Waking up to a rare snowfall at 6:00 AM, this installment serves as a "New Year’s audit" of attention. It moves from a personal commitment to keep the "screens from winning" at home to a broader critique of how social media has distorted our survival instincts.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Bourdain Experiment: A spontaneous Reddit post about Anthony Bourdain’s values led to the creation of a Berlin-based meetup group focused on real-life interaction rather than digital exchange.
2. Content vs. Survival: A chilling analysis of the recent Swiss nightclub fire, where victims reportedly prioritized filming and uploading content as the tragedy unfolded.
3. The "Little Black Rectangle": An observation of the "eerie" and "sick" physical alignment of people in public spaces, completely consumed by their smartphones.
4. Spatial Awareness Exercise: A personal practice started in December to reclaim attention by consciously observing smells, sounds, and the needs of others on public transport.

The "Spatial Awareness" Challenge

To combat the "digital feed," the host proposes a deliberate exercise in being present:

1. Observe the Environment: Note the lighting, the smells, and the noise levels on your commute.
2. Identify the Needs of Others: Look for people requiring assistance (the elderly, those with heavy luggage) who are often ignored by a phone-distracted crowd.
3. Detect Opportunities: Move beyond the "screen leash" to find inspiration or connection in the physical world.

Links & Community

1. Meetup: Berlin Social/Bourdain WhatsApp Group (see Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/berlinsocialclub/comments/1q1xi6d/anthony_bourdain_fans_in_berlin/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
2. Reference: The Swiss NYE fire investigation and the shift toward digital "isolation" over integration.
3. Connect: Reach out via email at cmonkxxx@gmail.com to share your own stories of reclaiming your attention.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to this, what I think will be a short episode.

I'm recording on a whim on a very early morning.

It's.

It's just after 6am I woke up way too early for no good reason.

I didn't have alarm clock.

I slept for about seven hours, which is a good night.

I feel very hopeful about today.

I feel quite inspired.

Don't really have any plan, any particular desire.

Maybe it's my childish part of my brain that tells me, look through the window, it's snowing, it's white.

Yes, it was snowing throughout the night.

I don't think it will last, but it might.

It might be just enough to go out and to hear this snowy crumble under my shoes.

Yeah, I'm hoping to spend a couple of hours outside.

I'll be taking my daughter out to, you know, to give her some exercise, to get some exercise myself as well.

We've been sitting at home for two days now with a bit of a walk yesterday, just to the shop.

I don't know what the deal is.

Maybe it's just this slow start after the New Year's.

Maybe it's the darkness, maybe it's the cold.

Both me and my daughter, we feel like it's best to stay and work on some projects, some creative projects.

So we do have a lot of coloring pages.

We have a lot of.

A lot of things that you can do other things with.

But enough is enough.

And I think unless we go today, the screen will win.

The phone, the tablet, the laptop.

And I don't want that.

I don't want that.

I.

It's not like I have new New Year's resolutions to spend less in front of the screen, but I have this inkling that there is more things out there.

I remember there was more to life.

What brings me to something, I really am happy to share, something I'm very excited about, something really out of my character as well.

And if you're listening to this, there is, there is a slight chance that you might be involved in what I.

What I got done yesterday.

It was also a result of a whim, of a spontaneous thought.

I. I made this post on Reddit where I said, hey, if you like Anthony Bourdain, if you like what he was representing and showing to people, like values he was promoting, maybe we have more things in common.

Maybe we should get in touch.

So I created this post and it got quite a bit of traction from my track record.

It was quite a lot, um.

And yeah, quite a lot of people commented that, yeah, I love Anthony.

I, I would love to get in touch.

Let's meet, let's do this, let's do that.

Now.

I, I don't really know what that means.

I mean, Anthony Bourdain was a very complex personality and he represented many things, but I still believe there might be, it might be an interesting theme to connect with other people.

And I, I decided to set up a meetup group which didn't, didn't really happen because I, I stumbled.

When I, when I went down to set up a name for the group, I realized, no, I, I don't want to call this group anything.

