The coffee shop. A generic name generally referring to a specific location one frequents. A cozy spaces that inspires much productivity. I find comfort and focus in the white noise of conversation, background music (hip indie rock or muzak), and the slightly uncomfortable public chairs pushed up against their dirty table friends. NPR reported in the Fall that “Cafe Culture Help(s) Make Good Ideas Happen” and indeed they do. For some, the cafe culture is distracting, but I know many dissertations that would not live in the depths of unvisited library stacks without it.
And I know people with lots of ideas about what constitutes a ‘good’ coffee shop. Ultimately, I think my criteria has something to do with what my brain accomplishes while spending time there.
Walking into a coffee shop today, I felt like a visitor to my past. An anti-Scrooge spying nostalgically on a space that allows itself to be transformed and molded into a home for ideas, relationships, creativity, word play, silliness. I felt out of place, a mere visitor, in this newly renovated teahouse, with its walls cloaked in paperbacks.
I wonder what I wished to be doing there. What would I read? Write? Talk about? Who would be there with me? Would they be sharing in my project or working on one of their own?
What kind of home could (will?) the coffee shop be for me in the future?
The coffee shop. A generic name generally referring to a specific location one frequents. A cozy spaces that inspires much productivity. I find comfort and focus in the white noise of conversation, background music (hip indie rock or muzak), and the slightly uncomfortable public chairs pushed up against their dirty table friends. NPR reported in the Fall that “Cafe Culture Help(s) Make Good Ideas Happen” and indeed they do. For some, the cafe culture is distracting, but I know many dissertations that would not live in the depths of unvisited library stacks without it.
And I know people with lots of ideas about what constitutes a ‘good’ coffee shop. Ultimately, I think my criteria has something to do with what my brain accomplishes while spending time there.
Walking into a coffee shop today, I felt like a visitor to my past. An anti-Scrooge spying nostalgically on a space that allows itself to be transformed and molded into a home for ideas, relationships, creativity, word play, silliness. I felt out of place, a mere visitor, in this newly renovated teahouse, with its walls cloaked in paperbacks.
I wonder what I wished to be doing there. What would I read? Write? Talk about? Who would be there with me? Would they be sharing in my project or working on one of their own?
What kind of home could (will?) the coffee shop be for me in the future?
Posted 1 year ago Notes
