Notes on Indistractable by Nir Eyal.
Removing online technology didn’t work. I’d just replace one distraction with another.
p.7
From Plato’s Phaedrus: Socrates points out that the written word forgetfulness in the learners’ soul
The first, main and primary cause of distraction is not the more immediate one, the one intuitively linked to our activity, but it’s much deeper, and it lies in our response:\
Distraction, it turns out, isn’t about the distraction itself; rather, it’s about how we respond to it.
p.25
distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality.
p.26
without dealing with the discomfort of driving the desire for escape, we’ll continue to resort to one distraction or another.
Only by understanding our pain can we begin to control it and find better ways to deal with negative urges.
Therefore, dealing with distractions starts from dealing with the internal cause prior to the contingent events. We need to narrow it down to internal triggers which start everything.
Without doing so we’d be going from one distraction to another Blaise Pascal.
p.27
The argument of discomfort and uneasiness regardless of luck and overall welfare and wellness: why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied?
Questions
- If I was not distracted, where would the content of my distractions go?