
Being basic as a virtue - skellertor
https://nadiaeghbal.com/basic
======
abeppu
This seems as good an opportunity as any to bring up another part of the
"basic" concept which feels really unhealthy: the idea that "basic" is
consuming commodity, mass-market goods, and that high status is distinguishing
yourself through sophisticated taste in what you consume.

This mindset is problematic for at least a few reasons: \- Every choice of
consumption becomes an opportunity to over-examine \- Devaluing goods because
they're common lures us into a needless chain of "upgrades" as productivity
improves. We can never have a post-scarcity economy if we're taught to shun
whatever isn't scarce. \- All of this plays into the framing that we're first
and foremost workers and consumers.

Would we not all be happier and healthier consuming decent but not spectacular
mass-produced and inexpensive food, drink, clothing, housing, cars, etc,
instead of coveting a rare beer, or looking down our noses at people buying
starbucks?

~~~
twirlock
I completely agree, but I can't help but note this only sounds like a radical
concept in the context of West coast liberals pretending their snobbiness is
erudition.

~~~
abeppu
I don't think this is specifically a West Coast thing. My supermarket has
dozens or perhaps hundreds of cheeses, and so do large supermarkets all over
the US. Surely that's because someone's buying the niche varieties, and going
to a party and saying "oh you're still buying brie? you have to try
reblochon."

~~~
dsalso
Or they just like to try new cheeses?

------
obiefernandez
[https://workaway.info](https://workaway.info)

A site that lets you find hosts who will trade room and board in exchange for
two to five hours of labor per weekday. Mostly located in beautiful/wild
locations around the world.

I'm currently doing three months in Europe hopping from place to place using
Workaway. For instance, right now I'm at a hobby farm on top of a mountain in
central italy. Super laid back. And gorgeous. Imagine the most picturesque
idyllic farm you can... I'm finding that the rewards in mental health are more
than sufficient to justify the astronomical opportunity cost.

~~~
opportune
My browser is complaining about an expired or invalid cert

~~~
johnchristopher
It's fine for [https://www.workaway.info](https://www.workaway.info)

------
Notorious_BLT
Is it common for knowledge workers to fantasize about more labor intensive
work from time to time? Because I definitely found myself relating to that
sentiment. Usually my mind goes to construction or carpentry in those moments.

My favorite part of this is the acknowledgement of the enjoyment to be found
embracing the 'degenerate' as the author calls it. I can strongly relate to
needing a good, stupid, socially-unacceptable laugh sometimes.

~~~
bradstewart
I often find myself romanticizing the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. I'm certainly
not suggesting modern society be dismantled, but there's something intriguing,
attractive even, about the simplicity of that life.

~~~
prometheus76
Rule 1: Always have a plan for the day.

Theorem 1: If you accomplish half of your plan for the day, you had a very
unusual day.

Rule 2: Be ready, at a moment's notice, to drop your plan for the day to
pursue an unusual opportunity.

Theorem 2: You might not always be rewarded for your enthusiasm, however. And,
at first, you will see many "opportunities" that are actually distractions
from the task you are avoiding. Time and seasoning will give you discernment.

Rule 3: Be aware, at a moment's notice, that you will have to drop your plans
and focus on an unexpected emergency. Re-build what broke so that it won't
break the same again next time.

Rule 4: You can start practicing now by skipping meals, or even skipping a day
of eating on occasion. Also, sleep on the floor with a light blanket
sometimes. Don't wear a coat to work sometimes. Take cold showers. Practice
being uncomfortable. Practicing makes it easier to absorb being uncomfortable
when you don't have a choice in the matter.

Rule 5: While you will be met by frequent surprises and challenges, you will
also be bored at times. Practice being comfortable with being bored by walking
more, with no headphones, no podcasts, no music. Just you and your thoughts.

Rule 6: You will always be building and re-building a plan for the day, but
that plan should always be fitting into a context of the season that is coming
next. What you do today makes the next season more comfortable, or at least,
survivable.

Theorem 3: You can judge how well you are surviving and adapting to the
challenges of your environment by how long out into the future your planning
reaches.

Theorem 4: To romanticize this as "simplicity" is to grossly underestimate the
mental fortitude and resilience required to focus on the matter at hand while
continuing to rebuild a plan for the near future, all without losing your shit
and giving up. Not to mention, grossly underestimating the creativity with
which Nature can surprise you.

(The numbering doesn't really matter, but theorem 1 is related to rule 1, and
theorem 2 is related to rule 2. Mostly, it was just a way of separating my
thoughts.)

