Just read the beginning but I feel like there are obvious counter examples. Basically lots of academic environments. I personally (and somewhat sadly) did my best work in grad school, thanks entirely to the environment. All of us in the lab I studied in benefitted from being around each other every day. From what I’ve seen, this is very common throughout history in academia.
Maybe it’s pressure that kills ideas, or competition, or premature desire to commercialize, or just the kind of people that become founders; it’s definitely not co-working in and of itself.
Should add I agree that solitary reflection is important, just not that being surrounded by like minded people is detrimental.
Why is there always a self-imposed need to extract something from ourselves instead of just being? I really hate this in the modern world. Maybe one of the worst defining traits of industrial times.
Because people generally will not pay for others to "be". And they will not give you food or shelter if you don't pay. And the money has never been more concentrated away from the people who would prefer to just be.
If you don't self-impose, society will structurally impose it on you.
Well of course but there are many ways to survive very close to “just being” that are seen as not fulfilling potential or a wasted life. It’s not a full binary but living close to one end is shunned and we internalize it as a waste of space when really it is more sustainable for the planet and mind.
I lament the state of the modern world too.
Unfortunately, the modern world is run not by empaths, but by psychopaths. Even if we get to a state where we look out for each other, I fear it would be quickly subverted.
Not at all a modern idea. Pico della Mirandola would rank mere being the lowest form of existence, the same sort of existence a plant has.
Mirandola's is the oldest source for the ranking of being that I can recall off the top of my head, but the idea is almost certainly even older.
> On man when he came into life the Father conferred the seeds of all kinds and the germs of every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God.
- Oration on the Dignity of Man
Interesting thank you. Mirandola is still modern in my eyes. Btw I really enjoy marginalia. Helped me find Tom Murphy [1], which I’m kind of basing this being modern off of, through the explore page. Crazy full circle moment.
It's called a shower.