pace and place

I am back at the Bun Shop again. It is insane how loud it is in here. I have earbuds blasting music to help me focus, and I can still hear the rumble of the fan and the faint beat of pop music bouncing off the high loft ceiling.

I did some writing in the late-night hours here almost a decade ago. But I am a different sort of person now, and I require a different type of space to work in. It could be that the place is much louder than it used to be, but what is more likely true is that I am grumpier and more sensitive to noise.

And I work much slower.

Words seem to come much more easily then. The pauses between my thoughts are longer now. Distractions grow in the gaps like weeds between the squares of a sidewalk.

I have always been a meanderer. With effort, I can muster up a soldierly cadence but left on my own, I will wander around at a daydreams pace.

A library is probably a more suitable venue for me now. I don’t need to pass the late hours anymore, so from now on, I’ll just people-watch and enjoy the coffee and pastries.

In my line of sight is a skateboarder inexplicably wearing a sweater and beanie in the 90-degree heat. He is napping on his back on the green Victorian-style couch with his board propped on the coffee table.

A man is sitting at a community table with two laptops open in front of him; a MacBook, and a MSI Gaming laptop. He is sitting next to a fit gentleman wearing a tank covered by the design of the Maryland state flag. He is somehow reading a physical book without the aid of headphones to block out all the noise. Also at the table is a woman whose back is to me who seems to be trying to angle the screen of her laptop to prevent others from seeing it. It is fully visible to me. I don’t care what’s on it.

In this episode of Cal Newport’s podcast, he challenged the significance of the digital tools that are designed to increase our productivity. We can do a lot of things much more quickly and easily than we could in the past. But the parts that got sped up were the easy parts.

I could have made a list and checked many things off of it over the course of the hours I have been here. It would have felt good and given me the illusion of forward progress. But the best use of my time in a place like this is to let my mind wander