“It does not make them illegal”: Ibid., 48.
“It’s this propensity to view ‘the Internet’ as a source of wisdom”: from page 25 of Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here. New York: Public Affairs, 2013.
Chapter 3
“I do all my work by hand”: from Ric Furrer’s artist statement, which can be found online, along with general biographical details on Furrer and information about his business: http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com.
“This part, the initial breakdown”; “You have to be very gentle”; “It’s ready”; and “To do it right, it is the most complicated thing”: from the PBS documentary “Secrets of the Viking Swords,” which is an episode of NOVA that first aired on September 25, 2013. For more information on the episode and online streaming see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html.
“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely”: from page 15 of Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft.
“The world of information superhighways”: from Ric Furrer’s artist statement: http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com.
A Neurological Argument for Depth
“not just cancer”; “This disease wanted to”; and “movies, walks”: from page 3 of Gallagher, Winifred. Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. New York, Penguin, 2009.
“Like fingers pointing to the moon”: Ibid., 2.
“Who you are”: Ibid., 1.
“reset button”: Ibid., 48.
“Rather than continuing to focus”: Ibid., 49.
Though Rapt provides a good summary of Barbara Fredrickson’s research on positivity (see pages 48–49), more details can be found in Fredrickson’s 2009 book on the topic: Frederickson, Barbara. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown Archetype, 2009.
The Laura Carstensen research was featured in Rapt (see pages 50–51). For more information, see the following article: Carstensen, Laura L., and Joseph A. Mikels. “At the Intersection of Emotion and Cognition: Aging and the Positivity Effect.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 14.3 (2005): 117–121.
“concentration so intense”: from page 71 of Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990.
“Five years of reporting”: from page 13 of Gallagher, Rapt.
“I’ll choose my targets with care”: Ibid., 14.
A Psychological Argument for Depth
For more on the experience sampling method, read the original article here:
Larson, Reed, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “The Experience Sampling Method.” New Directions for Methodology of Social & Behavioral Science. 15 (1983): 41-56.
You can also find a short summary of the technique at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_sampling_method.
“The best moments usually occur”: from page 3 of Csikszentmihalyi, Flow.
“Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy”: Ibid., 162.
“jobs should be redesigned”: Ibid., 157.
A Philosophical Argument for Depth
“The world used to be”: from page xi of Dreyfus, Hubert, and Sean Dorrance Kelly. All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free Press, 2011.
“The Enlightenment’s metaphysical embrace”: Ibid., 204.
“Because each piece of wood is distinct”: Ibid., 210.
“is not to generate meaning”: Ibid., 209.
“Beautiful code is short and concise”: from a THNKR interview with Santiago Gonzalez available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXZWB_dNsw.
“We who cut mere stones” and “Within the overall structure”: from the preface of Hunt, Andrew, and David Thomas. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. New York: Addison-Wesley Professional, 1999.
Homo Sapiens Deepensis
“I’ll live the focused life”: from page 14 of Gallagher, Rapt.
Rule #1
Hofmann, W., R. Baumeister, G. F?rster, and K. Vohs. “Everyday Temptations: An Experience Sampling Study of Desire, Conflict, and Self-Control.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102.6 (2012): 1318–1335.
“Desire turned out to be the norm, not the exception”: from page 3 of Baumeister, Roy F., and John Tierney. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.
“taking a break from [hard] work”: Ibid., 4.
Original study: Baumeister, R., E. Bratlavsky, M. Muraven, and D. M. Tice. “Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1998): 1252–1265.
Decide on Your Depth Philosophy
“What I do takes long hours of studying” and “I have been a happy man”: from Donald Knuth’s Web page: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html.
“Persons who wish to interfere with my concentration”: from Neal Stephenson’s old website, in a page titled “My Ongoing Battle with Continuous Partial Attention,” archived in December 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20031231203738/http://www.well.com/~neal/.
“The productivity equation is a non-linear one”: from Neal Stephenson’s old website, in a page titled “Why I Am a Bad Correspondent,” archived in December 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20031207060405/http://www.well.com/~neal/badcorrespondent.html.
Stephenson, Neal. Anathem. New York: William Morrow, 2008.
For more on the connection between Anathem and the tension between focus and distraction, see “Interview with Neal Stephenson,” published on GoodReads.com in September 2008: http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/14.Neal_Stephenson.
“I saw my chance”: from the (Internet) famous “Don’t Break the Chain” article by Brad Isaac, writing for Lifehacker.com: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret.
“one of the best magazine journalists”: Hitchens, Christopher, “Touch of Evil.” London Review of Books, October 22, 1992. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n20/christopher-hitchens/touch-of-evil.
Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster Reissue Edition, 2012. (The original version of this book was published in 1986, but it was recently republished in hardcover due presumably to Isaacson’s recent publishing success.)
“richly textured account” and “fashioned a Cold War Plutarch”: from the excerpts of reviews of Walter Isaacson’s The Wise Men that I found in the book jacket blurbs reproduced on Simon and Schuster’s official website for the book: http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-Wise-Men/Walter-Isaacson/9781476728827.
Ritualize
“every inch of [Caro’s] New York office” and “I trained myself” and other details about Robert Caro’s habits: Darman, Jonathan. “The Marathon Man,” Newsweek, February 16, 2009, which I discovered through the following post, “Robert Caro,” on Mason Currey’s Daily Routines blog: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2009/02/robert-caro.html.
The Charles Darwin information was brought to my attention by the “Charles Darwin” post on Mason Currey’s Daily Routines, December 11, 2008. http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2008/12/charles-darwin.html.
This post, in turn, draws on Charles Darwin: A Companion by R.B. Freeman, accessed by Currey on The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.
“There is a popular notion that artists”: from the following Slate.com article: Currey, Mason. “Daily Rituals.” Slate, May 16, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/john_updike_william_faulkner_chuck_close_they_didn_t_wait_for_inspiration.html.
“[Great creative minds] think like artists”: from Brooks, David. “The Good Order.” New York Times, September 25, 2014, op-ed. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/opinion/david-brooks-routine-creativity-and-president-obamas-un-speech.html?_r=1.
“It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth”: This Nietzsche quote was brought to my attention by the excellent book on walking and philosophy: Gros, Frédérick. A Philosophy of Walking. Trans. John Howe. New York: Verso Books, 2014.