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The sum of all attention is your life. So whenever you spend attention you spend life time. This helps me now and then to put away my phone and just live.
by baxtr 1y ago
The sum of all attention is your life.
So whenever you spend attention you spend life time.
This helps me now and then to put away my phone and just live.
- qsort 1y agoWe could say it's all you need...
- thfuran 1y agoI don't think Maslow would agree.
- mks_shuffle 1y agoI think the parent comment is referring to "Attention is All You Need", famous transformer paper.
- thfuran 1y agoAnd I couldn’t fit any unreasonable effectiveness in my reply, so I had to be contrarian.
- waldrews 1y agoOr, you know, the Beatles.
- pmg101 1y agoSounds 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.
- IrishTechie 1y agoWhen 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.
- bloomca 1y agoI 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.
- lm28469 1y agoMost 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
- pmg101 1y agoBut doing nothing doesn't fulfill the required function, which is distraction from existential dread. Watching TV does. People do a lot of that too. Anything to save observing things as they are or reflecting on them.
- baxtr 1y agoThis comment is so profound. Thanks for sharing this insight
- timeon 1y agoAnd than imagine that there are people who spend their attention on work even in the shower.
- CPLX 1y ago> This helps me now and then to put away my phone and just post on HN. It's OK, we're all mad here.
- AlanYx 1y agoPulitzer prize winning author Annie Dillard phrased it even more simply: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."