Chamber of focus
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I’m writing this on Tuesday, on the 4:15 p.m. Amtrak back from Boston, outside of which I visited my friend Anne at her family home for a couple of days. We’re friends from college, and now she lives in San Francisco. She doesn’t like texting, and I’m not great at the phone. So it’s nice when we get a chance to catch up in person. And it’s always a treat for me, who grew up on the easy-access, high-capacity freeways of the west, to ride a train. In fact, I think that if I could ride a train for a few hours every day, I would do it, just to work. Here’s why:
1. It’s hard to feel stagnancy on a train. I learned this a few years ago when I was traveling every couple of weeks to Washington for work. Unlike on an airplane, where everyone shuts the window shades in order to watch a screen—heaven forfend we abstain from that for a few hours—on a train you are vividly aware of the world passing by, of being in motion. It’s the opposite of a cubicle. You may sleep, eat, do the crossword, inebriate yourself or, as I usually did, churn through one thousand emails and plan your schedule for the next seven weeks. Doesn’t matter: You’re doing it at a full sprint. Admin by way of “Snowpiercer.”
2. The internet is present, but barely. I always wish we could have like 20 percent of the benefits of the internet (efficient communication; good maps) without any of its drawbacks (the aforementioned epidemic of screen addiction; the end of democracy). Being on a train delivers! You can churn through those emails, but good luck making any TikToks. Thankfully I remembered to download the most recent episode of “Succession” onto my phone for later.
3. Everywhere you go within a train, it feels the same. I’ve mentioned and will write soon about what I call rotational attention. If you suffer/benefit from this characteristic, the train is nice because you’re never chained to your seat—even though there’s turbulence throughout—and yet nothing in the space is going to provide a more compelling object for your attention than what lies at hand, right here in Seat 8F. You can stand up, walk the aisle, realize how limited your options are, and return to your keyboard, all within a minute or two. Right now, it’s just a half-hour into the ride, and I’ve written my whole newsletter for Friday. As a feat of writing this is middling, but as a feat of nonprocrastination it’s Olympian.
So, see you on the Acela corridor?
Kindly send me your thoughts, questions, and provocations: dmichaelowen@gmail.com. And say hi on Instagram, or let’s Peloton together: @leggy_blond.