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How to Exist

raptitude.com

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Re: How to Exist

#121

Post by jagadaga »

crent wrote: post #116
jagadaga wrote: post #112

> By “don’t do anything,” I mean don’t move, don’t fidget, don’t indulge any thoughts or daydreams. Keeping all these rules in your head is also a thought, no?

I get where you’re coming from but they are listing these things out because those are some of the things you will likely automatically do to distract yourself from the present moment. I once tried to instruct someone on how to meditate and afterward they told me they spent the entire time working out solutions to problems in their head. I tried explaining that actively doing something, like solving problems in your…

So, instead of solving problems, you want them to solve the problem of not thinking about solving problems?

Re: How to Exist

#123

Post by throwaway290 »

ip26 wrote: post #47
augment_me wrote: post #29

In "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.

In summer it's non stop work, in winter you do fuck all.

Re: How to Exist

#124

Post by netfortius »

Emil Cioran, in "A Short History of Decay", thinks that if humanity were deprived of work and sustained action for an indefinitely long "Sunday afternoon," boredom would become so unbearable that violence—crime in particular—would emerge as the principal means of escaping the oppressive emptiness of time.

"If Sunday afternoons were extended for months, where would humanity get to, liberated from sweat, from the weight of the first curse? The experiment would be worth the trouble. It is more than likely that crime would become the sole diversion, that debauchery would seem candor, shouting melody and jeers tenderness. The sensation of time's immensity would make each second into an intolerable torment, a sublime firing squad. In hearts imbued with poetry would appear a blasé cannibalism and a hyena's melancholy; butchers and executioners would die out—of lethargy; churches and brothels would split with sighs. The universe transformed into a Sunday afternoon... it is the very definition of ennui, and the end of the universe."

Re: How to Exist

#125

Post by tim-projects »

drdaeman wrote: post #30
tim-projects wrote: post #16

1. Don't do anything 2. Be content The second rule conflicts with the first making this impossible. Any experienced meditator knows that to 'be content' isn't a passive action. You have to think to do it. If you truly practice no thought, there is no 'content' to be.

The article allows for breathing and blinking, but has an odd constraint of “don’t move”, which AFAIK will make one fight their own neural system trying to autoregulate arousal. I’m not an expert but in my limited understanding, remaining completely still is not “not doing anything”, it’s very active inhibitory action. As an experiment, just get in a nice running shower, so your sensory system will get external stimu…

Remaining completely still takes tremendous effort. Its harder than any dead lift or 100m sprint. You can do those at pace. But being still is binary act. It takes all the faculties and even then it's almost impossible without a very large amount of intense practice.

> Real “doing nothing” is just leaving things be

Yes that's it. That's what Zen, wu wei etc all point to.

I've looked at this a lot and my current view point is any actual concept of enlightenment was probably something invented by an 'influencer' in meditation circles thousands of years ago.

Re: How to Exist

#126

Post by tim-projects »

dozerly wrote: post #20
tim-projects wrote: post #16

1. Don't do anything 2. Be content The second rule conflicts with the first making this impossible. Any experienced meditator knows that to 'be content' isn't a passive action. You have to think to do it. If you truly practice no thought, there is no 'content' to be.

Maybe they mean something closer to “do nothing and try not to be miserable”

The irony of this is that trying to be miserable is more likely to circle the square and become funny removing the misery. As a Brit I'm culturally familiar with this.

Re: How to Exist

#127

Post by shellfishgene »

augment_me wrote: post #29

In "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…

It seems that at least for most women in those times every free minute was used to spin yarn, a job that was essentially never finished.

Re: How to Exist

#128

Post by da-x »

walterbell wrote: post #40
augment_me wrote: post #29

In "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…

> 150 years of time controlling your action 15 years of social distracting your timed action 1 years of agents driving your untimed action

That, until the short moment where we all completely lose agency like in Pluribus

Re: How to Exist

#129

Post by [deleted] »

p2detar wrote: post #108
alexashka wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your brain is a prediction machine It's not. > I am afraid doing nothing is inhibiting that function It isn't. > I think it's perfectly healthy to not want to be a vegetable Not having an opinion about everything for 3 minutes != vegetable. The author of the post is selling what he himself doesn't understand. Paying attention to your inner chatter without judgement is part of a much broader tradition. Westerners st…

> The author of the post is selling what he himself doesn't understand. Paying attention to your inner chatter without judgement is part of a much broader tradition. Westerners stealing bits from cultures they don't understand is nothing new. Quite the elitist thing to say and a bit obsolete in the type of overly-connected world we live in today. Perhaps the author just shared personal experience; they did in fact wr…

[deleted]

Re: How to Exist

#130

Post by crent »

jagadaga wrote: post #121
crent wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you’re coming from but they are listing these things out because those are some of the things you will likely automatically do to distract yourself from the present moment. I once tried to instruct someone on how to meditate and afterward they told me they spent the entire time working out solutions to problems in their head. I tried explaining that actively doing something, like solving problems in your…

So, instead of solving problems, you want them to solve the problem of not thinking about solving problems?

I sense the snark but no. Just fully experience your current moment as it changes without inserting yourself.
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