Hello, Neatoramanauts! Howyadoin'? If you answer "busy" or better yet, "craaazy busy" then welcome to modern life. You're not alone. Most of Americans in the 21st century live in the perpetual state of "busy"-ness.
And that, argues, Tim Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing, is actually trap.
I know, I know. You're busy, but trust me. Take a moment from your busy schedule and read the Busy Trap:
It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”
Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.
Comments (4)
I think THAT's my key to a good life. Instead of supposedly filling life with busy, fill life with the kind of busy that you actually like.
Besides, we can't all get by living in New York working 4 or 5 hours a day going out to coffee shops all the time like the author of this silly article...
1) is it normal that on rss feed, the images of the queue do not show? or am i the only having the problem?
2) i think it's a great idea to get people to contribute, but i have mostly skipped over whatever is in the queue for the much better quality of posts by neatorama writers. it's a personal opinion, just my two-cents worth and you will, of course, continue to do what you deem fit for the blog.
congratulations btw, keep up the good work!
Example, looking up "giraffe" for this post did not bring the original post : http://www.neatorama.com/2009/01/30/fighting-giraffes/#comments
@tringo - can you elaborate or send me a screenshot of the missing pictures in your RSS feed? This was a problem early on that was fixed.
Re: quality of the Upcoming Queue post - well, you have to keep in mind that these posts are raw and unfiltered. The good ones - those that garnered the most votes by Neatorama readers just like yourselves - are promoted to the blog's front page. Basically, if you just visit the blog, you will only see the best of the Upcoming Queue submissions.
If you're collecting "wish list" items for future upgrades to the application, here are mine:
- a way to flag for duplicate content (so that everyone reading the queue can see it's duplicate and won't waste their time voting for it)
- a way for the author to edit or delete their submission (after they've hit submit)
As an aside, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who blogs about the 80/20 rule!
http://leesdoodles.blogspot.com/2008/09/8020-rule.html
The FAQ had no wise words to assist me, maybe you do?
When the server is bogged down or if the link has a lot of pictures, this step can be slow. It's something that we'll have to improve in the future.
@vom - this is a known bug, which should be fixed as of now. Thank you!