Better than meditation: free writing
medium.com
Better than meditation: free writing
1–6 of 6 posts
Re: Better than meditation: free writing
#2Good article -- slight nitpick: he talks about free writing via typing ( because of his great website 750words) but
Julia Cameron has always advocated writing free hand to slow down and be closer to each letter, each word.
Not sure if Natalie Goldberg had the same restriction.
Re: Better than meditation: free writing
#3I've always likened meditation as teaching yourself to become more resilient to emotional turbulence. Free writing seems like it would not help too much in this regard, at least any more than say cooking, playing music, or any activity like that. If you get a random thought while free writing and write about it that increases your investment in that thought and I'm sure if you continue stream of consciousness writing on some of the more bothersome thoughts you might have problems with the activity. In meditation, it's more about noticing you had a thought and then letting the thought go. The whole goal is to teach yourself to not become invested in the battery of thoughts and emotions that can come with each day.
Re: Better than meditation: free writing
#4I support the author and his journey.
He's not yet aware that his freewriting revelation comes on the back of months of consistent meditation. He's almost saying "pedaling a bike is better than inflating the tires."
The big picture is: The way to thrive as a human is with a battery of self-development and self-awareness habits, such as, but not limited to, meditation and freewriting. Even these are just templates for you to embellish. Saying one is "better" than the other is probably just b8.
Re: Better than meditation: free writing
#5I've always likened meditation as teaching yourself to become more resilient to emotional turbulence. Free writing seems like it would not help too much in this regard, at least any more than say cooking, playing music, or any activity like that. If you get a random thought while free writing and write about it that increases your investment in that thought and I'm sure if you continue stream of consciousness writing…
I experimented with some free writing recently on vacation. I was very apprehensive bc I was ashamed and afraid to think the things I thought.
But I found it was immensely valuable to me. I wouldn't obsess over the rules like pen vs. typing. And I do think it's different from playing music or cooking because of the verbal layer.
Writing down your thoughts blazes new trails, modifying your subjective experience.
By free writing, I don't mean, random, I mean, not directed toward publishing or even paragraph/prose structure. A thin editing layer between raw thoughts and written/typed media.
Re: Better than meditation: free writing
#6Atom editor has a word count package and within it the option of setting a threshold-- 750 words. A progress bar grows as you type towards your goal.
Thank you, atom community :)