~~~
bradstewart
This is definitely not a response I was expecting, but it's a really good,
thought-provoking one. Thanks for that.

I have no doubt I'm grossly underestimating things, but I do think your ideas
fit the definition of "simplicity" as I intended--simple being the opposite of
complex, rather than easy or effortless.

I find all of the ancillary functions we're forced to perform as part of
modern life to be very complex and highly distracting. On any given day I
might have to file a tax return, pay a phone bill, argue with a doctor's
office over a bill I paid 18 months ago, have my car break down, deal with
credit card fraud, receive a dozen spam calls, research and select a new
insurance plan, find a new dentist, etc, etc.

I actively take steps to reduce these distractions, but many are pervasive and
effectively required. I long for the opportunity to be bored. As another
comment said, this is part of what I love about backpacking: it affords the
change to be bored with my own thoughts.

And I'm back to romanticizing the ability to focus on a single, simple goal:
survive to the next season, with all the uncertainty that brings and mental
fortitude it demands.

------
skim_milk
I got to experience some unexpected culture shock earlier this year taking a
vacation to SF from a medium-sized city in the midwest (to probably no
surprise to you reading this comment). Having forgot my clothes on the trip I
got to tour all of SF for a week in cheap business casual clothing I kept on
after work, which was an experience. Lovely city but damn, I had a target on
my back looking like a basic tourist so I bought some more appropriate
clothing and tried my best to fit in. Got home after the trip made me want to
take an extra vacation day just to drink cheap beer, stare at the cows, and
listen to sports on the radio.

Sorry for the mostly irrelevant story, but what I'm trying to say is I think
this is probably a pretty common thing even outside of white collar big city
folk culture.

------
DarwinMailApp
I loved this part: Being mediocre is turning down the combat difficulty on Red
Dead so you can play through the game. It’s a resistance to hyper-
optimization; the “courage to be ordinary”.

I wholeheartedly agreed with this point as soon as I read it. I adapted this
approach while building DarwinMail [1].

There have been countless email & Twitter suggestions for DarwinMail. I've
always listened and asked questions until I understood what what the users
core message was. However, I do not always implement what has been asked.

I believe in some 'truths' when it comes to building your product while
following a basic approach;

1\. Users are the core of any business.

2\. The feedback you receive from users is the most valuable feedback you will
receive on your product as they are the ones actually using your product.

3\. You do not have to implement everything your users ask for.

Even though you may not do everything your users ask for, that does not mean
you are not listening.

I believe you need to keep your features simple and easy to understand.

Being basic reminds me of the saying 'Slow is smooth and smooth is fast'.

To me that is one of the most important truths when it comes to life and
business.

[1] [https://www.DarwinMail.app](https://www.DarwinMail.app)

------
adammish
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts.
So he loses touch with Reality, and lives in a world of illusion.” -Alan Watts

------
hliyan
Whenever I feel this way (and I do feel this way more than I care to admit),
it's usually due to mental fatigue from extended periods of mental exertion.
I've found that stepping away from high intensity thinking for a few weeks
every six months or so helps me reset. A complete "information lobotomy" as
the author suggests, may be overcompensation...

------
bch
This is so personal it's beyond reproach, for decency’s sake. On the other
hand, it could be overwrought romanticism that speaks to nothing but
existential crisis.

Who doesn’t want to be a farmer, rising at 3am to be alone with your thoughts
and hot coffee, tending the fields that feed a nation, while the sun rises,
signalling: this is creation; I’m driving the world! The answer is probably:
farmers, who would happily say “fuck right off” to 3am starts day after day
sucking dust and hoping you can keep your margins, the equipment doesn’t
break, and the weather holds.

I think the angst of the writing wants to push through to something more than
analyzing the pedestrian, but have the ultimate enlightenment being cool with
coming back to embrace the pedestrian. Ish.

I’m reminded of a couple story closings:

[1] Siddhartha listened. He was now nothing but a listener, completely
concentrated on listening, completely empty, he felt, that he had now finished
learning to listen. Often before, he had heard all this, these many voices in
the river, today it sounded new. Already, he could no longer tell the many
voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of
children from those of men, they all belonged together, the lamentation of
yearning and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the
moaning of the dying ones, everything was one, everything was intertwined and
connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices,
all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and
evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of
events, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively
to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the
suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular
voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived
the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted
of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.

