Time out
have a restorative conversation
Dear august reader,
I hope you are enjoying carefree moments during your daily routine, since this is the hectic period of wringing every minute out of the diminishing day. Through the magic of scheduling, this newsletter is appearing on your screen of choice while I’m spending time at a seaside town with a good friend who lives abroad and returns to Ireland irregularly.
Due to the interruptions in the 2020-21 era I didn’t see many of my friends because most of them live beyond the borders of my county or outside of Ireland. Last year I finally began to meet friends and acquaintances in person. Those encounters thrummed with a near hyper-excitement, and often happened during events or locations where it was difficult to engage in sustained, easy-going conversation.
Here is a common scenario at a festival or convention: you’ve snagged a quiet corner section of the hotel lobby and are enjoying a lively catch-up with a mate and along strolls a few people who just want to say hello — some of whom you may only know distantly— and that’s the end of your tête-à-tête. The twosome morphs into a group of five, and suddenly there are twelve people talking intensely, sprawled over multiple tables. This friendship conurbation can be fun if occasionally frustrating when conversational threads are endlessly interrupted and derailed as people join and leave. Yet, you could be introduced to your new best friend, so it’s wise to surrender to the chaos for a time.
The most terrifying outcome of this situational camaraderie is the suggestion of a ‘group dinner’, during which some of the gang will bail before the bill arrives and others will drink heavily, leaving several people fuming (and possibly panicked) over the inflated cost of the meal. I’ve seen people make outrageously generous gestures to settle disputed checks. This is one of the most fraught experiences of eating out with people you’ve only just met. At this point in my life I avoid it if at all possible, unless they’ve been arranged in advance and involve the magic words ‘set course menu’ (and separate billing of drinks).
It’s why I try to arrange a lunch or a coffee with friends if I’m going to be meeting them at events. There is nothing as soul-affirming as having an intense conversation with your bestie about the granular details of the passions you share, or confiding in them your joys and fears.1 I’m massively indebted to broadband for keeping me connected, but it’s a poor deep-fake compared to an in-person gabfest.
There was a time in our lives when we regularly enjoyed quality one-on-one time with our friends. Most often we experienced an intense period of connection when we were younger, early in our careers, or in college. It involved long conversations over a beverage while we argued the mysteries of the universe, debated the merits of musicians, dissected the problems of world governments, or geeked out over our favourite hobby or fandom (I include sports in this category). During this golden era of irresponsibility (i.e. before mortgages, marriage, children and careers) we were free to be careless with our time and spend it on experiences: travelling, going out, gigs, hobbies, socialising or just fecking about. So if you are a person at this stage in your life I urge you to enjoy every moment! Yet, no doubt this suggestion will not sink in properly, because it is only when we are in a later phase of our life that we romanticise our previous freedom, and forget the lonely and isolated periods.
Now, the overstuffed diary must be consulted and a convoluted algorithm run in order to figure out overlapping free time. The more people involved the more difficult this calculation becomes. Even if you section off the golden hours, and successfully meet, you have to contend with the attention-stealing goblin that is placed directly on the table as soon as they sit down: the smart phone.
Most often this will be accompanied with a harried excuse that they’re expecting a call from the plumber/mother/babysitter that can’t be missed. And much of the time they’re not fibbing. Few people have a clear schedule any more. Even when we attempt to cordon off free time we can’t stop the hamster wheel in our head that spins on the perpetual to-do axis.
No doubt you’ve experienced a situation when you’re in the middle of talking to someone and they absent-mindedly reach over and pick up their phone and check it for messages, sometimes without any evidence of shame!
It’s difficult not to be irritated by this behaviour, but in some ways it’s the modern equivalent of the random neighbour passing by your table, who interrupts the flow of conversation, and everyone must engage in small talk to facilitate social ease. Except in this case your friend has summoned the gossip rather than leaving it to chance.
Before my friends and acquaintances who read this newsletter start imagining I’m passively-aggressively calling them out, let me settle your fears and remind everyone that the majority of us do this at some point or another. As much as I strive to keep my phone in a bag or jacket when I’m meeting people, even I resort to peeking at it if I’m expecting a missive (usually when my mate has gone to the loo or is ordering another drink).
Lurking behind the muscle memory twitch to check if anyone has texted/tagged/messaged you, is the strain of remaining focused on one person continuously. I suspect people have fallen out of the practice of long conversations without some form of interruption (this goes tenfold for tired parents of young children). There a phantom limb sensation that you’ve missing something because you’re not engaged in the habitual swipe of checking email or social media2. Your arm drifts towards the device without you even noticing.
Our brains are not well adapted to owning an entertainment system in our pocket which can be accessed whenever we feel a smidgen or discomfort or unease. This is why it’s best to keep the device out of sight. Back in 2017, studies at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas indicated ‘The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity’. Just having your smartphone in your eyeline reduces your ability to concentrate on any task. It doesn’t matter if it’s face down and all notifications are silenced: its existence is an attention black hole.
Speaking of black holes…
Did you know that back in April NASA announced it had observed what looks like a supermassive black hole barrelling through the universe? This runaway black hole, which weighs “as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.”
Just when you thought the universe couldn’t get weirder, we have three black holes vying for supremacy and one of them ends up being whipped across the metaphorical room for its rudeness.
Not that the other two were any better. I can see the Cosmic Mother shaking her head and warning the squabbling duo to be on their best behaviour or they won’t get a galaxy for dessert.
Attention requires practice. It can be eroded and it can be restored, but it requires a conscious decision to employs methods to improve it.
So whenever I score an elusive chunk of time with a buddy I try to embrace the experience fully (after I hug my friend soundly) and enjoy every hard-earned moment. I am grateful for my friends who gift me with their most precious resource: time and attention.
And last week delivered yet another paid subscriber! Merci, dziękuję, gracias!
I will endeavour to repay your kindness via words!
This is tenfold for young parents, who exist in a constant state of vigilance: scanning for the sound of breaking glass—or worse still: utter silence.
Will you be at the Glasgow Worldcon next year? it's been a while since the Dublin one (2019,IIRC).
I have a memebership for the Glasgow Worldcon next year.