigtil, C. J., & Henriques, G. R. (2015). The relationship between intelligence and psychological well-being in incoming college students. Psychology of well-being, 5, 1-19.)
All of that matches my personal experiences perfectly. Yes, obviously our lives are sometimes not being lived well, but a year ago I was working hard, making time for family, listening, being patient and kind to others, fulfilling my responsibilities, exercising, drinking in moderation, and looking to the future in exactly the way most people never bother to do, and my life was still miserable. I simply had to wait for my wife to work things out for herself. In the meantime - that long, bleak meantime - there was YouTube, Netflix, and video games.
I understand your feelings and also feel you're a bit excessively negative about them. To me, at least, there is a very big difference between passively scrolling through random things on your phone, alone, and watching things together. Yes they are both passive in a sense, but one is at least social and prompts conversations, and the other does not.
It's easier to just give examples than try to give a theory here. But when I first moved to Utah around 20ish years ago, I was completely astounded by the fact of Mormons. I had never been around true-believing religious people before, and what's more, many of them were actually intelligent, doctors and scientists and such, and I simply could not comprehend this. The nation was also in a period of religiousity surrounding GWB and 9/11. This caused me to find a forum online for Ex-Mormons (which I'm not) and start spending time there discussing religion. Eventually I became quite popular there, and it was intellectually stimulating for me debating people, and I ended up spending basically every evening there getting into long debates with strangers about religion and philosophy and society. This was a HUGE waste of time. My views never changed, ultimately, eventually I lost interest, and all those people I'd spent a year or two talking two were ultimately just strangers with a screen name and I have no idea who they are.
In contrast, I DO spend every evening watching Netflix (or HBO Max, or Prime, or whatever it is) with my husband in the evenings. You assume it's just staring glass eyed at the screen and that really is not true. It's a social activity much like any other. We push pause about 20 times during any show, to discuss what's going on or ask questions about it, or something might happen that brings up a question or historical issue we want to know about so then we end up looking it up, we get into debates, we end up talking stories, etc. A one hour show will often take us 3 hours to watch, because of all of this pause-pushing and digressions and discussions. I don't think that's particularly uncommon...we might be a bit more extreme than most, but people aren't just sitting like zombies, if you're watching with other people it's a social activity. It really isn't that different than playing a board game...it's a sort of meaninglessly entertaining activity that's a prompt and excuse for social interaction. Then if our siblings or other couple friends have watched the same show, it leads to more of the same.
Similarly, at work we all had a group that would meet and discuss the show Succession. These were fun discussions. We met up for lunch and everyone gave their theories and predictions. We had a betting pool and a prize for the winner who guessed the most plot points. I think there is more of this type of thing that goes on than you are assuming, but you're out of the loop with what other people are watching, so you don't participate in it.
I know you are probably reading this with a little contempt and revulsion, and it probably seems like a very low brow waste of time to you. I can understand that because that is how I feel when I watch my husband's family and how they are about sports. They watch them during daylight (which thoroughly disgusts me) and it seems SO pointless and stupid and like a gross waste of time to me, because I see nothing interesting there whatsoever. But it is also how they bond. It's what they talk about, and it brings them together. So how can I really look down on that too terribly?
FWIW, I do plenty of real "stuff" that you seem to privilege. I go on a walk every day. I've planted over 45 trees of different varieties on my property the past two years, which took a lot of muscle and research. We hike, we go camping, we sing karaoke together at home. We learned to rock climb. He's constructed various infrastructure on the property. Etc etc. But I'm not really sure why you think some of those things are inherently better than others. I appreciate the conversations I get into with my husband that are often prompted by what we watch on TV...I've learned stories about him from his childhood I wouldn't have otherwise, I've learned a lot about history, we know each other better because of it. It has not prompted any more or less conversation than it does when we play board games when we're camping. Sometimes that stuff is just a prompt for what you're really doing, which is spending time with someone and enjoying their company.
FWIW, I do have a problem with a Substack addiction that is likely somewhat wasting my time just like the Ex Mormon board did. And I'm ignoring my husband to type this right now, when he wants to start a show. Anyway, have you tried watching something engaging with your wife or kids?? Not saying you have to, but also saying I don't think it's quite as bad as you make out.
Hello Mr. Pie. I am sorry to say that I was immediately distracted from your post about distractions. Specifically, by the line about philosophy in your second paragraph. I am not exceptionally smart, but I am rather inquisitive, and I love a good existential puzzle. Is there any chance I can contribute to your endeavor to move the field forward? Any specific questions or fields of inquiry you're looking to have answered?
