Guilt
Gavin McGovern thinks that some of our conference guilt comes from not being in the moment.
So to that guy that was sitting next to me, typing madly and muttering to himself, during a really interesting session, I wished your batteries died and you lost all network connections and your pen ran out of ink.
I suspect, though, that sitting around the conference table on the beach at Troy, the wily Odysseus spent a fare amount of time composing witty dactyls. I bet that plenty of salesmen at the proverbial annual shindig spend the sessions planning just how they're going to close the deal, make the quota, or spend the night on the town.
There's a reason we aren't in the moment; we aren't paying attention, because we can't admit to enjoying the parts of our work that delight us, and we don't want to admit that the rest is slave's work, unredeem'd.