Lately I’ve been recommending Cal Newport to everybody I like and care about. Cal’s a digital minimalist, which means he thinks the world is out there to be lived in and that any time you spend online should be measured and deliberate.
This is me paraphrasing his life’s work, based on my listening to about four of his 300 odd podcasts, and not having even glanced at any of his best selling books or Ted Talks. Poor Cal, I hope he doesn’t read this. Chances are he won’t because he spends as little time as possible online (as per above) meaning he probably never Googles his own name after a couple of drinks in the way I used to until a few years ago when life got too busy to think about what other people were saying about me.
That’s a key theme of Cal’s recent podcast where he talks about phone and social media use (I know there is loads of this stuff out there - why you should spend less time on your phone, etc - but it makes a real difference when the person talking has thought about it deeply for years and years, read everything back to Aristotle on the topic and turned it into a very practical how-to guide). You can’t, he says, hope to successfully quit social media until you’ve built a life which can replace the time you spend on it. Before you go cold turkey on Tik Tok you should begin to develop a life built around the sorts of things social media use is currently taking you away from. Things like (his list):
Reading (even if it’s just a magazine, but ideally a mix of hard and easy material)
Prestige TV/documentaries/movies
A skill-based hobby
An exercise-based hobby
Being part of a community that meet regularly (even if it’s just a group of friends)
*****
So that’s just one little insight of his. About every five minutes while I’m listening to him I think “SHIT! That is an amazing observation about life and how to live it”. For all the reckons out there, there are very few people thinking extremely hard about the very best way to live a good life in the age of billionaire-funded distraction.
I loved his chat about how to say “no” when people ask you to do something which isn’t your primary work: be transparent, he says, tell them you are busy but that you reserve x hours a month for this sort of work and if they’re happy to wait until, say, September you will put them in the queue (inevitably he makes it sound less obnoxious than I do).
He’s also very good on why artists are/should be leaving social media, explaining in very simple terms how having ten thousand facebook followers is less useful than having a smaller, slower growing group of trusted and high-value connections via eg a newletter or podcast.
Cal is the sort of smart, fresh-thinking person that makes me fire off a late night email to my US-based radio producer Susan and ask “can we get him?”. Then she reminds me that, by definition, the person who is world famous for not being distracted from his core work is perhaps unlikely to take half an hour out of his day to talk to an afternoon radio host in New Zealand. By rights I should even make his September waiting list.
Anyway Producer Susan is a superhero because yesterday she emailed me to say that she’s booked Cal Newport for a mid morning pre-record at the end of May. Phenomenal.
This year on Afternoons I’ve met more of my intellectual heroes than ever before. I’m looking forward to sharing this latest one with you but first, this Wednesday, I’ll talk to Jonathan Haidt, author of what I think is the most important book in the Western world right now: The Anxious Generation. They should make parents read this at Birthcare before they’re allowed to take the baby home.
Where I’m reviewing this week
The legendary Tanuki’s Cave, next to the Classic Comedy Bar on Queen Street.
“The guy serving me was particularly striking: Handsome, tattooed and wearing a white headband.
Would I look good in a white headband? That’s what I found myself wondering as the Orion slowly disappeared. I thought it through. The photos on social media. The call from Ricardo Simich at the Herald on Sunday. The front page splash. Golriz Ghahraman-style security footage of me trying the headband on at Wah Lee’s. A Spinoff think-piece on the harms of cultural appropriation. My tearful apology on the 6pm news. The Prime Minister’s summons to the Japanese Embassy. Nah, I thought, ordering another beer. Probs not worth the risk.”
Where I was reviewing five years ago
Vegetarian restaurant The Butcher’s Son in Herne Bay
“Though eating at Little Bird can sometimes feel like being at a Juliette Hogan Autumn preview, there’s a more mixed crowd at Butcher’s in Herne Bay – from the scarcely believable visages of local millionaire’s wives to the hairy hippies who’ve given veganism such a hard-to-shake image. I’m no oil painting myself right now, bearing the permanent dishevelment of a new father,some prominent bike accident wounds and the extra weight from a month of heat-and-eat dinners. There’s a good chance the hippies were looking at me thinking “for God’s sake have a shower man”, so believe me I appreciated the more relaxed standards.”
What people are asking me
Jesse,
We’re going to Ana Scotney’s play, Scattergun, at Q Theatre on Thursday, can’t wait! We’d like to meet for a drink beforehand (there are four of us) and I’m not sure whether people will have eaten or not. Do you have any suggestions for a good spot nearby?
Thank you for this service!
Adele
Adele I’m sending you for the best martini I’ve found in Auckland.
Looking forward to the Jonathon Haidt chat! And the Cal one too