I call it a me day. I take a day off and do NOTHING. Not all the time, every once in a while. No plan, just do whatever I feel. So many times, it resulted in something interesting, I write something or invent something or just nothing but joy. Sort of Zen like but sometimes we all need a break from everything. Just me and a sketch book at the park, or just laying around staring off into space.
I envy people without kids sometimes. A "me day" is just not in the realm of possibly when you have kids. A "me hour" maybe, or when your kids go to daycare even a "me 3 hours", but not a day.
Eventually I hear you get some of that freedom back. But boy it's a long road.
Good for you for being able to enjoy life like that. Hello from the other side.
No offense and I actually mean this to be a serious question—why did you have kids in the first place, then? It’s just that, to me, the decision to have kids necessitates that one accepts the full integration of the fact that one is a parent to all aspects of one’s life, and yet I keep seeing parents looking for “me time” as if they can still realistically isolate themselves from the new reality that they chose for themselves to begin with.
I have a 5-year-old son. I've always known that it would mean less "me time" and less "couple time". Still, you don't really know what this means until you have to live it on a day-to-day basis.
Besides, having children is rarely a very rational decision. You do it because "everyone does it". There's a strong biological and cultural pressure to have children. And if you have one child, there's a strong pressure to have a second one.
Anyway, I find it's really important to find a way to have "couple time", as well as "me time". Grandparents, if they're close and available, are a solution. My wife and I regularly take child-free trips and weekends. I also regularly take days off to have "me time" and work on my personal projects.
I know this might sound judgemental, and maybe this is because I'm an introvert, but I don't understand people who do everything with their wife and children.
Fair question. I sometimes envy the amount of time people without kids have. But even for all the time in the World I would never trade the experience of having my three year old daughter. The pleasure I get from her is beyond anything I ever managed to get for myself, even when I had all the time in the World. Whether down to biochemistry or insanity, or both, I don't know. Having kids also helped me value my personal free time a lot more, so in some ways I feel like I'm more aligned with what I want now. Don't read any of this as advice though, I would never recommend anyone having children unless it's something you really want.
Heroin and meth give you loads of dopamine in response to an artificial stimulus. Parenting gives you loads of dopamine because, evolutionarily, it's really good for you to be parenting.
A stretched analogy might be a wall of trophies that you earned at sports tournaments vs a wall of trophies that you bought on eBay; the result is the same, but the means really matter as well.
It's could that people don't realize how much this job asks of you until you get into it yourself. I feel the same. I had most time to myself when I was single, it reduced to half when I became double, reduced more than half again when I became triple.
Even than, the joy you get with your own kid can not be compared with anything you ever had before. The job is very tiring yet very fulfilling. Don't think it can be explained until you experience yourself.
I have the feeling a lot of people are just getting kids because it's what you do, everyone does it, right? Nobody thinks about the consequences anymore, I mean it's not that you can't have an day away from your kids once in a while, but I feel like once people have kids they expect them somehow to be finished products that just should do what you tell them, and just be around when it is convenient for the parents.
I honestly think it's the opposite. It wasn't long ago that child-free wasn't something that was socially acceptable (at least in the US). The path was graduate high school (and maybe college) and then get married and have kids. And a there are parts of the world that the pressure is still there to an insane level.
Now we have books like "The Baby Decision" that really helps people think about this and envision what it looks like on both sides of the fence. Even the decision to have more than one kid wasn't really thought about. Because you have one, of course you're having at least another one.
None of this was the norm. Go ask some people older than 50 or 60 why they chose to have kids. I would bet a lot of them didn't really consider another option.
Do you not ever do anything that has upsides as well as downsides?
For example, moving to a city, and then being envious of those who have lots of space? Or moving to the country, and then being envious of those who have all of the stores on their doorstep?
My girlfriend and I never wanted kids and that lack of time, not just for banal things, is something I've noticed takes a toll on a lot of relationships as well. More than a few friends my age with kids have told me that the lack of time has impacted their relationships quite badly. Honestly the more time goes on the the happier I am with that decision. Few years ago we relocated to another country, my girlfriend started a business, that kind of freedom I wouldn't want to give up.
I’ve been known to plan a me weekend. Of course this relies on care for the kids, in this case my wife (who gets her own weekends as well…). I try to keep it simple. An Airbnb or even hotel within an hours drive, head out on Friday afternoon and back on Sunday. Do whatever I want during that time. I’d say I manage this perhaps annually.
I’m a parent with a little one, and still figure out tons of creative ways to bake in a little me time.
It’s daunting, sure. When you can’t even remember what you ate for breakfast and you’re 12 loads of laundry behind, it’s hard to imagine just disengaging for any amount of time.
But if you’re scrupulous in how you allocate your time, you can find ways to do it.
IME the parental instincts associated with children do not simulate well, at least in men (can’t speak for women). I did not like children at all, and thinking about children did not trigger any instinctive feelings. Once I had my own then the instincts turned on. The human system is quite good at producing chemical rewards for certain behaviors.
> I take a day off and do NOTHING. Not all the time, every once in a while. No plan, just do whatever I feel.
Nitpick, but it seems that you just do whatever you feel, and not do nothing. In contract, Charles Bukowski had real do nothing days, where he just lied in bed, stared at the ceiling and listened to street noise.
