This really speaks to my micro-rant of advocating for everyone to once again participate in society. Like, in very simple and enjoyable ways. Eat at restaurants instead of getting half-cooled no-contact delivery that costs $12 more in fees. Go to movie theaters instead of streaming on your home set-up with such bad sound that you have to turn on subtitles to understand the dialogue. Volunteer to improve something small but tangible in your community, instead of complaining about it in your neighborhood Facebook group/NextDoor forum/instagram comment thread.
It's interesting the point on recommendations, certainly here in the UK staff at Waterstones,a big book chain, always seem to be recommending stuff at the till based on what I'm buying. Yes sometimes it's the "book of the month" but a lot of times it's something interesting, makes for a nice little micro conversation
Kurt Vonnegut told a wonderful little anecdote in an interview on PBS years ago: I “once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope:
"Oh", she said, "well, you're not a poor man.
You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?" And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know.
The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around.
And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realise, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.
Let's all get up and move around a bit right now. .. or at least dance.”
This is the exact quote I give to my colleagues when they are perplexed as to why I’ll go way out of my way to shop at funky small businesses that are often more expensive. Even though I’m far from a rich man…
"Canceling plans is now easier. Before cell phones and the internet, if you agreed to meet a person somewhere, you were more likely to show up, because there was no easy way to cancel. Now we can call or text the person and cancel 20 minutes before."
Yes! I recently joined a garden club which consists of mostly older retired ladies. One thing I noticed immediately was the amount of trust they have in others doing what they say they will do. There is a community greenhouse we are using to raise plants for a plant sale and we take turns visiting and watering the plants. We have a schedule for watering and if you sign up to water, they will assume that you will - you know - water. They wont send you a reminder text the day of, check the greenhouse to make sure it is watered, or email you the next morning to double check it's been done. If you don't, they assume you would have let somebody know. This level of immediate trust is foreign in my younger group of friends and makes me feel closer to them. It's nice to know that I am trusted and can be relied upon.
Despite being much older, less mobile, and having more valid excuses to not show to meetings, this group of ladies are way less flakey than many of my younger friends.
My mom is 83 and the president of her garden club. This tracks perfectly with conversations I have with her about the different approaches taken by older vs younger members of the club. I’m sure it’s a phenomenon that can be extrapolated to many other areas of life. Thanks for sharing your experience, Saul. Happy gardening!
A huge purpose of interaction with other humans was transmitting information. This was critical for survival. Now technology does this much better (or at least we think so).
I think this impacts how people approach human interactions, changes the types of friendships we have, and all sorts of things.
For sure; it’s interesting to me how various people react when asked a question, vs just Googling it. Some react normally, others seem confused or irritated as to why anyone would ask anyone else, vs looking it up online. “But you’re a movie buff, I figured if anyone would know, it’d be you.”
When I first retired, the thing I missed most, which I hadn't expected, was casual conversations--people you meet in the hall, on the way to lunch, walking across campus. One of my local grocery stores still has staff who take your groceries to the car. And part of the job is talking to the person whose groceries you're carting. They train a lot of high school students how to have random conversations about the weather or your day or whatever, which is such a plus for those kids--and anyone who gets their groceries carried to the car :)
It's even stranger trying to explain this to my young children, so I simply demonstrate it when we are out and about by chatting up cashiers or random people in the store (trying not to be a weirdo) which shows them how to do it on their own.
Keep modeling! I do the same and my kids have watched me since they were young, of course! Now, at 19 and 22, they are both great conversationalist—even with strangers.
I read this on the tarmac after returning from a 30 hour round trip to attend a fisheries workshop, and immediately made the decision to bypass the automated parking booth (it never works at my home airport anyway). Had a lovely conversation with the attendant, we were both laughing as I pulled away.
Nice end to trip that wasn’t particularly enjoyable. Thank you for making me realize that something so seemingly small could change one’s mood so quickly.
