notimetoanalysee

[notimetoanalysee]

Thursday May 11.

#currently reading

Questions don't really get much better. So, what are you #currently reading?

It's a fast track into a myriad of compelling conversations: a gateway into new favorites, new ideas, new writers and artists. If ever you're looking for a way to breeze the subject from the banal towards the more thought-provoking, then this will help oil the gears really rather nicely.

It's a chance to draw on the concepts and quotes that you have first read with your eyes (or indeed heard with your ear/s for you good folk over at audiobooks), which have then inhabited, and turned over, the glorious fog of your mind for day, after week, after month. You have spent the quiet moments chewing over these ideas: wrestling with them, exploring and deep-diving into them, challenging and confronting them, and debating. Now, with this simple question, you can pluck these ideas from the abstract and into the real world through the beautiful mess of discussion. 

These ideas and concepts may be frightening, fascinating, exciting, hostile, or like the terrain of an alien world. They may possess the mystery of fog or the resplendent warm drench of sunlight. It may be the political, the personal, the philosophical. It might be an effervescent mess of all of the above.

And now, thanks to this simple question, it is all yours to share and explore. So, what are you #currently reading?

[notimetoanalysee]

Create (no) more

New post. Text. Book. Podcast. Magazine. Article. Opinion.

We live in unprecedented time – the amount of information around us is so huge, it’s getting harder to connect the dots and focus on anything meaningful. More meanings are creating every next second – check your Instagram or go to a news website. Your book app has a constantly growing collection of good books, which you, even having a great desire, won’t be able to read. Musicians release so many albums, you’re tired to listen to all of them. Let me guess, you don’t even have the energy to listen to albums of your favorite band?

What if we knew, that all the content, that we can easily find online whenever we want, would become temporary content? I feel like the fact that a new movie from my favorite director is available only for the next 7 days, would make me watch it immediately, without postponing (”because there are too many other important things”). I would pay for such a subscription on Netflix or Apple Music, if I knew that, if not now, then never.

Fear of missing out would become actually motivating.

If you miss this new series, you won’t see it anymore. The sweetest thing is that you realize that content is unavailable anymore. You don’t have to regret or feel the slightest remorse, that you haven’t watched this movie number 195678, because you simply didn’t have enough motivation and time.

We have the energy for limited amounts of stimulus. It’s hard to contemplate today’s amounts of, to be honest, everything. Temporary content would teach us to let things flow easily. It’s hard to attach too much when you have only a week. Let information flow easily and focus on what matters and reverberates with you. 

Let go.

Zen-wisdom in the era of information.

Since we’re talking about creating new meanings, I ask a (rhetorical) question: what does it mean – to be creator nowadays? Can we create something valuable or we’re just copying and pasting, trying to be heard with brand-new opinions and polluting (social) media with an unbearable amount of content?

I feel like the second.

Being a creator, an author is not a very honorable thing right now. If not you – then one from the many, many others. You’re not a chosen anymore. Easy approachability of the sharing your opinion automatically eliminates its value. Instagram philosophers, bloggers, vloggers and influencers. All of them (as I do now) share their thoughts, ideas, inspire for challenges and advice you to read some very important book.

The author today looks like a monkey. Performing in a beautiful, and yet stinking cage. A clown. The viewer (follower) throws him attention, likes, comments, money, whatever. And then leaves – and author, as an addicted individual, starts to crave this attention again. By doing things that audience will like again. Comment again. Follow again.

Authorship is an addiction. Attention to the author is even bigger addiction. No matter how ungrateful the authorship may be, it fascinates all who show even the slightest weakness. No one wants to be a black crow and everyone, in one way or another, experience the need for approval. We don’t like rejection, in fact, we fear it the most. And that is when the authorship is in danger – when we start to create in order to be approved and accepted by a group of people, not for the sake of creating.

Being an author doesn’t make you special anymore. Sounds brutal, but that’s the reality. Seduced audience wants to come on stages – and they do it so massively, I want to leave the stadium.

Can we be silent for a little bit? Not writing yet another blog post, not creating just for the sake of posting an update, not reposting, not copying quotes. 

Have the courage to be unheard.

Most likely, we all are too tired to listen.

[notimetoanalysee]

Real li(e/fe)

This is sick. Truly, inexplicably sick. Shifting attention from one stimulus to another. From messaging your loved ones to replying customers. Checking Instagram, while deciding to book a flight and then in a moment of recall in mind that you wanted to see that deep movie.

Oh.

What a pity.

You don’t have enough time for everything.

I spilled my coffee on the table while typing this. My hands are slightly shaking — although I’ve taken 3 pills of tranquilizers today.

Wait, and we (me and a friend of mine) wanted to make a podcast.

This is too much.

All of these.

Too. Fucking. Much.

We should stop.

We should stop posting so many “content-in-order-to-create-even-more-content”. We should talk less. We should do our jobs without switching to small talks every ten minutes.

We ought to stay sane.

We need to stay focused in order to stay alive.

In the morning, I was looking out of my window and staring at the schoolyard nearby. And there was something that drew my attention. The gateman was withdrawing mobile phones from kids. I stared at this scene and a thought rushed in my head: “I wish I went to this school.”

