Comment by pmg101
6 days ago
Sounds fun but breaks down on further inspection.
What activities, in your taxonomy, count as "just living"?
Reading a novel? Reading a trashy magazine? Washing dishes? Building a model boat? Conversation? Staring out the window?
You know I can't think of any reason why phone activities aren't also living.
You have to decide for yourself because you're the only one that cares in the end. The main problem is that we're easily getting tricked into spending time on things we don't even particularly enjoy or things we enjoy in the instant but know we will regret later. It doesn't matter if you spend your time saving children from starvation or collecting pokemon cards, as long as on your death bed you're not overcome by "did I just waste my life ?" thoughts.
But that's not new:
> Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words, that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...
When you use your phone to surf the Internet you’re often doing it to just fill time, rather than it being an activity you really want to do (like those things you list). You often tend to come out of a long phone reading session feeling a bit hungover and possibly guilty at the time you’ve spent, compared to say building a model boat where you’ll generally feel positive and refreshed afterward. Using your phone is also generally not one activity you’re paying close attention to, you’re hoping from one thing to the next never really getting a sense of flow.
To be clear I’m talking about the mindless scrolling many of us do, if you’re reading a dissertation on battery chemistry or something on your phone I find that’s a different story.
I think it is not really possible to fill all your time with "productive" activities, so to speak. I mean we are on HN, which is in general mostly a fun social network.
It is not a bad thing, just all about balance. If you are focused and consistently dedicate even little time to some activities you can achieve incredible results.
Most of the time you'd be better off sitting in silence for 10 min rather than reading the latest news cycle or doomscrolling on social media.
Sometimes doing nothing is more productive than attempting to fill the gaps with meaningless noise
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I thought a lot about this. In life, we have things we have to do (work, chores) and thing we like to do (could be anything, also work, why not).
So the problem appears when you start to feel that you spend your life on things you have to do, and you have very little time for things you want to do. This is something everybody experiences at some point.
For me, one of the most happy periods of my life was when I was working 4 days a week, for example. It gave me a lot of space to actually feel I'm living. It also gave me a slightly greater sense of control over my life, and the time to appreciate it. As for the type of activity, it's secondary.
of course you're right, starring at your phone is also "living". it's just not the way I want to spend my attention / my life.
It's not the way we want to have spent our life. For me at least, too often it's the way I want to spend the next minute... and the next... and the next...
(So I don't use actually use my phone, I use a computer. Same effect.)
Good point. That’s how I ended up here again as well.