Summary
What exactly is hanging out? Why do we need to do it more? Can one ‘hang out’ in a non-physical place, e.g. through TV or internet? (short answer: no)
How I discovered it
Heard Sheila Liming in Ezra Klein’s podcast in 2023
Who should read it?
I expected a book heavier in sociocultural analysis and citations like Saving Time, but a lot of the writing was about the author’s personal experience. I didn’t mind that really, but good to set expectations on it being more of a blended memoir.
How it changed me
Behavior, ideas, perspectives, emotional shifts
- How the internet is the opposite of the sublime, because of how comfortable it is
- Conditions of satiation: fellowship and food
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- Modern dwelling originated in early 19th century (citation Wlater Benjamin). Focus on individual space led to focus on self and interiority, and thus fields like psychology, as well as interior decor. This led to a retreat from the public sphere (e.g. salons)
- “Hanging Out on the Internet” chapter was most intriguing:
- feeling of IRL experiences feeling inauthentic
- compulsion to document a way of making sure one still physically exists
- Kant’s Sublime as counterpoint
- Search (internet/digital) vs browse (physical place)
- Hanging out requires time, risk, care, and created opportunity
Quotes
- “Digital devices and technologies make that other kind of hanging out easier, but they also strip it of the experiences and particularities of place. What gets lost, along with those particularities, are deeper shades of connection, intimacy, and meaning.”
- Blank spaces like hotel rooms help us to “see the horizon, even if there is no land to be witnessed there” (Rick Moody, Hotels of North America)
- “Identity is like a turtle shell out of which the subject keeps craning her/his neck to see if and where it might be possible to move; a way of locating, protecting, masking and disciplining the person” - Lauren Berlant on Jacques Lacan (mirage of stable identity)
- identity as support and trap. poking at the edges of identity, boundary
- “The space of the jam…exists outside the formal rituals of performance. To jam is to explore, improvise, swap, share, and relate. That process is a fundamentally messy one, often filled with…mistakes.”
- jam doesn’t end except for those who stop listening
- only asks for time → currency of creative improvisation
- “Egotism itself, which is so necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, is entirely the result of indoor life.” - Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying”
- “The two poles of solitude are privilege and punishment.”
- What differentiates these two? Initially, freedom and choice. But what if the choice isn’t bred from desire?
- “Hanging out…is about carving out a space that is big enough to accommodate…relational fluctuations, allowing them to stretch and unfurl as necessary. It’s a way of announcing up front that it doesn’t always have to be good.”