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Comment by sweetheart | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I think after long periods of relying on these services to fill pockets of time that are otherwise hard to capitalize on, we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored. Like any form of rehabilitation, it takes time, and after a couple weeks it’s easy to see that life is so, so easy without the obsession of always consuming something. And what a better way to come up with interesting ideas, too. I’d take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on.

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> I’d take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on.

I feel like this misses the point because you're still looking at it through the lens of productivity, albeit a step removed from "writing code" kind of productivity.

In your example you're still doing something -- "trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on".

It seems like, if anything, this is an example of what the author is talking about: the need to turn everything into productivity.

That sounds like something Slavoj Zizek would say. Capitalism is the cornerstone of American culture, so everything we do easily falls into a "pump up those numbers" mindset.

Yeah I’ve had a couple conversations with friends about this in the last year. They tend to see this as a negative thing (the pressure to always be creating _something_), but I’ve never been convinced by their arguments. I think I look at one’s relationship to value production as a fairly romantic venture that sates some poorly understood desire to leave the world in a better place than you found it. They tend to say this is just because I’ve grown up in a capitalist economy and there is no innate value to producing new things. For some reason that just doesn’t feel right to me.

Well, there's definitely utility to you in creating things, even if it provides no value to anyone else. Not only can you solve your own problems this way, but it develops your skills, creativity, & general sense of well-being.

Which reminds me the first time I did a longer silent meditation retreat. Even though this was before the smartphone age, I missed listening to music, talking to people, reading the news, etc. Basically any strong sensory perception. Once you are over the hump and accept these cravings, it becomes easier and you find a certain 'lightness' in not having to react to every emotion immediately.

Since last year or so I have become more conscientious about my smartphone use. And I have tried to curtail use a fair bit. Since smartphones are often genuinely useful (navigation, occasional messaging, music) I didn't want to stop cold turkey. Also, to me it is more interesting to learn to break the addiction while still being able to use a phone responsibly. I removed all games from my phone and most social media apps. All those moments where you'd normally take out your phone have become so much nicer: there are more opportunities to rest your mind, pick up small conversations with people, etc.

Besides the addictiveness of phones, the other problem of social media is that everything has become a reputation game. The other day, I saw a video of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder just wandering around a park in Seattle in 1992. People recognized him, would come up to him and they'd just chat. Some people would ask an autograph, but that's it. As someone pointed out in the comments, this would not be possible anymore today. If a somewhat famous person would be recognized, people would focus more on getting the perfect pic for Instagram likes than actually connecting with a real person.

Similarly, when I was a teenager, we would just go to concerts, fool around, kiss, play guitar miserably, all the things that teenagers do, without the need to continuously document our perfect party life or being aware of the risk that someone might film you when you do something stupid. We were much freer than kids are now.

When I take a long vacation it often takes me several weeks to slow down and learn to be myself without needing distraction. Unfortunately there are a lot of people whose first experience ever with having time to slow down will be at retirement. The usual two week or less vacations don’t cut it.

>learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time

That’s essentially the same as trying to quit tobacco.

Trying to quit cigarettes.

I smoked cigars and cigarillos for some time and it’s essentially the same. Maybe worse - you can easily fill an hour with a cigar. No idea about chewing or snuff I suppose.

People I know who've quit dip did it by making themselves sick, packing a huge lip and swallowing instead of spitting. Usually ends in puke. Now just a whiff of the stuff makes them gag.

That sounds very effective; I'm trying to think how you might be able to apply that technique to social media. I want to gag every time I spend too long on Facebook.

Go read some political pages you don’t agree with. Engage with the people there, and after a while, you surely won’t want to be anywhere around Facebook. Possibly because they’ll be harassing you for days

For me, the catalyst was that I lived in a place with an average temperature well below 0°C, and then I realized that my cats smelled like ashtrays because I smoked inside.

That’s kind of like the thing where parents make kids smoke entire pack of cigarettes when they’re caught with them.

Had a pretty fierce nicotine addiction for a while in college. The hardest part was the migraines but once those went away it's been smooth sailing every since.

