Distractions and interruptions

# Chapter 167

We’re addicted to constant distraction and repeated interruption. This has become our normal, even our preferred normal, rather than focused uninterrupted states of being. Does there even exist a place where we can find uninterrupted states of being? I just had to turn the wifi off on my computer as I am writing this because the constant texts were making it impossible to complete a sentence. While you have the luxury of turning your computer to airplane mode you can’t do that with other people in the same room with you who are desperate for dialogue rather than quiet and focus. Whoever develops an airplane mode for people will become an instant millionaire, or billionaire. But I digress into the details all too soon.

We are addicted to constant distraction and repeated interruption, and we design our lives so that this occurs. Here I sit on this snowy cold frozen morning in a nice warm kitchen with hot coffee and Nutella and peanut butter and without focus or quiet and I can’t believe that on such a perfect morning that uninterrupted states of being are still nowhere to be found. So while outside is a Norman Rockwell perfect picture and inside could be another Rockwell painting, the constant texts, dings pings and screams, conversation and dialogue about obscure matters that don’t matter, offers of this that and the other, are so incredibly normal that no one but me notices that deep work is impossible. There is no space remaining to think and dive deeply into an idea or concept because there are the norms of constant distraction and repeated interruption.