I'm doing my best to integrate this into my life in little ways: keeping my running group and book clubs tech free (although we do make all our get together plans via text), chatting with the checkout clerk, striking up a conversation in an elevator. I am sometimes met with uncomfortable silence, but for the most part I am surprised at how willing people of all ages and stages are to chat. I'll be following this thread closely as I would love to know how other 2% folks are integrating this conscious disconnection into their lives.
As a high school teacher, I see this affecting public education as well. Instant-access grade portals allow parents to see student grades in real time, leading to all but a handful avoiding communication with the teacher entirely. Plenty of other ways this affects public education but this came to mind first.
I love our local bookstore for the passion and knowledge they have in book recommendations. Chat GPT could give them to me as well, but it feels so clinical and lacking the connection of a person. I also really enjoy talking to people, usually trying to make them laugh and i like the extra friction in shopping at a real store. I want it to be harder for me to shop, making me consider my purchase more and not making it super easy. Katy Bowman (biomechanist) talks about in one her books about arranging a kitchen not for ease of use but for making sure we maximize different movements in our days. And I think about how I can do this in my life as well, how has it gotten too easy and what friction can I add that is good for my body and mind.
Great, albeit slightly depressing, post. I do agree that the solution or progress away from this is just the 2% mindset. Conveniences if left unchecked are often harmful for you and those around you! Although I’m not huge into clubs or keeping a strict calendar of hangouts, I more so lean into knowing the people in my neighborhood and the shops I go to. Something that’s made a huge difference for my family is moving into a co-op style apartment building here in Seattle. There’s a very active WhatsApp group and lots of borrowing/volunteering/hangouts. And with the ages of tenants ranging from 6 to 90 theres a lot of different viewpoints around!
Re “what’s the score”? That is an excellent reminder/point. I can recall having to do that, and the convos that often ensued. But I don’t recall how long ago that was. Guess I’ll Google it…😁🤦🏽♂️🫠
This really speaks to my micro-rant of advocating for everyone to once again participate in society. Like, in very simple and enjoyable ways. Eat at restaurants instead of getting half-cooled no-contact delivery that costs $12 more in fees. Go to movie theaters instead of streaming on your home set-up with such bad sound that you have to turn on subtitles to understand the dialogue. Volunteer to improve something small but tangible in your community, instead of complaining about it in your neighborhood Facebook group/NextDoor forum/instagram comment thread.
It's interesting the point on recommendations, certainly here in the UK staff at Waterstones,a big book chain, always seem to be recommending stuff at the till based on what I'm buying. Yes sometimes it's the "book of the month" but a lot of times it's something interesting, makes for a nice little micro conversation
Kurt Vonnegut told a wonderful little anecdote in an interview on PBS years ago: I “once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope:
"Oh", she said, "well, you're not a poor man.
You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?" And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know.
The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around.
And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realise, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.
Let's all get up and move around a bit right now. .. or at least dance.”
This is the exact quote I give to my colleagues when they are perplexed as to why I’ll go way out of my way to shop at funky small businesses that are often more expensive. Even though I’m far from a rich man…
"Canceling plans is now easier. Before cell phones and the internet, if you agreed to meet a person somewhere, you were more likely to show up, because there was no easy way to cancel. Now we can call or text the person and cancel 20 minutes before."
Yes! I recently joined a garden club which consists of mostly older retired ladies. One thing I noticed immediately was the amount of trust they have in others doing what they say they will do. There is a community greenhouse we are using to raise plants for a plant sale and we take turns visiting and watering the plants. We have a schedule for watering and if you sign up to water, they will assume that you will - you know - water. They wont send you a reminder text the day of, check the greenhouse to make sure it is watered, or email you the next morning to double check it's been done. If you don't, they assume you would have let somebody know. This level of immediate trust is foreign in my younger group of friends and makes me feel closer to them. It's nice to know that I am trusted and can be relied upon.
Despite being much older, less mobile, and having more valid excuses to not show to meetings, this group of ladies are way less flakey than many of my younger friends.