Afterward, I did my usual morning routine — ten minutes of yoga, coffee and — opening my Mac in order to start checking emails and dive in the online world of my usual job tasks.

I woke up at 8 pm — no, I didn’t sleep during the day, but my mind went automatic — I was replying to my work emails, cooking, washing my clothes, I even talked to my loved ones — and yet I felt like I slept for the whole day. My brain was in a stupor. My hands were shaking.

I was confused.

Multitasking, they say.

Gosh.

I felt I needed even more tranquilizers.

I don’t like an exaggeration. I don’t want to lie — not every day is like today. Sometimes I manage to work until late at night and stay fully awake while having a lot of things on the go. I manage not to have enough sleep and yet perform well in my daily life.

And yet — today’s condition is rather normal, than rare.

And I ask myself — what should I do? I turned off almost all notifications.

Trust me, I’m not a newbie in psychology — I am quite familiar with a concept of deep work and I read “Flow” by Csikszentmihalyi (although, I had to google his surname again).

But still — how much discipline does it take to stay awake and be present?

How do you separate your work from your relationships, when both are 80% in your iPhone?

Should we delete messengers when we work?

I do a lot of stuff to clear my weekends — I don’t check Facebook, I turn off all notifications from Outlook, I try to read more (although, I still use my iPhone for this).

Regardless, I quite often find myself lost in thoughts and misfocused from a current task, whatever it is.

There is a place for great insight — “Eureka! I have found a solution!”

But I haven’t.

I try to implement enough discipline in my life — yoga, reading every day at least 20 minutes, long walks, almost no notifications from messengers (unless I push the button and check it deliberately), regular uninstalling of time-consuming apps (Instagram mostly), never installed Facebook app on my phone and I even found a widget for unfollowing everyone there (including groups and pages).

It’s better now.

But the battle is still going.

And what happens nowadays?

We use social media as platforms for selling. We use it for propaganda. We use it for sharing our views on eating, sport, exercise, a way of living, our political views and, moreover, we post too much. The first second you are bored — the next second you’re posting some memes/selfies/quotes on your Instagram page.

That’s still okay (!).

We can use social media for self-soothing. For raising awareness. We communicate through social media. We influence. We shape thoughts. We create ideas. We can post whatever we want.

But the more followers you have — the bigger is your power of influence. If you follow someone — you are ultimately vulnerable. You can read some post at the wrong time. You can perceive a wrong idea of someone’s life. When sad or lonely, you can beat yourself mentally even more by looking at polished and perfect pictures of your friends/bloggers/anyone you follow. When in a creative crisis, you can shut down your authentic voice just by contemplating too much information from other artists.

The list is never-ending.

If we have accounts, if we follow — we should stay vigilant. We should be aware.

Information is the power — and it’s a time bomb too.

When you wake up in the morning and grab your phone — stop for a moment. Are you truly ready to perceive tons of opinions, thoughts, advice, states, ideas, comments, pictures, etc.?

Did you check how you feel? Did you complete your own morning routine before entering a world of information — which is determined to shift your attention from important things — just because it’s supposed to function that way?

Just because every application is made with a purpose to hold your attention longer.

To make you feel comfortable and stay for a while. Checking your friends’ photos. Then following this inspiring influencer. Then learning some skills through social media (languages or even psychology).

I recently understood — I learned very little from years of following micro-influencers or yoga-accounts.

Real studying happens in real life.

I do not in any way discredit online-studying. Trust me, I prefer a good informative webinar to courses where I have to wake up early and go the opposite end of the city in order to understand that, in fact, this lecture is a total waste of time.

We’re not talking about these cases.

This is about social media.

That is simply not designed in the way that your brain is able to focus. You see a huge long-read from someone wise and yet you have this “heart” and “add a photo” buttons on the bottom. And your brain simply can’t focus fully — so you’re wasting your energy by trying to focus so hard (oh, and someone-you-never-met just started a live video! what great news!)

You got the point.

If you want a long read — go on Medium, The New Yorker, buy a Bookmate subscription, check your favorite news websites.

But don’t expect anything truly profound from social media platforms. Use it as a tool or as a place to communicate with your friends. But don’t expect that following “Easy-English/Spanish/whatever” accounts will make you more proficient.

It won’t.

Social media are not designed for any kind of deep and concentrated work — and this is a relief.

We can post cat pics.

We can stare at nice outfits.

But let’s not replace learning anything from social media. Real skills require real efforts.

So, if your hands are shaking like mine today. If you feel lost and confused and yet find yourself in scrolling an Instagram feed in a search of answers or your daily-dose-of-philosophy.

Better read a book or some article. Watch a good movie. Go for a long walk in the park. Talk to your loved ones — or go meet them in real life.

If you want to learn a language — start with books, not with accounts on Instagram that will be lost in a news feed among photos of cute cats and your classmates that you haven’t met for years.

This is a very trivial truth, and yet it takes a lot of courage to stop pinning your hopes on the small orange icon on the screen of your smartphone.