I was taking a day off work once when the power coincidentally went out. I spent the day sitting in the dark with my laptop plugged in to my backup battery trying somewhat successfully to edit save game files from an old video game. It was extremely different from my usual Google-heavy workout. Having to work through things without a network connection was a fun change of pace.
My dad used to have a poster on the wall of his office way back in the 80s (he was a coach) that captures the idea quite well. It had a gorilla sitting with his hand under his chin and the caption read “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.”
When I was a kid I thought it was humorous self-deprecation. Now that I’m older I see it is a recipe for contentment.
Thank you for sharing, that was nice. Evoked a flurry of sentiments for me - from the 80s nostalgia, childhood and flashback of my dad's office, to a realization of time passed by, growing older and supposedly more wise (but am I).
Sounds like this author has independently arrived at the same conclusion that Cal Newport did in Digital Minimalism. I’d expect this movement to continue to pick up steam as people slowly wake up from the digital wool that has been pulled over their eyes.
You think so? Before Internet, people were watching TV for hours and hours every day. I think we just love completely effortless, passive entertainment, even if it's ultimately low value.
I think the difference is that the digital wool fools us into thinking, at least at some level, that we're being productive. It's much easier to pull yourself away from the TV to "do" something because watching TV genuinely feels passive. Consumption of content on the internet/smartphones blends the passive entertainment with a feeling of productivity so well that you feel like it's actually worth it to just check this or that app, or to just scroll for a little bit longer to see if you happen across something that actually has value. It's harder to break away from.
That’s what I feel about reading comments on HN too, though it’s not in the same category as completely wasted time, spending time on HN gives you the false feeling of productivity
It's not a feeling of digital being "productive", it's that digital is effectively infinite. With TV you could get bored because there just wasn't anything you wanted to watch on at a given moment. With Digital that is never the case, there is something out there for you, you just haven't found it yet.
I haven't been working these since Jan, and more and more often I've got the feeling that I've "run out of Internet" - there's nothing more to read that interests me.
You're right. It gets worse over time. People now carry their TV to the toilet, read digital news on the bus and respond to texts on their phone even when "out" with someone else.
Honestly, good point. Perhaps I’d rephrase my point to this: for productive members of society, it will be increasingly important to practice good digital habits for focus as technology gets more and more distracting. Of course, this class of “productive members of society” will continue to get smaller for the reasons you mentioned as well as the impact of AI, etc.
Back in the days when TV was still popular, I remember some headline saying that researchers had monitored brain energy use while watching TV and while literally watching paint dry, and determined that people's brains were more switched off when watching TV.
Haha, not surprising to see this. I guess the simple art of isolating yourself from distractions and focusing is something that humanity will have to rediscover time and time again.
There is a common experience that people have of sleeping on a problem, and having the subconscious brain keep working on it in the background and waking up with some insight. In my experience, when your brain doesn’t have any pressing problems from daily life to solve, when you just have nothing to do and nothing in mind, this is when the subconscious starts working on the really big problems and starts to deliver all kinds of insights.
I've always found I'm most productive at hard problems when I "try to solve it" for max 3 days in a row, and then let my mind wander before trying again.
I do this in small doses when I take my dog for a walk. After I get back I usually have the answer I was searching for without actively thinking about it.
> Technology just gets better, as those airport bookstores get smaller. I’m wary of our artificial-intelligence future, and the notion that we will lean on bots to think for us, writing code, speeches and even poetry.
There is a big incentive for this future as it will be the high point of advertisement. Every AI search, every AI written book, every AI produced TV show will have the incentive to sell you something. Without other sources of information people critical thinking will be impossible, anything that the AI generated content says is true. We can avoid this future, but I do not see any of the big companies caring about it, if anything they are salivating on future profits.
Your brain will not be empty but full of whatever the highest bidder wants you to believe.
> Without other sources of information people critical thinking will be impossible
so you're just describing propaganda and "grooming"/"conditioning".
I think the threat is overblown, unless one single entity ends up controlling all information. I highly doubt this is possible in the west - there's too much competition. But i guess if it does happen where one entity obtains a monopoly on information production and distribution, then yes, this might happen.
Rant: beyond the topic of animal violence and/or domestication I always wonder if and which animals are happier than humans beyond the smartness factor [1].
Personally, I'd be surprised if most mammals weren't generally happier than people. Cats, dogs, and sea mammals seem to have it all figured out. Apes and monkeys, less so - chimpanzees are brutal.
Tiger got to hunt.
Bird got to fly.
Man got to sit and wonder why, why, why?
Tiger got to sleep.
Bird got to land.
Man got to tell himself he understand.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Or as Blaise Pascal put it in Pensées:
>When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.
The fundamental difference is animals are mostly controlled by nature. Humans have the ability to use their intellect to override their natural urges when prudent.
Second, animals are rarely at the top of the food chain, so they are structured for self-protection first and foremost. This means group dynamics rule over any individual needs. Each animal is expected to do its role in the group, no question of what’s “fair”.
Third, inability to communicate and find treatment when sick. When hurt or sick, they mostly just lay down and slowly fade away. How difficult would it be for us to face death in that way?
> The fundamental difference is animals are mostly controlled by nature. Humans have the ability to use their intellect to override their natural urges when prudent.
Could we nerdy say: animals has less controllers (one?) when humans has more (two? pure nature + new nature = powerful brain). And, also say that this two components conflict in the human?
Being nerdy++ I would say that humans needs a byzantine fault tolerance system. I don't know if we are there, probably we have a crash fault tolerance system or less?
