Distraction: A Philosopher’s Guide To Being Free
by
Damon Young

This book was one recommended by Oliver Burkeman. Because I am a very distracted person I was motivated to read the book. I found the first 100 pages wonderfully engaging, but the second half of the book petered out and I found myself skimming. My final note was found on page 107. Here is what I found of interest to me.

The compulsion to seek respite is as ancient as humanity itself, and it stems from our understandable unwillingness to look our own lives squarely in the face. p. 16

“There is only good verse, bad verse and chaos.” —T.S. Elliot.

For others still, [the drive to work is] a fervent desire for order and meaning, making the chaos of the psyche, or home life, tolerable. p. 39

For the American philosopher James Dewey, writing in the 1930s, the acceleration of life was dangerous—it’s simply contrary to our nature to work so hard, so fast and for so little reward (physical or existential, as much as pecuniary). Dewey pointed out that humans—like all living things—are tightly interwoven with their environments. To survive, we engage in an ongoing to-and-fro with it, whether this is tracking trails, foraging for food and building shelter, or driving, shopping and renovating. We act upon the world, and it acts upon us. Dewey called this whole congress with the world experience, and each little part an experience. These experiences have their own rhythm: a beginning, a middle and an end, departure and arrival, start and finish. Preparing meals, driving, writing and countless other everyday tasks have their cycles and patterns, where they come to fruition: we serve the pasta, we park in the driveway, or cap off the final sentence. Dewey notes that we genuinely enjoy these climaxes—as he put it, moments of fulfillment punctuate experience with rhythmically enjoyed intervals. In other words, part of the fulfilling life is the ability to and opportunity to see things through—little things like shopping lists and games, or big things like work projects and renovations. By entering into the rhythms of life, we gain immeasurable pleasure, and this is precisely the cadence sought by T.S. Elliot in poetry and employment. pp. 47-8

Because it’s opposed to professional life, which is serious and important, free time becomes a kind of pointless play or desperate refueling; what Dewey described in Human Nature And Conduct as a feverish hurry for diversion, excitement, display, otherwise there is no leisure except a sudden torpor. pp. 50-1

Meanwhile, the happiness of [men who sought pleasure, riches or fame] was at the whims of others anyway—it compels its votaries, [Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza] said of his successful peers, to order their lives according to the opinions of their fellow men, shunning what they usually shun and seeking what they usually seek. p. 59

…Spinoza’s ideal of freedom was a life without distraction. p. 60

…work isn’t always free, but it can fuel our emancipation. p. 61

Free time is for cultivating liberty. p. 62

In the modern workplace, these three metamorphoses remain a challenge to us all: to endure busywork and its distractions, to fiercely say No to subjugation and to claim the leisurely freedom of the child. p. 62

Then it happened: my mobile phone rang. The white cliffs, the herbs, the sunlight and sea—all these blessings slowly dimmed and I was wrenched out of my reverie. Annoyed and mildly embarrassed, I answered it. It was my mother. From the moment I answered the phone to the moment I ended the call, I have absolutely no memory of where I was or what I was doing. I cannot remember the plants growing wild by the side of the road, the gorgeous views of Aphales Bay or the dusty path we followed to the shores below—these images come from a photo I took later. I was completely sidetracked by the person ringing me from some 15,000 kilometers away in Australia. p. 65

…the engine of all this is necessity—Ananke is the patron goddess of the modern age. But as the Greeks suspected, there is something uncivilized in this faceless divinity: the very real possibility of diminished freedom. p. 74

[Nikos Kazantzakis] wrote: The purpose of the machine was to be a steed for the spirit to mount so that the spirit could pursue the chimera—purpose it not by idle wishing but by practical methods. However, at some point the rider and his mount lost their way. The horses, wrote Kazantzakis, gradually mounted the riders. p. 75

While the democratic moment no doubt strikes a chord with many today, contemporary Western democracy isn’t classical Athens. Our elections don’t constitute the kind of grass-roots politics that [Cornelius] Castoriadis championed—we cede our suffrage to professionals. These careerists jostle for plumb spots, usually as the figureheads of large, bureaucratic parties and interest groups. While these parties and leaders are supposed to represent our political voices, they’re far more beholden to powerbrokers, lobby groups, advocates and businesses than they are to ordinary voters (who lack the wealth, education and connections to effectively govern the machinery of the State). Policy is formulated, scrutinized and criticized by specialists and is passed or defeated along party lines (except for the odd conscience vote, which suggests that consciences are usually superfluous). Most parliamentarians haven’t the time or the expertise to read the policies they vote for or against, and their parliamentary debates swing between farcical pre-prepared scripts and spontaneous yo mama competitions.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media are owned by large, multinational corporations that are interested in placating advertisers and entertaining audiences. in this climate, political dialogue and debate are undertaken by professional talking heads who either patronize their audience with platitudes, alienate them with jargon or erect a Machiavellian scoreboard of good and bad tactics (for many journalists, the fight is more important than what is fought for). Most citizens are too busy with work and leisure to worry about politics anyway. In Castoriadis words, we are living in a system of lobbies and hobbies. p. 95-7

Whether we are listening to doublespeak or sound bites or pundits’ score counting, our attention is diverted from the vital decisions that shape nations and their citizens. Even when we are passionately concerned about issues of State, we are rewarded with little or none of the emancipation promised by genuine democracy. As long as war morality dominates the polity, its weapons of mass destruction will endanger our liberty. The task is to achieve a genuine freedom despite these limitations—but how? p. 100

A private life away from the wars of State isn’t necessarily any happier, healthier more fruitful. The fact that a person is living for nobody, wrote Seneca in his last year, does not automatically mean embracing freedom. It’s not enough to simply retreat, or to seek the asylum of self-interest. For Seneca, the first necessity was free time, or what the Romans called otium. The next obligation was to avoid wasting it. In his sparkling little essay On The Shortness Of Life, Seneca lambasted those who whined about mortality while frittering away their day. For him, there was plenty of time to achieve anything that a good man might long for. All a happy and long life needed was clarity, diligence and intelligence—to be clear about what we want and firm and straightforward in getting in. [Emphasis mine, JH] Instead of rushing from one pleasure or obsession to another, the wise man calmly follows his plans and goals, and he dismisses all the temptations and annoyances of the transient world (a plant that is frequently moved, he wrote to a friend, never grows strong. For Seneca, otium allowed a kind of self-determination—a way to resist the exigencies of domesticity and public life. p. 104-5

[Seneca] read good books, careful to not become distracted by too many (restlessness… is symptomatic of a sick mind)—he noted reminders, warnings, suggestions and other helpful passages, using the insights of distant comrades to perfect himself. p.107