
Goodbye Serenity (2011) - frereubu
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/
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frereubu
This discussion -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13205685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13205685)
\- reminded me very much of this fantastic short article by Charles Simic,
particularly this quote: "My late father, in the final year of his life,
claimed that he finally found that long-sought serenity by no longer reading
the papers and watching television. Even then, and I was thirty years younger
than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of sadomasochism do to their
bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and
political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day." I
think the same could be said of the incessant distractions caused by
notifications. I turned off all my notifications apart from SMS a couple of
years ago, and why anyone would leave email notifications on in particular is
a mystery to me these days.