The first time I tried to quit social media, I was shocked at how I instinctively tried to share every mildly amusing thought. It took hard work to relearn how to let my passing thoughts just vanish without trying to spread them around.

Right - growing up when the world was becoming fascinated with social media led my brain to constantly seek reward & imagine an eager audience for my fascinating adolescent thoughts. Now I see the freedom in the fact that no one really cares.

> we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored

Yup.. personally I somehow feel it's "wrong" that I sit there and do nothing on the rare occasion I get the opportunity.

This is often how I feel. There have definitely been days when I just sat around doing nothing, but even on those days I find myself reading a book, practicing a language, writing down ideas, practicing music, and thinking about things that matter to me. I feel like not doing 'something' is a waste of time and brings me no value. Even in times when I am 'doing nothing' that I think of right now, I am generally at least walking or doing some exercise.

I strongly recall going with my parents to the laundromat as a child and sitting there for 3 hrs straight on a chair. I had no phone, no book, no other kids in the building, and the arcade machines and other things all costed quarters that I didn't have. I would just sit there bored out of my skull, and I hated it more than anything else in the world. It wasn't like playing outside with friends where we could invent our own games, it was cold sterile nothing in a smelly building. When people complain about contemporary kids on their tablets or phones 24/7 and how this is bad I always think back to these times when I literally didn't even have a crayon to scribble with. The times I remember fondly of exploring/playing/running around the neighborhood/drawing/ fighting/ etc are more memorable, but in terms of objective measurement, were vastly outweighed by sitting doing literally nothing. I feel like people often view the world with rose-coloured glasses when they write these anti-screen messages.

> I feel like people often view the world with rose-coloured glasses when they write these anti-screen messages.

With all due respect, perhaps they're viewing through the glasses of "not having neglectful and/or impoverished parents." A daily 3-hr purgatory, isolated from socialization or stimuli, will not to a kid any good.

There are times when I just want to sit or lay down and do nothing but my wife wont let me. When asked about her problem with this, she says it’s lazy not to do anything. Somehow doing nothing is wrong and everyone is conditioned to judge you for it.

One of my pet peeves is when someone complains to me about being bored, as if their inability to occupy themselves is my fault and its my job to entertain them. My wife learned this about me early on (I'm an extreme introvert and can happily retreat into my own skull and stay there for hours at a time).

Don't come to me and simply say "I'm bored." What am I supposed to do with that? If you have an idea of something you'd like to do that involves me, by all means just tell me.

Otherwise, leave me alone.

Only boring people get bored. You should try this one on your wife :)

It's funny how couples' attitudes to idleness can conflict like this. I spent a good few years at the beginning of my relationship with my now wife defending my right to not appear to be doing anything. It took a long time for us to understand each other, and I think the hardest thing was feeling judged for simply being oneself and not performing in some way. Being alone and idle is a huge part of what makes me me.

I got a lot of freedom when I realized that other people’s judgements are often designed (sometimes subconsciously or culturally) simply to get you to do what they want you to do.

It is quite in the benefit of other people and groups for you to be “productive”.

I had that experience (not myself) with a former girlfriend.

She vocalized how she thought it was "so indulgent" to lie about for an hour on a late-summer Sunday afternoon in the city.

I grew up in a small, small town and remember a time even in the 90s before there was internet access. And then a time when there was, but it was far from readily accessible.

Entire days could be consumed by riding your bike on country roads past cornfields and sitting at the foot of waterfalls. There was nothing else to do. I read a lot. If that's indulgent I must be the most ugly glutton!

I have a 40 minute commute. I have to resist the urge to fill the time with a podcast, radio, TedX. When I do, it's so nice to just let my mind wonder.

Mindfulness is slow, frustrating, inconvenient, impractical, irritating, and that's the whole point.

Practicing mindfulness and meditation helps me redirect my energy towards less impulsivity and nagging thoughts of cheap dopamine sources (Facebook, Instagram etc)

> we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored.

I would say that we unlearn how to simply sit and be without being bored.

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