6 ms·
> We might think we invented WFH, but for the first monks remote working was standard. After all, God, much like 4G, is omnipresent. Yet the Benedictine guide m
by anthropodie 5y ago
> We might think we invented WFH, but for the first monks remote working was standard. After all, God, much like 4G, is omnipresent. Yet the Benedictine guide makes clear that this privileged existence is often a struggle. Some early monks wept, constantly. Many said it was a sign of their faith – but, having experienced several lockdowns, some of us might be more tempted to diagnose the depression of enforced isolation and flat days on repeat, time without end.
It seems the author does not know anything about monks, people, WFH and whole lot of other things.
The title is Hell is other people and yet in article it is said that it's better to go to office because experiencing hell through other people is better than personal hell.
WFH is not like being a monk for God's sake. In fact, you can have very active social life and you get to choose people who you spend time with. Unlike in office where you are forced to get along with people you know nothing about.
- jdavis703 5y agoCan you though? For most of mass, forced WFH experiment social activities were literally forbidden by law. To venture out the house after 8pm meant risking arrest or tear gassing by the government. In America.
- roflc0ptic 5y agoExamples of people being tear gassed for being out past curfew?
- mkr-hn 5y agoMostly people peaceably assembling to protest police violence. Sometimes they were just having a vigil, not even protesting. This was big news all through 2020, so the poster probably reasonably assumed it didn't need citation. Example: that time Capitol police tear gassed protestors so Trump could go have a photo op with a bible at a church. They weren't even out past curfew, but that was the way the police justified it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._John%27s_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._J... Even people who usually defend the police were taken aback by the relatively tame response by the same police to pro-Trump protestors later on before the January 6th coup attempt.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dorkwood 5y agoIn California there were lots of people walking around outside after curfew. And you were always allowed to leave your home at any time to exercise. There was often a police presence down at the beach, but they didn't enforce anything. Not even fines.
- vibrato2 5y agoThere’s a lot of video evidence to the contrary on your beach claim. Personally I was nearly run over by a police suv and tackled off my skateboard at noon by an officer in a major American city for violating park closure.
- asdff 5y agoIt depends on the city. In LA people still played pickup basketball and soccer despite whatever the mayor was saying and the police only got serious about the beaches a few times. Surfers never stopped going out naturally.
- jdavis703 5y agoThere was an 8pm curfew with emergency alerts broadcast to everyone’s cellphone. You were only allowed to be out if you were heading home. I was out at the time when the alert was issued, and got gassed along with hundreds of others. There are news articles about this.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoCan you share a link. I am sympathetic to the overreach, and would like to find out more.
- asdff 5y agoThe cops were only enforcing curfew on protestors and that was only like a few blocks of the city. You could still drive around town fine in elsewhere LA at least during the curfew. Cops don't really pull people over here that often to begin with.
- 5y ago
- the-dude 5y agoIt seems to me you are taking the piece a bit too literal.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nickthemagicman 5y ago> After all, God, much like 4G, is omnipresent. That was funny and I'm pretty sure 100% tongue in cheek.
- high_5 5y agoI for one, can't really make anything out of this article. Is it a joke or just a poor attempt at comparing monasticism with corporate life? Or is it both?
- dustintrex 5y agoIt's both! This is the style of all the pieces in Economist's year-end 1843 magazine: thought-provoking, but entertaining and not meant to taken terribly seriously.
- cratermoon 5y agoIt's not poor. It seems a lot of people on HN are dismissing the advice in the story because they have mistaken ideas about what monastic life is like and, for some reason God only knows, conclude that the author doesn't know what she's talking about. As someone who actually lived as a monastic for a time, I can tell you that a. monastic life is not like what HN wags think it is and b. the article is insightful
- saalweachter 5y agoI would also note that, etymology of the term and famous examples notwithstanding, the monastic lifestyle is a fraternal one, such as rarely exists anymore: you are living and working within a community of people doing and living the same way as you. "Brother" is even the common title for a monk. This used to be the most common way to live; a farmer with 10-40 acres finds himself in a community of other farmers, but there aren't many farmers today and industrialization has pushed them far apart. Aside from the military, most of us just have day jobs, and go home to our separate lives at night.
- neaden 5y agoTraditional farming in Europe and most of the world wasn't even a farmer having their own plot of land. Most farming was collaborative, fields were held in common and individuals owned certain portions of the fields mixed with others. Much of the work of weeding, plowing, etc had to be done as a community. 10-40 acres is also far more than someone would be capable of farming as an individual household before modern technology.
- dexwiz 5y agoCorrect. Most villages had one large field surround a few buildings. The split was split up some standard ways. If the village was on a road, the divisions usually fanned out from the road, making the division map look striped. I’d the village sat on a river, often the divisions would radiate out making the map look like a corner of a pie with many slices.
- watwut 5y agoThe Christian monastic life is nothing like living in farming community. The monasteries rules every detail of your life. There are rules about what and when you can do, say, eat, wear, everything. On the extreme end, you have monks who can see other people for like 1 hour a day or did wow of silence. Oh, and they dont get to pick person they will be with during that 1 hour of socialization. The rest of time is in isolation and activities for every minute are prescribed. And even in more moderate monasteries, you still have whole day prescribed. Who you socialize with is controlled too. You don't get to voice opinion about rules. You don't get to pick up friends you have fun with in the evening.
- dustintrex 5y agoAs the text you are quoting (!) says, the first monks were solo: stylites on pillars, hermits in caves, etc. Communal monastic living came later, and brought with it the inevitable social tensions you see in any group of people living and working together.
- eigengrau5150 5y agoanchorites vs cenobites
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cratermoon 5y agoIt's surprisingly similar. Source: I lived as a Zen Buddhist monk for a time in my life. The article is quite insightful.