the quiet place project: a quiet moment or two online, without capital letters

September 11, 2012 7:56 PM

the quiet place project is actually three projects: the quiet place, a 30+ second respite from flashing notifications, 90 seconds, the prolonged version, and the thoughts room, where you can type any thing and it will crumble away. best experienced at a computer with a space key and the ability to make web pages go full-screen, or you could let the music play in the background. that's nice, too.
posted by filthy light thief (17 comments total)

note: if you play the music, you should probably stop after 3 minutes and 20 seconds, because then it gets menacing, and quiet, and you wonder what's going to happen next, but [SPOILER ALERT] nothing happens.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:59 PM on September 11, 2012

Funny. Interesting. Odd that it wants you to perpetuate it on Facebook Pinterest Twitter.
posted by deo rei at 8:15 PM on September 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

So....I am in favor of the idea. But the constant reappearance of new words calling attention to themselves was every bit as annoying as pop-up notifications are.

I wish there were something like this that trule were a white space/meditative experience, but without calling so much attention to itself. It's hard to relax when there's a ticker in front of you, even if it's just counting down to the end of your relaxing.
posted by Miko at 8:21 PM on September 11, 2012

There's also the dreams room.
posted by Miko at 8:24 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was all, yeah, this is neat, feeling some peace, but ended up at a screen asking for money...

let me suggest this as an alternative
posted by HuronBob at 8:26 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Haha, just visited the thoughts room. At the top a space to let go of your thoughts. At the bottom a jumbled mess of share buttons vying for attention, like mushrooms on an ant. I can't tell if this is ironic, evil, or stupid. It's beautiful.
posted by deo rei at 8:32 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, evil and stupid might be a bit uncharitable. Corrupted and desperate, maybe. Very poignant, in any case.
posted by deo rei at 8:36 PM on September 11, 2012

Going to a website for relaxation and meditation? I think you might be doing it wrong.
posted by crunchland at 8:53 PM on September 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Just a moment, there's someone demanding that I push the spacebar over and over and over.
posted by SteelyDuran at 9:55 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ah, the soothing clacking of the spacebar on my buckling-spring keyboard. Music to my ears! Now we just need a massively multi-user pyroom.
posted by SteelyDuran at 10:08 PM on September 11, 2012

This might have been a good link if it was just a tumblr of guided 'quiet time' meditation websites.
posted by carsonb at 10:40 PM on September 11, 2012

If you need a break from notifications on the computer, maybe you should get off your butt and walk away from the damn thing rather than load another website. (The mobility-challenged may prefer to close their laptop / turn off their monitor.)

The last link reminds me of a simple page I made a few years ago: Send a Letter to the Black Hole.
posted by domnit at 11:38 PM on September 11, 2012

The Quiet room seems like the sort of place where you'd write down the very very most secret of secrets in your heart of hearts just before you started the car in the garage and sucked a tailpipe into the next life.
posted by Skygazer at 11:41 PM on September 11, 2012

Which part of quiet are they misunderstanding?
posted by fullerine at 11:50 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Every Sept. Eleventh I think back to the horrible events of 9/11 and how to deal with that horror.

I think now that quiet time is about right.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:32 AM on September 12, 2012

Oh no. My slow Australian broadband connection, combined with fast typing, broke the Thoughts Room.
posted by third word on a random page at 4:44 AM on September 12, 2012

I've never thought more about Facebook, Twitter, and my phone than in those 90 seconds, but not for the reason they assume.
posted by Beardman at 8:02 AM on September 12, 2012