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The essay was fun to read and had excellent balance - the author talked about distractions semi-ironically with fine control of its focused structure and pacing while keeping a light and carefree tone that was nonetheless academic. I'd like to learn to write closer to this style. Is regular writing and reading more of these literary journals the way to go about it?
Pretty much. Essays are a great medium for this style, I think of them like a curated conversation almost. You've organized your thoughts in a way that you could present them to a friend in polite conversation; you're trying to convey a point without the need to be pretentious or serious in order for it to be respected. Publications like the New Yorker and the Atlantic are a good place to find lots of high quality ones. Many authors also publish their essay collections as books, my favorite being "Consider the Lobster" by DFW.
Thanks for the recommendations, I will check them out.

I appreciate the point about seriousness too. One part of it that I liked kind of feels like travel writing from the last century (e.g. John Muir) that goes in and out of various subjects with respect to the main one. On the other hand, the author shows their 'seriousness' and culture by being able to reference and talk about the subject in the context of many other subjects. If I try to do this it probably feels pretentious, so I admire the skill of being able to pull it off.

The author has an insight here: the opposite of being indifferent to everything is not focus, it is being distracted by everything.

Focus is a third state in between indifference and distraction: you have said no to everything except one thing.

Highly recommend to distract yourself with both Gabriel Summers My Wars. Just amazing how much shit some people are willing to eat to land a trick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJnqdKbsBc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLY-kH9n_tY

distraction as a form of creativeness.. very interesting.

almost off-topic - re: Bouvard and Pécuchet - i wonder, how much films like Pat & Mat [1] are influenced by this book..

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_%26_Mat

added later: the essay reminded me of this verse:

  If you want to do a
  certain thing
  You first have to be a
   certain person.

  Once you have become
  that certain person
  you will not care any more
   about doing that certain thing.

  - Dogen
I was expecting something like advice to avoid distraction, but found the author just as distracted as I constantly am. Not only by his own admission, but the piece itself just weaves in and out of his main point, taking as many detours as the characters in the novel he describes do.

His ultimate point seems to be that distraction should be viewed more as play rather than an impediment to work. I can agree with this conceptually, but wish I could get my inner monologue and capitalism to as well.

The essay is self-referential in a sort of Hofstadter GEB way, with individual sections containing allegorical forms of distractions or diligence (the writer being distracted by videos of a skateboarder who therein is relentless and very not distracted).

He is attempting to write an essay (the word "essay" itself coming from the French word meaning "to try") about distraction, while being distracted yet somehow talking about other kinds of distraction or not. It's very good. It's like a fuller, less abstract version of the "This is the title of the story, which is also found several times in the story itself."

https://stuff.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/tit...