Looks like experts are divided on this

I love doing long solo bicycle rides. Just heading out and spending whole day riding by myself. Over the years, I bumped into many people who find such trips scary. Scared of thoughts that could pop up. Some said they could do that with headphones and music, but silence was no go.

All of my best ideas come on the bike or in the shower.

Personally wall-style meditation is damn hard. But cycling makes it doable. My routine is to focus on cycling for the first hour or so. Which is also needed to get away from the city and suburb traffic. By the time I’m far away there’s enough endorphins and whatnot in the system to help and then sliding into my own deep thoughts is pretty easy. For some time till physical exhaustion kicks in.

What I find crucial is pre-planned route and having already ridden it. No need for checking the map, no fear of missing a turn without navigation and no new sights to stare at.

And pace is important. Slow & steady. Not too slow. Zone 3 is perfect IMO.

Extremely repetitive in terms of scenery, breath, everything. The first few laps get into the rhythm and later ones are just you and your thoughts. Or, if you're lucky, just you.

I've remodeled my house, building the greatest workshop ever, I've captured Bin Laden (before he was killed), I've teleported Putin and Jimmy Carter to a remote cabin, I've had a meal with Vonnegut, I've mastered guitar, I've repeated all the big events of my youth, and I've spent more time with my Dad and my dog.

I don't really get bored because my imagination takes over pretty quickly.

> And pace is important. Slow & steady.

Yes! When I was shopping for my bicycle (I ended up buying a steel touring bike) I spent time reading the bicycle subreddits and the common refrain there was that commuting by bike doesn't get easier, you just get faster. That's bullshit. It gets way easier because I'm not in a hurry. I have thoughts to finish.

Thinking of it, I need to go to the gym more. And I need some periodd of general boredom. Lately my brain had close to no occassion to run partially idle and I feel it.

I really wonder what the endgame of all this is. The "attention addiction" enabled by smartphones, and all the apps that are designed by some of the smartest people on the planet whose sole incentive is to keep you addicted, is IMO one of the most detrimental impacts by tech on human happiness in the past 100 years.

When the wife takes over driving duties (we work in two-hour shifts) I jot down the ideas that came to me.

(But in fact, phones are boring to me. It's my laptop that robs me of my boredom when at home.)

It seems like we’re at a state of FOMO where every moment has to be optimized for stimulation, whether for “unproductive” entertainment or for “productive” learning. If our eyes are too focused on driving then we let our ears instead be our means to become busy away from our present surroundings.

They will come and sit between your eyes and the screen until you pet them. I can now put the phone away and spend time with my cat and my thoughts.

Three years ago I was really grieving lost relationship, floating (not drowning) in sadness... and I found this piece of electronic music by San and Tac [0] with these words placed in the background. I would listen to this song and one day I realized, walking in a park, that I could really let it in. And I did... at it was beautiful...

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Y2BnKy8Eg

Love & Stillness

I think we inadvertantly created a similar dependence in our daughter, albeit with books rather than electronics. The child walks from room to room in the house with a book. Car rides without a book are accompanied with groans and anger. Any situation where boredom could set in is much worse if she doesn't have a book.

I don't wish we'd done anything differently, but when she does eventually have access to electronics I fear she is going to transfer her extreme book "dependency" to electronics easily.

It's portable entertainment (phones, tablets, maybe even books unless you have a rule that they never leave the house) that I am deeply reluctant about. You can't lug a desktop to the park.

Also I don't think the two dependencies can be equated. Electronics create super short attention spans, books are the complete opposite. So I think she's already doing better than most her age.

But I don't think I'd change anything even going back. Too many benefits...

Are there ways to attenuate what you're referring to you are aware of?

Their parents will have their phone in hand while pushing the discussions.

On the general point: I remember a time smaller kids couldn't get into most restaurants at all because they would disturb the atmosphere (and I'm sure there's still many shops that won't allow kids).

Also people are way more susceptible to kids being noisy. It might be because exposure to kids has been so low for the majority of adults, but parents will get an utter amount of flack for letting their kid cry or shout and not immediately cater to them.

It's hard to have it both ways, our modern society will need to be more open to kid noise and disturbance if we want parents to just let the kids be kids.

No amount of being told to be quiet to a 1-2 year old will do the Jo .

> Disciplining children (even just verbally) seems to be something nobody wants to do anymore

"Parents these days" ?

Absolutely. Visit France; see many well-behaved and well-dressed children eating with their parents at cafes and restaurants. It's almost like they respect that this is actually their parents' treat time - that they've been taught that they are not the centre of the universe.

Now you can hear a groan from nearby tables whenever you take your family to a plane or restaurant

The most tolerable alternative is simply not to have children, and it will just be more and more common.

Yup, all people feel the effect of this

> People are less tolerant to noisy children

My tolerance was tested today when a Mum and her princess took up 3 seats at a cafe today and let the daughter watch YouTube videos loudly on her iPad without any headphones.

I still don't understand why parents take their kids to boring cafes and restaurants. Kids want to do noisy things and run around. I didn't go to cafes until I was about 12. Prior to that weekends would be spent be walking the dogs, going to parks, forests, picnics etc

As the parent takes the kids out more to restaurants and cafes, the kid will slowly learn how to behave. But it’s a process that takes time.

Sometimes the days are long, kid is driving you up a wall and the iPad just…works

My kid isn’t that old yet but partner and I have agreed no screens for first 15 mo at least. So anytime she’s watching TV we turn him away because he’s definitely interested!

I find the only time this is difficult is if I'm in a crowded area, and I'm anxiously concerned that I don't appear to be staring at a person like some creep. Then I feel one of my only options is to stare at a phone. But I also don't have a lot of entertaining apps on my phone so maybe I'll check the weather eight or nine times.