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The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You

posted by martyb on Wednesday November 28 2018, @02:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the tl;dr dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Medium:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” -- Blaise Pascal

According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction, and we can’t help but run from the problems of our emotions into the false comforts of the mind.

The issue at the root, essentially, is that we never learn the art of solitude.
...
our aversion to solitude is really an aversion to boredom.

At its core, it’s not necessarily that we are addicted to a TV set because there is something uniquely satisfying about it, just like we are not addicted to most stimulants because the benefits outweigh the downsides. Rather, what we are really addicted to is a state of not-being-bored.

Deep thoughts by Blaise Pascal. Was he right? Are we addicted to not-being-bored? Is boredom good for us?

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @03:46AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @03:46AM (#767184)

    Sitting in a room with nothing else and thinking requires either idling or using stored knowledge to make new one. Hardly anyone has that job (rulers, philosophers.) Sitting in a room with a book works today for a scientist, as too few people reads books (or read at all.) Everyone else earns his daily bread by not sitting in a room, but working in a team, by being active. Consequently, few people feel comfortable alone. There are other reasons as well, such as personal security that is in numbers.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:53AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:53AM (#767223) Homepage Journal

    However going to a crowded cafe then sitting alone there for a while is the only human companionship I really require.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]

  • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:28PM (1 child)

    by Entropy (4228) on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:28PM (#767472)

    Actually about 21% of the US population earns their "Daily bread" by doing precisely nothing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @09:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @09:26PM (#767507)

      I see higher:

      In 2010, children made up 24 percent of our population

      https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/number-of-children [childtrends.org]

      Or were you complaining about "certain people" again?

  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:19PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:19PM (#767534) Journal

    Hardly anyone has that job

    I'm retired, you insensitive clod!