At the least I want to call it is Anthony Bourdain Fan Club, because it's not.

Instead, I just really want to keep this as a, just a group of people.

So I directed them to a WhatsApp group, which might not be the most ideal thing, but that's what I went for.

And I'm trying to engage with this group and again, if you are in, in that group, you are more than welcome to engage and to, to write.

Group is a little bit quiet right now, but I think it will, you will get more lively, more alive, more active.

And I'm hoping to meet with those people.

I'm hoping to, to set up a meetup, to set up interactions, you know, real life interactions.

Something to add.

It's not an Anthony Bourdain Reddit either.

This is a Berlin social comment club Reddit.

So it's really just tied into, into my local area.

Just blows my mind.

Yeah, I guess I'm still trying to process this.

There's about 15, 18 people signed up.

It's going to feel like now it's my responsibility to, to get something meaningful.

Maybe this is what woke me up this morning.

You know, I just sort of feel like I want to do something about it.

I want to be.

Accommodative and I want to express my appreciation that, hey, I just connected with so many people and I want to make this meaningful.

You know, I want to make this a real thing.

I don't want this to be just a WhatsApp group where we chat and exchange, you know, like restaurant recommendations.

But who knows, if I, as a result of this, if I get to connect with one or two people, this will be my personal success.

It doesn't have to explode as a Internet movement or anything.

I want to talk a little bit more about social networks and social media, like online presence, because few days ago I, I got really bitter taste in my mouth when looking at the news about ski resort fire in Austria.

I think it's Switzerland.

I should double check.

Hold on.

I, I, it would probably be best if I pause and check.

Yes, indeed, it was Switzerland.

So was New Year's eve celebration, and 40 people died in a fiery blaze as fireworks sprinklers attached to champagne bottles, they ignited sound dumping padding in the nightclub and it created a very quick, very intense fire.

People basically got stuck in the basement and, and burned.

And I'm sorry for sharing those gruesome ideas, spreading them into your head so early.

I mean, it's early for me, but it is what it is.

It's a reality that took place.

And I think there are two things that need to be done here.

Respect, moment of contemplation about people that lost their lives in this tragic accident.

But also what's needed is a contemplation on what, how did people behave?

And I have no idea how they behaved, but there is more and more videos surfacing, videos from that fire.

And it's very clear that people were partying and they kept on celebrating and uploading to social media as the fire was progressing, which indicates that people were just, people saw this as a social network content creation, I should say opportunity.

And it's just sick, it's horrible the fact that people would see the danger and their first instinct was to, to capture this in hope to, you know, publish this on a social media platform.

It's, it's horrific.

And since I'm, I'm creating this podcast, this resonates because I, if I was more involved with this, I would probably have a bit of a drive to maybe, well, at least take, I don't know if there would be a piece of content or just if I want to document this, I would probably do something.

I don't know if I would stand there and film maybe, you know, maybe I would be one of those people considering my past, what I used to do, this freeform journalism, I would, you know, I would potentially do stuff like this.

I would record and publish, share.

I don't know how I would behave today, maybe knowing that I have a daughter, I would not take my chances.

I would not take a risk like that.

But I saw many people did and they lost their life.

Now investigation is undergoing, so we don't really know if people did try to run away and it was just a couple of seconds where they were trying to record and they got lost in this experience between joy, fun and celebration and drama unfolding in front of their eyes.

We also know that there was just, you know, the fire ignited or spread in seconds.

So we're really talking here about relatively quick unfolding where you don't really get to analyze the situation properly.

But, you know, I've been thinking, do I need to control myself?

Do I need to be aware of life more?

And do I need to.

Should I.

Should I record, for example, only from home?

Should I be more observant of my environment?

And this is something, what I've been doing more and more towards the end of the last year in December, I realized that when I'm in public space, I'm surrounded by people looking at their phones and they don't really pay attention to what's surrounding them, you know, like the environment they're in.

And it's nothing new.

Of course, we see that for the last few 15 years or so it's becoming a norm, or it became a norm.

But it continues to be so eerie.