No guarantee that I'll actually be of any help, but I tend to enjoy thinking about this sort of thing regardless, so I thought I'd ask.
Possibly you might be able to contribute. The problem I see is this: Mathematicians have made steady progress over the last 2500 years, while scientists have made incredible discoveries in perhaps a fifth of that time. Philosophers' progress by comparison has been modest, and I'd like to do something about it by reconsidering the processes they use in the field.
Mathematicians use mathematical induction, symbolic language, the substituting of equal quantities in expressions, and so on. Scientists generate hypotheses, test them according to statistical rules, and try to build simple models to explain multiple observations. Why are philosophers not as successful? What might be done to improve their ability to explore and reveal the truth?
Huh, interesting. Could you narrow down your definition of philosophy for me, if you don't mind? I tend to regard stuff like science, math, religion and such as philosophies in their own right, but that's probably too broad of a definition here. By that metric, any advancements made by science and co. are directly tied to advancements made in philosophy, which kind of upends the entire idea that philosophy has stalled out.
Pragmatically, define philosophy as the collection of fields such as aesthetics and ethics in which I am extremely interested. Or, just define philosophy in terms of common usage, which would also include fields like metaphysics and epistemology. If you are really interested in this, you shuold probably take a look at https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/philosophy-is-a-residuum-of-failure and respond there.
I’ve been thinking of this problem ever since I was a little girl. I have always been astonished at the boring activities that people around me indulge in and I have never really understood if they are genuinley interested or if they follow these things just to blend in smoothly (watching soccer on TV, following the Euovision Song contest in all its part contests, social media, etc, namely all these things that doesn’t interest me a bit). On the other hand I could spend hours contemplating what to grow in my little garden (I had one aleady at a very early age) something that would have struck many people as really boring. I gladly read very dry scientific reasearch on subjects that are important to me, but I get bored to tears by reading about the whereabouts of Harry and Meghan and other worldwide celebrities.
What is the factor that makes the difference?
Probably that the activity is induced from within. I myself looked for and found and decided that this or that is interesting for me. Also when I accidentally stumbled over some random information it could be enriching if it belonged to a subject that I have an ongoing, but perhaps not so active interest in. I have a lot of different interests and unfinished projects and thought-threads. Like in this case, where a subject that I have thought a lot about earlier and really not got ready with got a new spark of interest, thanks to this blog post. (I also really look forward to the one on God that you promised to write, another subject that has occupied me a lot in earlier years)
When, on the other hand, I’m overwashed with celebrity info that I would never request, this makes me very tired and drained of energy. Is this the case also for other people, or are there some people that are genuinely interested in celebrity news? Probably. If most people avoided it like I do, it would not be a good thing for advertisers to spend money on, so why would it even exist?
So what is the definition of time waste?
It makes me feel tired and devitalized. I try to choose what to do according to what instead makes me feel renewed and inspired, wiser and stronger and more competent than before. I’m happy to listen to advise on what to read and do from likeminded friends, IRL or on the Internet.
Another very good way to get the feeling of using time well is to produce something, or improve it, like in renovating a house or a car or making clothes (or developing new or old friendships). A really well done piece of carpentry can give you a lifelong satisfaction as well as one badly done can give a lot of annoyance. The feeling that comes from having a vision about something in the garden and then work in that direction and suddenly one day see that the vision has now been realised, that is a very special feeling. And all time spent weeding is done with that vision before your eyes, which is an extremely satisfactory feeling. If you have visions about a lot of areas in life, then you will always have enough inspiration not to have patience with passtimes.
But of course there are times when passtimes take too much time, namely when you are ill or otherwise disabled. Then Sudoko can become an addiction, hard to get rid of afterwards. When you start thinking in visions again you know you are back to your normal healthy self.
It's exactly when activities are pursued as distraction that they signal one's life is in a rut. I think Sudoku is absolutely wonderful, but I also probably solve two puzzles a year, on average. I've read spiritual teachers advize their students to "chop wood and carry water" in an effort to reach enlightenment, but it seems to me impossible to progress meaningfully through the same tasks performed the same way every day.
The problem is that there is a *reason* people bury themselves in these repetitious tasks, and that reason is a general emotional malaise - social problems, financial trouble, bad memories, a cloying weariness of the soul. It isn't possible to just banish the empty activities because they are themselves a bandage for problems that cannot be solved. Very much of human happiness is either imposed externally, or else arises internally as an expression of our genetic inheritance, in ways that we have relatively little control over. One can pursue the very best and wisest life and still never overcome the curses of the gods.
