More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The mind needs to rest.
young people are “in a cauldron of stimulus they can’t get away from, or don’t want to get away from, or don’t know how to get away from.”
As Einstein said, a lot of good thinking and problem solving occurs at the unconscious level. For which we need space and time.
Another theory is that creativity is associated with mild mental illness. People are more creative when they are more self-reflective, and self-reflection is sometimes associated with depression.
Being stuck catalyzes the creative imagination.
I believe that getting stuck is often an essential part of the creative process. And when we are stuck—if we have managed to escape the heave and rush of the world, if we have managed to secure solitude and quiet and space without time—then our minds can roam and explore and invent in unfettered freedom.
the most disturbing effects of the wired world is its impact on the creativity of young people.
The need to nourish the Self, the need for some kind of equilibrium and homeostasis within ourselves and our immediate environment, must be buried deep in our psyche, going back to our most primitive origins. Yet in the hyperconnected, overstimulated, and time-driven world of today, we are often far from equilibrium.
The day’s physical and mental rhythms are marked by events, not by the minutes and hours registered on mechanical and digital clocks.
different words for time in ancient Greece: chronos and kairos Chronos
Chronos is the relentless time that marches on mindlessly in the external world, oblivious to the lives of human beings. Kairos, on the other hand, is time created by events, often human events.
Kairos is not necessarily measurable in minutes and hours. It might be the duration of a season, or of a meal, or of a love affair. When an event of human significance occurs, it occupies a great deal of kairos.
Romans also distinguished between two different kinds of time: negotium and otium Negotium was time spent at work and duty. Business time. Otium was leisure time, time spent away from the job. Otium was time for reflection, reading, writing, thinking, philosophizing, self-examination.
economic well-being is correlated with a high speed of living.
so-called labor-saving devices, such as vacuum cleaners and dishwashers, have not created more leisure time but the opposite. There are at least two explanations for this contradiction. Greater technical advances and devices have led to greater expectations.
Attitudes about time regulate life, and the rhythms of life regulate attitudes about time. When the pace of life is faster, when we have greater expectations of achievement each hour and each day, we must necessarily make schedules.
