This sounds a lot like:
"Try doing this thing."
"No."
"You can't do it because of your deficiencies."
"I won't do it because all you've done is spout a bunch of pseudoscience."
How to Exist
41–50 of 263 posts
Re: How to Exist
#42I used to sit alone for 30-40 minutes, 100's of meters below ground, in absolute darkness, absolute silence, no life around, no movement around, not even a breeze of air. Only mild thoughts to stop myself from falling asleep. Above ground, I slept under the stars and sky, in the wild, with no buildings around.
What I learnt is, recent generations have too much of self awareness, causing the communities and groups to become weaker, compared to the tribal settlements that helped humans to dominate other species.
Re: How to Exist
#43I don't understand the hero image of hipsters sipping espresso in a cafe. Is that an example of how to exist? How not to exist? I can see an argument for either one lol.
It’s rather “libertarians as cats”. The heroism of being content doing nothing but drink some coffee, stands upon the backs of hundreds of people seeking to better themselves who brought that coffee to your lips.
Re: How to Exist
#44"It’s oddly difficult to do nothing" This isn't always true. It's likely true only when there is no pressure. However, when there is pressure, one can "do nothing" for long periods. If you haven't experienced that, you've lived a blessed life, and you have more to learn.
What is an example? I can only think of a root canal procedure.
Re: How to Exist
#45I guess I could imagine this being tricky if you're stuck in a city apartment with no yard and no park nearby ...
Oxygenated air is all you need
Re: How to Exist
#46"It’s oddly difficult to do nothing" This isn't always true. It's likely true only when there is no pressure. However, when there is pressure, one can "do nothing" for long periods. If you haven't experienced that, you've lived a blessed life, and you have more to learn.
I think you're equating doing nothing with doing nothing productive. You're usually still ruminating or trying to distract yourself from the source of the pressure.
Re: How to Exist
#47In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…
I’m not sure where this idea came from that farming was idle and only industry required constant work. Every hundred-year old book I’ve ever read that features farming includes themes of how the farmer’s work never ends and runs from dawn to dusk.
Re: How to Exist
#48In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…
I’m not sure where this idea came from that farming was idle and only industry required constant work. Every hundred-year old book I’ve ever read that features farming includes themes of how the farmer’s work never ends and runs from dawn to dusk.
Not in winter, for geographies that have serious winters.
Re: How to Exist
#49I guess I could imagine this being tricky if you're stuck in a city apartment with no yard and no park nearby ...
as the author points out, even thought in your own mind is a source of distraction and you can't run away from that.
Fundamentally you can be at ease with city noise just like you can be with mental distraction. One of the big misconceptions about meditation for example tends to be that it's about avoiding or actively quieting noise be that internal or external. It's not about changing the content of your conscious experience but your relationship to it.
Re: How to Exist
#50Someone has discovered existential dread.