My mom is 83 and the president of her garden club. This tracks perfectly with conversations I have with her about the different approaches taken by older vs younger members of the club. I’m sure it’s a phenomenon that can be extrapolated to many other areas of life. Thanks for sharing your experience, Saul. Happy gardening!
A huge purpose of interaction with other humans was transmitting information. This was critical for survival. Now technology does this much better (or at least we think so).
I think this impacts how people approach human interactions, changes the types of friendships we have, and all sorts of things.
I have no idea what to do about it, however.
For sure; it’s interesting to me how various people react when asked a question, vs just Googling it. Some react normally, others seem confused or irritated as to why anyone would ask anyone else, vs looking it up online. “But you’re a movie buff, I figured if anyone would know, it’d be you.”
Won’t be long until we’re all on the spaceship Axiom being carted in our own mobile devices 24/7 as Wall-E has predicted.
When I first retired, the thing I missed most, which I hadn't expected, was casual conversations--people you meet in the hall, on the way to lunch, walking across campus. One of my local grocery stores still has staff who take your groceries to the car. And part of the job is talking to the person whose groceries you're carting. They train a lot of high school students how to have random conversations about the weather or your day or whatever, which is such a plus for those kids--and anyone who gets their groceries carried to the car :)
This was a depressing read!
It's even stranger trying to explain this to my young children, so I simply demonstrate it when we are out and about by chatting up cashiers or random people in the store (trying not to be a weirdo) which shows them how to do it on their own.
I do this too; it mortifies our 9-year old, an added benefit 😁
Keep modeling! I do the same and my kids have watched me since they were young, of course! Now, at 19 and 22, they are both great conversationalist—even with strangers.
I read this on the tarmac after returning from a 30 hour round trip to attend a fisheries workshop, and immediately made the decision to bypass the automated parking booth (it never works at my home airport anyway). Had a lovely conversation with the attendant, we were both laughing as I pulled away.
Nice end to trip that wasn’t particularly enjoyable. Thank you for making me realize that something so seemingly small could change one’s mood so quickly.
What an interesting observation on the score being on screen constantly.
I'm doing my best to integrate this into my life in little ways: keeping my running group and book clubs tech free (although we do make all our get together plans via text), chatting with the checkout clerk, striking up a conversation in an elevator. I am sometimes met with uncomfortable silence, but for the most part I am surprised at how willing people of all ages and stages are to chat. I'll be following this thread closely as I would love to know how other 2% folks are integrating this conscious disconnection into their lives.
As a high school teacher, I see this affecting public education as well. Instant-access grade portals allow parents to see student grades in real time, leading to all but a handful avoiding communication with the teacher entirely. Plenty of other ways this affects public education but this came to mind first.
I love our local bookstore for the passion and knowledge they have in book recommendations. Chat GPT could give them to me as well, but it feels so clinical and lacking the connection of a person. I also really enjoy talking to people, usually trying to make them laugh and i like the extra friction in shopping at a real store. I want it to be harder for me to shop, making me consider my purchase more and not making it super easy. Katy Bowman (biomechanist) talks about in one her books about arranging a kitchen not for ease of use but for making sure we maximize different movements in our days. And I think about how I can do this in my life as well, how has it gotten too easy and what friction can I add that is good for my body and mind.
Great, albeit slightly depressing, post. I do agree that the solution or progress away from this is just the 2% mindset. Conveniences if left unchecked are often harmful for you and those around you! Although I’m not huge into clubs or keeping a strict calendar of hangouts, I more so lean into knowing the people in my neighborhood and the shops I go to. Something that’s made a huge difference for my family is moving into a co-op style apartment building here in Seattle. There’s a very active WhatsApp group and lots of borrowing/volunteering/hangouts. And with the ages of tenants ranging from 6 to 90 theres a lot of different viewpoints around!
Re “what’s the score”? That is an excellent reminder/point. I can recall having to do that, and the convos that often ensued. But I don’t recall how long ago that was. Guess I’ll Google it…😁🤦🏽♂️🫠