Anxiety.

[baboon2004]

Slowing down and concentrating on one thing.

 

[version]

It's difficult to make that exciting. That's like DFW's thing in The Pale King about intense boredom.

 

[version]

I think if you have to really concentrate and make yourself do something then it doesn't really feel like an escape. An escape to me is a release from any sort of concerted effort or tension or anything like that.

 

[baboon2004]

I'd say the opposite - it's the very definition of real excitement (as opposed to forced excitement), states of flow. I don't think it's the same as making yourself do something, though there may be something in that it has come to feel like that in the modern world, where concentration is destroyed

A lot of people take drugs/alcohol because they want to concentrate on one thing at a time, they want that intensity

 

[version]

I guess if you really get into the flow of something then it doesn't necessarily feel like work. You can lose track of time etc. The thing for me is the more I concentrate, the more stressed I get, so anything that stops me concentrating feels like an escape. If I get drunk, it's one of the few times I don't feel like a coiled spring.

 

[baboon2004]

But is that partly because you can concentrate when drunk, screen all the other stimuli out? for example, commit yourself 100% to the conversation you're having?

Maybe the other times you're stressed precisely because you can't concentrate, despite all the effort, because of all the stimuli?

That's how I regularly feel, at least.

 

[version]

That's a good point. I'm not sure. I guess it depends how you frame it.

 

[kumar]

My friends who have the most problems with this stuff often talk about their difficulties paying attention. A lot of them have ADD diagnoses , although often the idea of a deficient attention span only seems to give a general sense of their issues, more often it’s a case of being unable to avoid paying attention to alarming sensory disturbances, an obsession over minor details in a social interaction etc. Obviously a lot of this must be to do with the complete organism rewiring of social media and smartphones, and perhaps internet induced inarticulacy might account in some ways for the decline of The Shout.

On a slightly related note famous man , henri chopin, who put microphones inside himself, said that he made sound poetry as a partial response to “the tyranny of the word”. In his case Related more to the ideological swindles that resulted in World War Two as well as Parisian blowhards , but maybe a similar sense behind 2010s vocal trends , lack of confidence in emancipatory potential of decipherable lyrics .

 

[kumar]

An era defining moment was when one of The Young Lads at work the other day said “I could never watch a whole episode of a tv show”

 

[kumar]

All of the other ones agreed with him

 

[version]

An era defining moment was when one of The Young Lads at work the other day said “I could never watch a whole episode of a tv show”

I mentioned that I haven't watched a full footy match in ages in another thread. I just watch highlights clipped out by other people. I can't imagine watching a full game these days. Just seems odd and boring. 90 minutes of football feels like an eternity.

 

[version]

although often the idea of a deficient attention span only seems to give a general sense of their issues, more often it’s a case of being unable to avoid paying attention to alarming sensory disturbances, an obsession over minor details in a social interaction etc. Obviously a lot of this must be to do with the complete organism rewiring of social media and smartphones, and perhaps internet induced inarticulacy might account in some ways for the decline of The Shout.

This feels very familiar, minus the ADD diagnoses.

 

[kumar]

Just before Christmas I was watching one of the movie channels where they advertise denture gel and waterproof mattress covers and they showed the film Billy Liar from the nineteen sixties. A lot of the film is to do with the psychological damage wrought upon this young whippersnapper who’s internalised all the unsustainable Hollywood drama of war movies and as a result can’t face reality, he is mentally conditioned to dawdle, can barely pay attention to his own fibs and even has a panic attack on a train! And now he’s your grandad, so what chance do you have?

 

[version]

The ending of that film's really eerie. The march down the street with the imaginary army.

 

[kumar]

Not you as in you, version btw, I assume you will emerge as one of the few capable to deal with the modern condition, a nano prophet, a smart oracle

 

[kumar]

And yeah the whole films great I’d never heard of it before it’s my favourite film now. That bit of the sixties which is really the forties is very interesting

 

[kumar]

I mentioned that I haven't watched a full footy match in ages in another thread. I just watch highlights clipped out by other people. I can't imagine watching a full game these days. Just seems odd and boring. 90 minutes of football feels like an eternity.

I haven’t gone that far yet but I do watch Alan shearers bits on 1.5 x speed

 

[baboon2004]

And yeah the whole films great I’d never heard of it before it’s my favourite film now. That bit of the sixties which is really the forties is very interesting

You should probably watch Taste of Honey and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning in that case

 

[kumar]

You should probably watch Taste of Honey and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning in that case

I haven’t seen either , are they British? My favourite person in the world is my great aunt she’s 88 and is an improved version of Lewis carrol, she makes a cobbler if you go and visit, so I like things that conjure the world of her youth. I don’t want to ruin my fantasy though so I haven’t really got many cultural products in mind. I got the sense a bit when I read bs Johnson , the tightly repressed calm before the storm, a world of Friday night at the dance hall and tinned meats.

 

[version]

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is very British.