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Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

camhashemi.com

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Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#11

Post by Arn_Thor »

namaria wrote: post #5
ok_dad wrote: post #3

Meditation, for me, is getting into a flow state doing just about anything I want to do. Sometimes I spend hours sim-racing, woodworking, or coding and after being in flow for those several hours, I feel exhausted from the mental and physical exertion, but I am also calm the rest of the day into the evening. It only works if I get into the flow state, but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, t…

I think you're conflating 'flow state' with just being absorbed into something. Flow state is typically described by elite athletes when exerting at the edge of their skill and performing at a high level. It has little to do with doing routine stuff like cooking or very passive mind numbing activities like watching movies.

Citation needed. Otherwise you’re just gatekeeping the term

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#12

Post by vouaobrasil »

ok_dad wrote: post #3

Meditation, for me, is getting into a flow state doing just about anything I want to do. Sometimes I spend hours sim-racing, woodworking, or coding and after being in flow for those several hours, I feel exhausted from the mental and physical exertion, but I am also calm the rest of the day into the evening. It only works if I get into the flow state, but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, t…

Cool. I'll just say here that a flow state like you're talking about is very different from point-focus meditation though. Both are great but the latter is specifically about focus on breathing/a point instead of taking up the mental space with a mindful activity. It's sort of like the difference between "negative space" and "positive space", and the latter (point meditation) can help with the former (flow state).

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#13

Post by FollowingTheDao »

"I see Jerry as a no-nonsense personality, one who’s reached the pinnacle of success in a competitive field. So hearing him emphatically praise meditation perked my ears."

"He focuses on how meditation creates sustained energy throughout the day, which is crucial for his productivity and his daily enjoyment of what you’d otherwise call “a grind”. "

First, on Seinfeld. Are we really taking meditation advice and believe the benefits from billionaire's now? You mean if a poor black woman in the Bronx with two kids and four jobs just say and mediated all their anxieties would go away and they would be more productive?

Now, on Cam. Am I really supposed to believe a vacuum cleaner salesman when he tells he how good his vacuum is? The guy is setting of on a new career as a "personal coach". And this is what they all do, they suddenly realize that "mediation is the answer." They made money off of tech and now they need a new easier way to make money.

https://x.com/camhashemi/status/1834569286028845125

When I was a Theravada Buddhist I meditated for up to two hours a day. The people telling you meditation will make you "calmer and more productive" are selling you snake oil to tempt your ego mind, they are not helping you realize what it is.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#14

Post by PandaRider »

> For him, sitting down for twenty minutes is a much more consistent tool for maximizing energy - even compared to sleep or coffee.

Firstly, I'm glad JS (and OP) see very positive effects of meditation but I'm highly skeptical meditation is more powerful than coffee (assuming sleep has diminishing returns). I doubt this is generalisable to most of us.

> Even within my new sessions, I can already feel a difference: after ten minutes, I reach a flow state that just feels great.

> Whereas before I’d be prone to fall into vicious spirals of self-consciousness and unease, a streak of meditation would allow me to calmly, warmly, and directly engage with people. If an awkward moment arose, I wouldn’t feed my internal fire with negative self-talk, but rather look outwards with an internal smile, wait for the moment to pass, and find a clever prosocial solution. But again, that explanation understates the magic.

Secondly, again, I'm happy OP found the answer to the greatest wall for new meditation practitioners: "how do I know if meditation is working???". I haven't found it. Brain states stuffs are more art than science, I believe.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#15

Post by FollowingTheDao »

ok_dad wrote: post #3

Meditation, for me, is getting into a flow state doing just about anything I want to do. Sometimes I spend hours sim-racing, woodworking, or coding and after being in flow for those several hours, I feel exhausted from the mental and physical exertion, but I am also calm the rest of the day into the evening. It only works if I get into the flow state, but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, t…

You can be "in" a flow state" but you "practice" mediation. They are not the same thing.

> but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, then it's not useful.

Mediation is always useful.

Thank you, an ex-Theravada Buddhist turned Daoist.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#16

Post by serf »

yapyap wrote: post #4

> I see Jerry as a no-nonsense personality, one who’s reached the pinnacle of success in a competitive field That’s… generous

why?

are there any other people that started in stand-up and ended up being worth over a billion dollars?

sure we can rate what pinnacle of success means in comedy -- maybe he's not the funniest -- but generally we rate success in most of the West by pay rate and hoard..

my 2 cents: all the comedians that famously ran out of money entirely during their careers are funnier people. carlin, pryor, lewis , kinnison, rooney, lenny bruce, sinbad, chris tucker.. the list goes on.

... but they didn't end up billionaires.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#18

Post by emmanuel_1234 »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #13

"I see Jerry as a no-nonsense personality, one who’s reached the pinnacle of success in a competitive field. So hearing him emphatically praise meditation perked my ears." "He focuses on how meditation creates sustained energy throughout the day, which is crucial for his productivity and his daily enjoyment of what you’d otherwise call “a grind”. " First, on Seinfeld. Are we really taking meditation advice and believ…

+1, strongly. Anybody selling meditation as a silver bullet is deluded or selling something.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#19

Post by theGnuMe »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #13

"I see Jerry as a no-nonsense personality, one who’s reached the pinnacle of success in a competitive field. So hearing him emphatically praise meditation perked my ears." "He focuses on how meditation creates sustained energy throughout the day, which is crucial for his productivity and his daily enjoyment of what you’d otherwise call “a grind”. " First, on Seinfeld. Are we really taking meditation advice and believ…

So what is it?

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#20

Post by namaria »

dartos wrote: post #7
namaria wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're conflating 'flow state' with just being absorbed into something. Flow state is typically described by elite athletes when exerting at the edge of their skill and performing at a high level. It has little to do with doing routine stuff like cooking or very passive mind numbing activities like watching movies.

They can be the same. You can get into a flow state when cooking or cleaning. The task just needs to be in a specific Goldilocks zone of demanding and feasibility. Cooking eggs, to me, might get me in a flow state, but probably not a trained French chef, unless they were pushing themselves to elevate the dish. Probably not when watching movies though, unless you were constantly analyzing the story… maybe in a mystery…

I mean, flow is either something special or trivial. If it's trivial as paying attention, why not discuss 'attention', which has a rich literature behind it?

If it's something special, that demands skill and investment and yields better than average results, it's worth figuring out how to trigger it consistently. But then it's harder to argue I can achieve something like it by doing something so easy and trivial as cleaning the house.

So is it trivial and just a well known mechanism by another name and thus just a label that muddles the waters, or is it something special, thus quite apart from just focusing on something, that merits effort, and should not be conflated with trivially achievable states of mind?

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