Wandered across an old email I had sent a friend when she and I were both reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell back in 2015. I had quoted the following exchange because it's beautiful:
"And there are days when I would be away."
"Where?"
"Oh, wherever men of my sort used to go. Wandering on paths that other men have not seen. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain."
Technology should exist for our convenience, not for the convenience of anyone who wants to interrupt us.
from #Hyperfocus by #ChrisBailey
This resonates deeply with me. I loathe constant phone buzzing or browser notifications. Sometimes it feels like we’re slaves to the technology instead of us being the boss.
FYI the #book is not aimed at the #neurodiverse at all; my goal in reading it is to find #research-backed information that can help me understand and handle my distractions and maybe - just maybe - he’ll have some #tips that will be useful for my brain.
For example, knowing that it takes 29 minutes to get back on track after distracting ourselves (vs 6 minutes when distracted by someone else) quantifies the consequences of distractions. Thinking that a distraction = losing half an hour feels much more tangible.
“When fundamental rights depend on someone's whim, you really have no rights, only privileges that may be withdrawn at any minute.”
― John Taylor Gatto
I had control over my feelings. I didn't have to count on somebody being nice to me, somebody being fair to me. We knew life was unfair. Anytime I feel self-pity, sorry for myself, it is somebody else's fault. I think of my father (multiple sclerosis). That keeps me focused, straight, clear headed and grateful.
“As it turned out, imagining the fate of seven billion people was far less emotionally affecting than imagining the fate of one.”
― Neal Stephenson #Booklovers#scifi#quotes
image from Pixabay
What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.