how to do nothing

“If it’s attention (deciding what to pay attention to) that makes our reality, regaining control of it can also mean the discovery of new worlds and new ways of moving through them.”

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

September 20, 2021 by cheerbrarian Leave a Comment

In one word: Cerebral Cannonball Read Bingo: Flora I found myself at the MOST adorable independent bookstore (swoon) and spent a delicious amount of time perusing the shelves. That day I was in a particular mood regarding my social media use, railing against the timesuck that for me is scrolling Facebook and Instagram. I was looking for some novel that I can no longer identify. They didn’t have it in stock, but I found this one instead. It had pretty good reviews on Goodreads (more […]

Nothing is harder, than to do nothing.

How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell

December 17, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I did like this book as a meditation on a problem, but it’s not “How to do nothing…” and it’s not an actionable plan. Instead it’s a polemic on a real problem in nice terms. Odell uses various ideas connected to Zen, philosophy, art, brain science, and radical detachment in various examples to try to address the fact that all of society (in broadly defined and inaccurate terms) is addicted to phones, tv, and computers. It’s funny because cultural critics from Neil Postman, Baudrillard, Zizek, […]

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“If it’s attention (deciding what to pay attention to) that makes our reality, regaining control of it can also mean the discovery of new worlds and new ways of moving through them.”

Nothing is harder, than to do nothing.

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