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All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
231–240 of 468 posts
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
the day you can sit for hours without doing anything, you've attained the state of self-realization – self-love free from all conditions. The conditioned mind is no longer there, the thoughts no longer bombard you, the emotions no longer disturb you. You enjoy the deep peace, contentment and bliss of your infinite self. Then you can truly contemplate deeply on anything you feel important, then the deep mysteries of e…
> Then, you see the truth, of life, existence and the universe. Pretty words, but do they mean anything? For example, if I reach this state, will it be revealed to me why there is something rather than nothing? I think not, otherwise someone would have reported back with the answer already. I'm interested in meditation to learn more about my own body and mind, maybe improve my life somehow. But IMHO the discussions a…
That's basically how they con you into it. Using pretty words which appear to have "deeper" and "transcendental" meanings. They entice you with words like mystery, truth, existence, universe, but the TLDG (Too long didn't go) of this rabbit hole called meditation is (wading in) occult practices.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
That has a lot of resonance for me. In this modern age, we are all kings, and there are vast industries to save us from ever being alone from our thoughts. For December, I quit sugar, social media, and video games. It's been really interesting to notice what state I'm in when I go to reach for those things. Sometimes it's just habit, but often it's because I'm uncomfortable or in distress and want to avoid those feel…
Have you noticed any changes?
Definitely, but they're commingled with the other change I made: minimum 10k steps per day. My mood and energy levels have been much better. I also find myself getting more done, because instead of turning to some disposable distraction, I'll get usefully bored. E.g., things around me are cleaner, I've read more long-form stuff, and I've called more friends on the phone than I otherwise have lately.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#234The reason you can afford to sit quietly in a room is thanks to man’s inability to sit quietly in a cave.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#235"Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking."
I think Pascal was correct because at least those people I know well enough to discuss such matters with tell me they don't spend much time thinking or contemplating about much at all. This is a bit strange to me as I've always thought about things—mind you, not necessarily things of great importance but about things in general. It's dead easy for me to daydream time away (unfortunately). (When I was at school one of the punishments was to be sent to stand in a corner and stare at the wall. It used to send some kids almost crazy but never bothered me much—all I had to do was to go into daydream mode to pass time away!)
Since reading this article it's occurred to me that those people who've really struggled with the isolation of COVID-19 lockdowns and who continually seek the company of other people are perhaps those who suffer this 'inability to sit quietly in a room alone'. I mention this because during earlier posts on the topic of large numbers of people who were not coping with the enforced isolation, I said that for me, if anything, the enforced lockdown was a blessing as I wasn't continually having to deal with people I'd rather not deal with. Similarly, I find noise and activity distracting, even annoying at times.
No doubt when COVID-19 is over and the postmortems begin in earnest, this connection will be researched.
Another afterthought, perhaps those best suited to interplanetary traveling will be those who do have a good ability to quietly contemplate things (after all, it's likely they'll be forced to do lots of it).
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#236Where can I apply for that room?
For virtually everybody, that quiet room is not a given, but has to be acquired and maintained. How can you sit in that room and give yourself to silence if you know deep down that the silence is a temporary illusion? You have to leave that room and either defend your wealth or acquire the means to be able to return.
Additionally, the experiment doesn't measure what it wants to measure:
>people detest being made to spend six to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think
The participants hadn't chosen to sit in silence. They chose to participate in an experiment. Sitting in silence for somebody else is not the same as sitting in silence. A better setup would have been a space where sitting in silence would have been one option among many.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are commenting here, you haven't really quit "social media".
How helpful to have a person who knows nothing about my situation police my behaviors because of a vague congruence and an apparent desire to score internet points. No, for the purposes of what I'm doing, HN was not included in that. From my perspective, HN isn't really designed for addiction in the same way. No personalized, UAM-optimized algorithmic feed, no infinite river of small content bites, no rich mechanisms…
"From my perspective, HN isn't really designed for addiction in the same way."
I mean, it's fine that you feel this way, and you are probably correct - it wasn't designed for it. But I suspect for a lot of us , me included, it serves that exact purpose. I post so that strangers on the internet read it and give me likes. I compulsively check my comments section on my account to see how many upvotes my comments have. Every time I see my total Upvote count go up, I get excited and I rush to see who has agreed with me again. If it goes down I immediately get angry and defensive that someone is downvoting what I said. And surely, you participate in the same process, even if you don't feel as strongly about it - otherwise, why are you replying to strangers that you are unlikely to ever meet or speak to again?
It might not have been designed this way but it's exactly what it is. And clearly upvote/downvote system didn't happen by an accident, it's there for a reason.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN has never sent me a notification.
Neither has Facebook, reddit or any other social media I use. That doesn't seem like a meaningful distinction.
Their whole model is built around getting people's attention by making them addicted to notifications.
If you disable the notifications, that's good for you. But you're a small exceptional minority.
HN afaik has no such feature at all.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#239Why would you sit quietly alone in a room when you could be enjoying a sauna, soaking up the sun at the beach, or picnicking in a park? I don’t think the problem is sitting alone with one’s thoughts - but rather that an indoor room isn’t a particularly desirable environment. At least it isn’t as undesirable as an airplane seat though.
Because people do things to avoid the discomfort of awareness without distraction.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with doing things, but there is, perhaps, with always having to be doing something.
Re: All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)
#240Yeh and to think society rewards extroverts as leaders but often introverts make the best leaders as in they take long periods of time to think alone and often avoid many pitfalls by doing so instead of moving fast and breaking everyone and everything along the way.
When you start talking about introverts and extroverts you would first have to state to which ideas behind those concepts you subscribe to. If Jungian then you can be both introvert and extrovert in the same time.
If by wikipedia then you think they are exclusive and might even think that introverts are people who just want to sit at home.
Not wanting too much company can also be associated with highly sensitive people and not necessarily introverts. About 30% of highly sensitive people are in fact extroverted.
And there is no single trait or concept that makes someone a good leader but rather a mix of lot different psychological and biological setups.