As for who is drawn to celebrity gossip, that's easy, and in fact interest in celebrity gossip is an important tell for people to avoid. If this were a proper post I'd break these studies down with some quotes and analysis, but I honestly, I think you can get message just from the titles.
Ashe, D. D., Maltby, J., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2005). Are celebrity-worshippers more prone to Narcissism? A brief report. North American Journal of Psychology, 7(2), 239-246.
Ash, S., Greenwood, D., & Keenan, J. P. (2023). The Neural Correlates of Narcissism: Is There a Connection with Desire for Fame and Celebrity Worship?. Brain Sciences, 13(10), 1499.
Huynh, H. P. (2021). Humility is inversely related to celebrity interest and admiration. North American Journal of Psychology, 23(1), 95-95.
Yes, life consists to a large degree of problems that cannot be solved. That's known since long and one of the essential ideas of e.g. buddhism. I also know from much personal experience. How to handle this is really just the art of living (I've read a lot of books on that). Different people find different strategies. Some go to alcohol and/or drugs. Some use empty passtime-strategies to fill their heads with cotton, not to feel the pain.
But there are better strategies. Problems that cannot be solved must not be allowed to take all energy away from life. Maybe there are other problems to work a little with? The impossible ones must be laid in the hands of God (just a matter of speaking, I'm not really religious, but you see what I mean). I do what I can with them for the moment, then let them rest and make sure that I don't do anything to make it worse. Take them up once in a while to see if anything has developed, otherwise give them as little attention as possible. A few of them are old by now, thirty, forty, fifty years. Some has improved a little, some not at all. Some has been possible to solve altogether after a long time. It would have been much nicer without them. Unfortunately there are also new problems that cannot be solved, very severe ones. Old and new, they can all be found in my diaries, since writing about them is the best way to get them sorted out from the head, without risking that they will be forgotten. Writing down the thoughts about them also frees my mind to come up with new ideas and could help with getting closer to solutions.
But there is also much else in life. Taking care of the people that are important to me has always been very helpful for me to feel better myself. And to focus on the things that are doable. Also small problem solving is very valuable in this sense. And when you manage to be constructive with some things in your life it gives you energy which in some strange way also helps you with the unsolvable problems (or was it perhaps God...) Anyway, it is possible to feel better without sinking into heavy abuse of passtimes.
Sorry if I sound too cheerful. I'm not, just old and a bit wiser than before :)
Best wishes for coming out the other side of your funk. This reflection certainly bodes well for that, and is an inspiring reminder to make the most of every day. That, of course, shouldn't mean being busy all the time, because investing time in rest and contemplation is also vitally important to our growth and productivity.
This is the next question to ask, isn't it? What should we be doing rather than consuming passive entertainment? Just being productive - as though the sake of living is productivity - seems as though it can't be the better way.
I think you're right to bring up rest and contemplation as almost surely better, but what if they don't bring any resolution or happiness? These little habits I've developed for entertaining myself came after rest and contemplation seemed to bring nothing useful.
Truthfully I think what was really helpful was being able to express myself to people like you, to know that I was understood, and to read insightful responses like these at the end.
I've had to sit with this a while, though when I say "sit", I mean contemplate my response while going about my day. It sounds trite to say that everyone is different, and respond differently to activity and inactivity, but it's true. What struck me in your response is that you gave yourself rest, and while it felt like it didn't achieve anything, eventually it stimulated activity. A need to *do* something. I think that shows you were well-enough rested, and ready to move on to a new state. I am the same. I can be passive for longer now than I could years ago, but eventually, I need to get moving. You also say you found inspiration for your inability to finish writing articles *by writing an article*. Many writers seem to innately feel that need to work things out by writing. I'm not a writer, but my inspirational needs are met through menial tasks, being creative, exercise, and nature. The hardest part of any task is getting started. Once you do that, anything is possible.
I've very much enjoyed reading your thoughts and this Substack in general. I think that you have original ideas, and though I am a free rider, I've been happy to be a subscribed to this blog.
That being said, I'm disappointed in the way you called me out in this post. I had a good faith objection to your argument in favor of alcohol and made some empirical arguments. You ended that exchange by indicating that you might post further on it.
But then you accuse me of believing that "thinking is more important than checking".
First, I'm not sure you can separate thinking from checking: is it really possible to check without thinking? I'm a bit confused. But it's also not fair to accuse me of not checking--as I noted, historically teetotaling populations tend to live longer. I also made some other arguments based on what you might define as "checking."