And so to me, it's very uncomfortable to see people in those weird body alignments where they just leaning over this little black rectangle and they.

They move their thumb.

It's really silly, annoying, unpleasant sight.

It looks very sick.

It looks very, very odd.

And when speaking of public transport, I think it's quite normal to do that because there is very little that you can really engage with.

Like, you wouldn't talk to other people.

You've seen the world through that window multiple times.

You don't need to see it again.

So people naturally look for some stimulation, something to be inspired by.

And what better thing than a phone?

I would argue there's a bunch of other things, little things that you can carry with you that will occupy your mind.

And I've been trying.

I've been trying myself as well.

But I do know that I also fall into a habit of catching up with some people or catching up with my email, or even looking at my slack and checking if I need to do something for my work.

So it doesn't really have to be all bad.

Might be something necessary, but.

But still, it's quite disturbing when, you know, you walk into a drum and everyone is doing it.

In my recent episode From Paris, I mentioned that as well.

I mentioned that people were unable to turn off their phones while being on the plane.

Even though we were in, maybe not direct, but possible danger.

People couldn't just switch off the phone that was even not connected to Internet and it couldn't really do anything meaningful.

That made me think quite a lot.

And, you know, I was very critical.

Although earlier in that episode I said I'M so reliant on my phone.

I'm recording a podcast and I'm using battery that I need for transport.

I need to.

To check in with my phone with QR code on the airport.

So I. I see a possible hypocrisy, but it just makes me think.

It makes me think that we are all in it.

And it's very unfortunate and it extends, right?

Personal being occupied, personally possibly putting myself in a dangerous situations and maybe missing out on life.

And that's something I want to conclude this episode with.

It's exercise that I started mid December last year where I started to observe, like really carefully observing things around me.

You know, what, how many people there are in the tram, what are they wearing, what colors are dominating, what do I smell, what do I hear?

Is the noise louder than usual?

Is it the same?

What is the light like?

What do I have in my pockets?

How many people are walking in on each tram stop, for example?

Seeing all those things, you know, and maybe it's unnecessary, maybe in some cases it's just an exercise, but in some cases I found that I'm able to detect things that may require attention.

Indeed, I saw people needing assistance, for example, you know, older people or people with heavy luggage.

Someone dropped something.

I was able to notice this and help that person out.

And I want to stress I was sort of alone seeing this.

Everyone was in their own world or world of their phone, their digital experience.

And I'm not gonna lie, I felt really good about it.

I felt really good about helping other people, but also seeing those things, seeing possible dangers.

And maybe there's something even more to it.

Maybe it's also about seeing opportunities, you know, seeing things that are not about saving something, but achieving something, Noticing, getting inspired, maybe connecting with somebody.

You know, what if I don't want to get too ahead of myself?

But I think you get an idea.

This is about being in the world.

And there is a cover term, you know, be in the moment, be here now.

And we sometimes use those labels to just say what it is, but without really deconstructing it.

I really want to be more aware spatially, socially, environmentally.

It's not about being in a moment, not being here now, but it kind of is.

I want to use different terms because those other terms are being overused and maybe they're losing their meaning, but I want to do that.

And it clearly can even save life because you know that your life is the most important thing in your life and your online life.

What's happening in your phone is far, far further in a hierarchy of things in life.

I know it's very obvious.

It's nothing new and nothing.

I'm not discovering anything extraordinary here.

But what I'm seeing tells me that maybe it's something worth talking about, reminding myself and other people.

And seeing this accident in Switzerland made me feel like it goes deeper and it gets worse and it's progressing in a worse direction.

Even though we see now collapse of social media, even though we see that people are less social online, I think it's becoming worse.

We are just being fed by stimulation.

We are not even interacting anymore.

We are just fed into this feed of colors and sounds and it's endless and we are endlessly hungry and we're forgetting what's really important.

I'll leave you with that.

I would encourage you to connect with your world, your surrounding, be observant, be in charge of your life.

And if you are indeed a member of my group, I. I encourage you to, to write in, to engage and let's meet and celebrate life.

Have a good day and have even better.

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