[2] [https://youtu.be/OsDnrFBpsBk](https://youtu.be/OsDnrFBpsBk)

—-

[1] Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse

[2] A River Runs Through It. Robert Redford/Norman Maclean

------
ken
I definitely see this. There's a brand of clothing for workers that has become
fashionable among trendy young people. I see people walking around with a
hammer loop who I doubt have ever used a hammer.

------
invalidOrTaken
I really liked this piece. I especially enjoyed the thinking<\--->tan analogy.

"Intellectualism as signal for (possibly ( _likely_!) contagious) unluck" is
an unfortunate, but I think real, phenomenon.

------
munificent
If this article resonated with me any more strongly, I'd shatter like a wine
glass.

I love living on the West Coast and working in tech, and I fully appreciate
the many levels of privilege it affords me. Likewise, I've learned a ton and
gained countless hours of recreation from Reddit and the other social
aggregators. At the same time, there is something unhealthy and unbalanced
about it all.

Reddit's never-ending stream of upvoted videos is a machine for showing me the
best and worst of humanity. That's enriching and often hilarious. But those
best videos often leave me feeling like I can't compete. Why should I practice
a little guitar if I'm never going to be as good as that guy playing "While My
Guitar Gently Weeps" on a ukelele? The videos of mishaps aren't any better.
Anytime a video of someone doing something foolish gets a million views, I get
a little more self-conscious.

It reminds me of that traumatic transition in middle school when I first
became really aware of social pressure and fitting in. Because I wasn't used
to this signal, the gain was really high and I was constantly paralyzed by
self-consciousness. The Internet is that times a million, forever.

I used to feel good about my even mediocre accomplishments because I lived in
a world where I wasn't constantly surrounded by the world's best X for all
possible X. I'd like to get back to that state, but it's really hard to turn
off that level of self awareness. Deliberately _choosing_ to be unaware is not
the same as actually _being_ unaware. It's another layer on top when the goal
is to strip off the inteceding layer. I can't go back to before ironic-
detachment post-modernism. The best I can hope for is a "New Sincerity" _post_
-post-modernism, which isn't the same.

The part about degeneracy touches a nerve too. I don't know if I've ever tried
to articulate this properly, but today's progressive liberal culture is
possibly the most _confining_ culture I've ever lived in. In many ways it
feels like a neo-Victorian society where the expectation to follow the norms
is high and the price for the slightest transgression is even higher.

The _values_ it adopts are strictly better than Victorian times and many of
the places I grew up in the South. Equality for people of all genders, races,
ability, orientations, etc. Care for the environment. Intolerance of sexual
harrassment or violence of any kind. These are _good values._

But the way progressive culture _enforces_ those values socially is pretty
intense. There seems to be little room for human error, personal growth, or
misinterpretation. A slip of the tongue can easily summon a career-ending mob
on Twitter. (Or, at least, it _seems_ that way.) If I tell a joke, is that a
micro-aggression? If I _don 't_ tell a joke, is my seriousness itself another
micro-aggression? While the laws are just, the penalties associated with
breaking them are Draconian.

Maybe it's _supposed_ to feel this way for me now. I'm straight, male, white,
able, and middle class. Perhaps I felt freer in my youth because I was in a
position of implicit power where there were fewer consequences if I did or
said some dumb shit that hurt someone else. And maybe I have to be more
careful now because that power imbalance is being restored.

But as someone who has always strived to not be racist, sexist, homophobic,
etc., someone who has always had been sensitive to the discomfort of others
and tried to not hurt people, it's kind of a bummer being in a culture that
makes me feel even more cautious than I already naturally did. Meanwhile,
there's still apparently no shortage of actual fascist, racist, sexual
predator asshats out there who clearly couldn't care less about liberal
culture.

It feels like we're policing ourselves to the point of madness when we weren't
the problem in the first place.

~~~
ehfeng
> These are good values. But the way progressive culture enforces those values
> socially is pretty intense.

I hadn't drawn this delineation before, but I find it apt. I grew up Asian in
the Midwest and while I like progressive values here, I do miss how people
there tried to be _neighborly_, even if they held opposing values. I was a kid
in the suburbs, so maybe I only saw the softer side, but that doesn't stop me
from admiring it and hoping to emulate that particular virtue.

