Finished up this delightful book nook build that spouse got me for Xmas. It was soothing blend of Lego building and puzzle making that I found extremely satisfying, promoting extreme focus and deep work that magically settled anxiety. Now I understand the “old people working on puzzles” stereotype.
Scrolling and screens have hijacked an enormous amount of our attention last 20+ years. The resulting anxiety surge isn’t terribly surprising: not only is it a window into every horror happening all at once (which were happening plenty before then!) but it’s meant we’re all doing less creative work.
Humans are built to do things with their hands. Making bread, knitting, carpentry, puzzles, painting, chop wood, carry water… I suspect this is also why I find writing long hand so soothing. We’re doing less and less of this, and it’s shown up in our mental health.
This is especially true with young people, whose lives are increasingly cut off from the wider, tangible world: they’re just being shuttled from the school prison to the home prison, because people call the cops if they’re playing on the sidewalk or riding a bike to the store. It’s a modern tragedy.
We’re increasingly giving kids exactly one way to socialize and experience the wider world, and it’s through screens. That’s on us as a society, not on them.
