Friends —

I stole a single coffee bean from a coffee shop. I am not sure exactly why, but it has something to do with me no longer drinking coffee and finding it to be difficult in this coffee-driven world. 

That being said, you are reading Caesura, a newsletter for people seeking a focus in the world of caffeinated perpetual distraction. And I am Adil, the author, newslettering from Budapest to you, a kind subscriber — thanks for being here today, wherever in the world you currently are.

Lets get to it.

🫙 Emptying the Box

Bushido is a moral code of conducts for warriors (samurai) in pre-modern Japan. Scott Jurek in his book “Eat and Run” finds a common theme between principles of Bushido and running — ability to empty mind and be present:

According to bushido, the best mind for the battlefield—or the race—is that of emptiness, or an empty mind. This doesn’t mean sleepiness or inattention; the bushido concept of emptiness is more like that rush of surprise and expansiveness you get under an ice-cold waterfall. The empty mind is a dominant mind. It can draw other minds into its rhythm, the way a vacuum sucks up dirt or the way the person on the bottom of a seesaw controls the person on the top. 

💭 Out of Coverage

Craig Mod does a lot of walking and writing in Japan. That’s literally what he does — goes on months-long walking journeys and documents his experience. Let’s take a second to realize this — months of walking. No transport, no bicycle, not even running — walking. If anyone, Craig knows better what a disconnected mind can achieve:

So you need to be proactive in protecting yourself. Unplug your router once a week. Go offline for the weekend. Remember what that feels like. I know this may sound hyperbolic, but it’s difficult to understand how powerful it is until you have done it a few times. You have to bridge the intellectual and experiential gap. Intellectually, you may intuit getting a different quality of work done by going offline. But to experience and understand the benefits you have to be disciplined enough to repeat an act a dozen times. Then you begin to recognize the nuanced changes in the way you think, your insights into problems, and the shift in quality of the solutions you come up with. Whether it’s writing, programming, or design, a quiet mind is a fertile space for thinking. I find network disconnection greatly aids in creating that kind of mind.

⚙️ Quietude in Technology

I am not surprised, and you are not too, that modern technology is designed to seek out every bit of our attention — and we just accept it as a fact of life. But imagine, if they were not? They are made by humans, right? So humans can and should design technology that is not a profit-seeking attention sucker, but an aide and helpful tool that knows its limit and boundaries, as Craig Mod explains it:

In my opinion, the most exciting technologies are quiet. They’re in the background. We forget about them. They don’t pull on your attention, and they’re not necessarily consumer-facing.

 I think many of the philosophies of quietude and disconnection and silence not only can be applied to technology, but should be. Must be. Technology and quietude are powerful partners.

P.S. If you liked the idea of quite technology, google “slow technology movement.”

Remember that you can reply to this email to let me know what do you think (what you liked? what you disliked? what you want see more?) or just say hi. Also, if you do not already, follow me onTwitter or Insta.

See ya,

Adil.