~~~
munificent
_> I do miss how people there tried to be _neighborly__

Yes, there's a certain presumption of goodwill that seems to be lacking. I
think of it as "tolerance" in the engineering sense — the idea that we each
need to give a little more than 50% in an interaction to account for some
slippage and human error.

I do believe that micro-aggressions are a real thing, that small-magnitude
interactions that are _consistently_ in a negative direction can add up to a
large negative effect. But focusing on those makes it hard to gracefully
accommodate the normal noise and random error in humanity. If we aren't also
tracking the "micro-benefiencies", then it paints everyone who ever makes a
mistake (which is all of us) as deliberately malicious.

------
scelerat
To me, saying someone is “basic” is another way of saying they’re living the
unexamined life. It’s an epithet that probably doesn’t apply to anyone 100%
and probably everyone at least a little bit

------
strikelaserclaw
It is not the thinking that is the problem, it is the constant need to be
productive and for thoughts to have value somehow. There are plenty of people
who can think about stuff just for the pleasure of it. I guess living in a
hyper competitive place like San Francisco would kill some of that "doing
something purely for the joy of it" mentality.

------
stcredzero
Remember, your capacity for innovation can be optimized, but will always be
finite. Apply your capacity to where the cost/benefit is optimized.

------
obiefernandez
I mentioned this article to my friend Michael who is currently hosting me at
his farm in Umbria, and this was his reply:

"Interesting yes, too much of anything dulls the mind, even the best things
can jade and wane if overindulged in.

One hour outside tying up tomato vines, weeding or watering balances out 10
trading memes on FB or watching YouTube tutorials, reading about myriad things
as long as they are well written.

We need and crave variety, novelty and balance, while the culture nudges us
towards monomania, tunnel thinking and hyper-specialisation, narrow casting in
the data stream, all trees, no forest. To zoom back out you need to let go of
forward motion (or better, our notion of it) and be willing to stop using our
will power for a few moments and see what's behind our ego's prideful play for
perfection or power.

Basic thinking is a cool concept.

Unwinding complexity, seeking simpler, more elegantly energetic solutions to
life's challenges, first to survive then to transform quantity into quality."

~~~
fbi-director
Standing at a crossroad in my life right now, your friend Michael has some
really insightful quotes. Thank you.

------
your-nanny
It's this new fangled meaning of basic. I have to accept it as given, but I
sort of find it aggravating, maybe because I think of basic as a synonym of
foundational or elementary. In the context of mathematics, calling something
basic, foundational, or elementary needn't mean simplistic, stupid, or
something for young children. People can add and subtract without grasping
number theory. But again, just me complaining about you people's neologisms,
and how basic is that?

------
sharadov
I think what we as programmers or more largely knowledge workers miss is doing
something which is physical and involves direct contact. Typing away on a
computer in a room with dozens of others with the him of white noise is far
off from that kind of experience. I like to cook, the experience of touching
produce, cutting and cooking is a uniquely human experience. So, yeah get a
hobby which allows you to do that. Disconnect and recharge.

------
algaeontoast
I equate “basic” as a label to someone I simply find so in-interesting or dull
in their personal persists or interests that I’m uncomfortable being around
them. Moreso, I’m acknowledging I’m incompatible with them, to me they are
“basic” in that I don’t seem to stretch my thought process around them. To
others they might be interesting, but I’m not going to lie to myself or
others.

------
ggg3
thankfully the shift he points out with tan/work/leisure is happening and
everyone now "works" as influencer on social media being the most basic as
possible. By the time the author archives his desired basicnes as a status
symbol, basicnes will already be repurpose to mean that you toil all day with
basic social media influencing.

------
fragsworth
Listen to yourselves. Look at what you're upvoting. Is this community reaching
peak arrogance?

It can be rephrased as "We're so fucking smart we need to take steps to dumb
ourselves down".

I'm prepared for the downvotes. But come on. Really?

~~~
tjoff
That's not what it is about, at all.

It is, perhaps, quite telling that you would reach that conclusion to a post
that ponders whether striving to perform your very best every inch of your
life really is the utopia.

Being "smart" wasn't even part of the equation yet you somehow ended up there.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I'll be honest, I interpreted it the same way.

>a post that ponders whether striving to perform your very best every inch of
your life really is the utopia.

