Since you're American, I believe that your root problem is that you have bought into the notion that it is good and desirable to be productive all the time. People then extend this to trying to better themselves by amassing more knowledge.
Have you tried sitting alone in a room with no music, no TV, and no phone for an hour? It's actually quite liberating.
And if you call it digital-detox meditation, it's fashionable, too.
> Since you're American, I believe that your root problem is
Please keep nationalistic flamebait out of HN comments. I'm sure you didn't mean it in a bad way, but intent doesn't communicate itself on the internet, and the track record of little pokes like that is that they lead to flamewars.
Your comment would be fine without that first bit. It would be more accurate, too. Many Americans are well aware of the problems with productivity worship. Many have "tried sitting alone in a room". Some have even read Pascal's maxim about it.
While true, there can be a possibility to bend your thinking to treat it as if it is voluntary. Maybe difficult or impossible for some, but it's worked for me, at times.
I was in semi-voluntary seclusion since the end of last year, and it's been odd to notice how much worse it feels now that it is 'strongly suggested' or even enforced to a degree.
So I don't disagree with you. But after a week or two, the realization kicked in that it shouldn't feel that different for me personally, and that in an odd way I'm lucky that the thing I was already doing is now not just me being a 'sad hermit freak'. While I'm still less happy than when it was more voluntary, it's helped me a ton to reframe it like that. YMMV, of course.
Well, panicking co-workers are bad. I have quite opposite. My manager keeps repeating, that this is just another flue.
Personally I don’t care. Isolation isn’t nice, but as long as I sit home, nothing bad will happen. I am not cashier at understaffed grocery store, not nurse in failing hospital. Life is good, keep calm!
Trust me, food will come. The riches and puppet governments do not need revolts. Seasonal field workers will get 10€/hour or even 15€/hr instead of 5€/hr like earlier and it will be all good.
It definitely does vary by ___location. Within a company it may not, but that company's culture will most likely be influenced by its founders/executives background.
Here in the UK there's a really noticeable difference between London and the rest of the country. In London it is considered normal to stay at work late until 6pm/7pm or later. In the rest of the UK it's considered normal to leave at 5pm/5:30pm.
I hear talk of 70+ hour weeks in the US for tech workers in the US. That isn't too much of a thing here in the UK. Especially outside of London.
> Have you tried sitting alone in a room with no music, no TV, and no phone for an hour? It's actually quite liberating.
I'd love to be able to do that. But then, instead of hearing the music, I hear the neighbours, their dogs and their kids, their TVs and their music. It's awful. I would very much like to experience silence, but the modern world denies me this possibility.
When I was living in Vietnam, I bought Bose QuietComfort. It's amazing how much they block and you don't even need to connect any player for noise compensation to work.
Have you tried sitting alone in a room with no music, no TV, and no phone for an hour? It's actually quite liberating.
And if you call it digital-detox meditation, it's fashionable, too.