The Quiet Lane - An Overture
I grew up in a world where technology equaled better. It was an arrow shot from Star Wars, to the Voyager probes, to the Mac and the Web, that flew straight into my heart and exploded my consciousness to bits. Technology equaled Dreams. It equaled Promise. And those ideals were real—they transformed the world. They opened possibilities, gave us tools we'd never imagined, enabled the most improbable of connections. But, along the way, they also hypnotized us into forgetting the world we'd once inhabited. For the generations who grew up with apps, the internet, mobile devices, and instant access to anything—our kids—that world never even existed.
Maybe it's a birthday on the horizon, a new decade rushing forth and marking an inescapable milestone—retirement, or semi-retirement, possibly—but I no longer believe that change needs to be a constant surge forward. It can be about stillness and introspection.
Change can be quiet.
I'm adding a new category to the blog today: I call it The Quiet Lane, and I've already populated it with previous entries. These are older posts that obviously weren’t written with this concept in mind so, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge. But they all have something in common: none of them are about decrying anything. They're not about outrage or fighting back. They focus on slower trajectories—notebooks, typewriters, records… idleness and contemplation.
I'm looking for tools and methods that aren't always screaming about the next task. I want to highlight moments that aren't productive or efficient. Inconveniences that actually ground us in the present. I want to write about time, and nature, and being instead of always doing.
The productivity mindset, it turns out, is exhausting. And we've collectively applied it to every facet of our lives—tweaking this, and hacking that, always with the goal of accomplishing more in the allotted time we're given. We barely stop, and when we do we pick up our phone and scroll through whatever feed entertains us. Which means we never stop. (1)
And it's pernicious, too. I recently started experimenting with doing nothing—not listening to music, or reading, or doodling, but actually just sitting there and looking out the window. I find it extremely hard to do, even for relatively short periods of time (I touched on this in Boredom and freedom of thought). But I also noticed something even more concerning: this self-imposed pressure to excel at doing nothing. It’s ridiculous, but I'm always leaning towards judging the experience, treating it as another box to check, another task to complete on the way to "betterment". Kind of missing the point.
The idea of slowness, or quietness, isn’t original: a quick glance at recent self-help books tells me the topic may even be fashionable right now. So be it—that's not the motivation. I don't bring answers to the table. I’m looking to deprogram myself, and to share the journey with anyone interested. Who knows? Maybe we can learn together.
Does "quiet" automatically equal "analog"? Not necessarily. This isn't about becoming anti-technology. It's about recognizing that, despite the hype, technology isn't automatically beneficial. That simpler ways might be better.. Recognizing that reality matters, and that all of our social constructs are just that—constructs. We should evaluate what we're offered, and choose—to use, to follow… or not. (2)
I'm treating The Quiet Lane as a sub-blog, and I even made a logo for it: can you spot the letters?
But these posts are still part of The Journal, so there's no need to follow a different feed—it’s just a way of delineating a space around the content. The homepage has changed again to reflect the addition (a never-ending work in progress that one).
Speaking of the homepage: I’m also digging through the archives with a feature called Storage Box. Each week I’ll be picking something from the past because…well, why not?
Thoughts and comments welcome as always :)
1: This article from The Guardian is more than a little troubling. I never, ever, do this.
2: See social reality.