I can't read it that way because _it 's not how I operate_. I don't identify
as a member of the "front row"[0] even though I am middle to upper middle
class. All of the things identified as "mediocre" and implicitly compared
against are _normal_ to me.

There's an entire caste of Americans that went to HYPSM+ and got 2300's on
their SATs and feel stifled by Bay culture. I think they are supremely out of
touch.

[0] [https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/06/back-row-
america](https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/06/back-row-america)

------
_bxg1
Instead of chasing the latest one-dimensional solution (or anti-solution) to
The Good Life, just seek balance. Everyone needs creative space, and everyone
needs something in their life that feels truly challenging. But everyone also
needs meditative breaks from mental activity, and time spent in nature, and
time building relationships, and time doing things that are dumb and fun and
useless.

This seems to be a common theme in California (at least, SF and LA): take
something good - creativity, progress, art - and fetishize it until it becomes
a pathology. The problem is not with any of these things - they're good;
great, even! - the problem is with seeing one single dimension of life as The
End-All. That is always going to end up being unhealthy, no matter what it is.

~~~
nostrademons
An ironic trend among some of the Bay Area upper-middle class is taking
_balance_ itself and fetishizing it. So instead of meditating for 20 minutes
at home, we have 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreats where you can't
talk or touch anything. Instead of walking to the store once in a while to get
some exercise, people bike 50 miles in and 50 miles back to work. Instead of
having a pet, people raise a menagerie.

Sometimes I think Californians should just own it and admit that this is an
extreme place. Even when we do balance, we do it by switching up the obsession
weekly.

~~~
esoterica
Walking to the store “once in a while” is basically zero exercise. That’s an
awful example of healthy moderation.

~~~
nostrademons
All you need is 30 minutes of getting your heart rate up, 5 days a week. If
you walk to the store 2-3 times a week, take a hike on the weekends, and jog
around the block a few times on the off days, you're there.

------
malvosenior
It seems as if this person is just discovering old fashioned American anti-
intellectualism (unintentionally ironically presented in an intellectual
wrapper).

There's a reason beyond laziness that many American's look down on typical
urban, liberal arts thought and discussion, and it's close to what this post
posits: tribalism and in/out group signalling. The difference is that the
author sees being "basic" as a signal that one is wealthy enough not to have
to work creatively for a living, and the historical practitioners of anti-
intellectualism are signalling a disdain for productionless thought.

~~~
kickscondor
Eh, there's more to it than this. 'Basic' is also the perspective that we're
really just animals working to survive. That we're all just dipshits
cluttering up the world while we attempt to assemble some kind of respectable
way of living. No cynicism here - I feel a real kinship to others when I'm in
this mood, rather than caught up in high-mindedness - which can be fun, too,
of course.

I think the fact that she terms it 'basic' rather than 'anti-intellectual'
makes it less reactionary - a baseline humanity that joins all of us. I think
even the term 'American anti-intellectualism' is a misnomer, considering that
ancient figures such as Jesus or Buddha were in this vein - preferring terse
wisdom to chains of detailed jargon. They spoke in 'basic', in a way.

------
rhacker
In before there's a picture of a girl with one arm in the air with short pants
on butt-facing-camera and a rake in the other arm.

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

------
whatshisface
The desire to avoid the "tan back stigma" of having to think to make money has
already been satisfied by snooty literature. Snooty thinking is thinking that
requires a smart brain but has no economic value. If you want to show that
you're smart, and you also want to show that you don't need to make money, you
can produce opinions on 13th century literature or whatever else you like. So,
in a sense the author's prophecy has already come to pass.

~~~
ska
I suspect this take is as snooty as the caricature you are drawing.

~~~
pessimizer
Accusations of elitism from people who think they're better than everyone else
are a weird feature of modern culture. I think it's somehow historically
related to Calvinism (the best at being of service are the saved, not the best
at being smart, or the best at asking questions.)

It's virtuous not to think too much, it means you aren't wasting time on
things other than salvation (or making money.) Just do the obvious thing.
Whatever everybody else is doing. Do it harder, though.

~~~
whatshisface
The worst existential accusation that anyone could levy against the
intellectual elite would be that they're engaging in the conspicuous
consumption of brain time, especially so given all the fun that's made of
"McMansions" and other forms of conspicuous consumption. It's probably not
true of everybody, but I wonder how many people would care about whether or
not they were philistines if you took away any chance of getting recognized
for having good culture.