Anyway, I might be wrong, but in addition to eating spiders, forging swords and wrecking cars, I'd like to see a good faith response from you.
Fun extra fact: just went apple picking with my kids today. Picked way too many so now we have to make apple pie.
Doktor Zum, please let me offer my sincerest apologies for the cavalier way in which I described your ideas here. I truly was being a bit facetious, and I've taken your comments seriously enough to try to frame my response as a work of fiction, which (frustratingly) I just haven't been able to complete. It's wonderful to think you may actually read it someday, though I can't promise whether you'll actually find it any good or not.
May your family enjoy your apple pie!
Similarly for me the past few months, but I blamed the fact that it is winter here... so I tried taking up youtube video quicktakes or 'reactions' to a huge list of reading.....
https://whyweshould.loofs-samorzewski.com/reactions-to-papers-on-evolution~morality.html
(no substack version)
It is sort of working, except I now have reactions to other short pieces that now have no header file....
this keeps up appearances while I get on with playing Doom or whatever it is old kids to day play
This actually looks like a pretty good reading list you've created! It'll take me a while to see what they're like, and then I can give a better reply.
I've have not read them yet.... need a pure reaction to record...
During the last summer I did more or less the opposite of what you say that you did. I cut down semi-random reading on the internet to a minimum. More or less, I stopped reading all Substacks except the Psmiths, which I decided was kosher because it is timeless and about books. I stopped staying up to date with what people are talking about. For example, I didn't visit Astral Codex Ten for months. Instead, I made an effort to read books instead - books about subjects I want to learn more about. I also specifically read homepages and Substacks by Orthodox Jews. That is, I read someone else's entertainment but not my own.
The main result is that I'm afraid my ideas are actually drifting a bit to the crazy side, as you mention. I have a weak but steady feeling of losing my intellectual foothold. I don't know if it is good or bad or something in between. But I can clearly feel that there is something like being too rigid in steering one's own influences too.
Well, your strategy isn't a failure, anyway; Wood From Eden is brimming with likes. Your half has always been the more experimental/speculative side, and all you have to do is make sense, not be thorough or punctilliously correct. I just wish the caliber of your comments were higher, and in all sincerity I have no idea how to improve that without getting Anders' post count and post quality up.
I like our comments section. It is not an exclusive club where only geniuses are allowed, but I learn a lot from it. And also, people are surprisingly nice and civil.
But I do agree that Anders raises the level of the whole venture. When he complains that his posts just make us lose subscribers I say that I like the kind of people who can't tolerate his posts better anyway.
Who is Anders? I immediately want to follow him. 🤣
He posts at the same substack Tove does: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/
The comment section at WoodFromEden makes me freeze up and yearn for YouTube shorts. Every time I read it, I'm faced with the gim judgment of three gatekeepers:
___________
https://www.theologyofwork.org/the-high-calling/daily-reflection/three-gatekeepers
An Arabic proverb begins, “The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers.”
The first gatekeeper asks, “Is it true?”
The second, “Is it kind?”
The third, “Is it necessary?”
____________________
I pass the first gate without effort, but the second and third gatekeepers lock my words away so that they moulder, fester and die.
It's one thing to tweak people I actually like and respect, or respond irreverently to things that I found stimulating and enjoyable to read, but I can't say that about comments I find there. But hey, if you want to see what happens when the latter two gatekeepers are ignored, OK! Just go back to https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/oppression-of-males-is-the-gender/comments and ctrl-f "deliberate mistake" to find my contribution to the discussion.
Much, much more effective than this is for Anders to write a nice long post about the logistical difficulties of mining operations in prerevolutionary Serbia. (Coming from him, that is something I would read.)
Yeah, I saw that and wondered why you just can't just ignore the agenda people. They drop in once in a while, but they don't tend to stay for long.
Personally I enjoy the Orthodox Jews the most. I really have learnt a lot from them during the last few months.
>>Much, much more effective than this is for Anders to write a nice long post about the logistical difficulties of mining operations in prerevolutionary Serbia. (Coming from him, that is something I would read.)
Me too! (Anders sullenly tells that there was no revolution in Serbia).
That's a good article. You could help millions of people if you could get them to read it.
Of course, I do suspect it downplays the downsides of not having a phone - the logistical difficulties you mention are probably impossible for most people to surmount. Cell phones are now being used for identification purposes, and I often can't access my email without borrowing my wife's.