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Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

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Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#3

Post by ok_dad »

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, then it's not useful. Other examples of activities I get into a flow state for, and work similarly to my hobbies, are cleaning, cooking, playing video games, reading, and rarely TV or movies. The more manual the better, I find. Woodworking is the best, especially working with dangerous machines, because I find you absolutely HAVE to focus and flow in order to use something like a table saw properly.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#5

Post by namaria »

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.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#6

Post by namaria »

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

Seriously this kind of social proof - 'this rich and famous guy said this so I paid attention' - is quite opposite to the major philosophies surrounding meditative practice.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#7

Post by dartos »

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.

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 flick or something.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#8

Post by melvinroest »

Recently, I've been able to meditate for 2 hours per day for a month. Before that I maybe meditated for 10 minutes per month for years on end. What I did have going for me is that I had about 600 hours of meditation experience already. So I knew what to do when I hear the words "just meditate".

I knew something had to change, and I knew that I wanted to do 2 hours as I know I need a lot of it. I made a challenge with a friend of mine who felt simirlarly: for each hour that we don't meditate, we pay the other person $100 or we lie and have to face ourselves in the mirror over that. Other than the penultimate day, where I was struggling with severe sleep issues (meditation doesn't solve that right out of the gate), I didn't miss a single session.

Through this challenge I learned what motivates me. I've seen similar things in videos and blog posts but now I found it out through my own experience. So learning that more deeply is an amazing bonus. Also, having a good streak going now, it's easier to keep on going than before (still not easy though!).

What meditation does for me:

- I understand my autonomous nervous system better (it does help indirectly with sleep)

- I crave things less (with mindfulness)

- I feel more joyful inside my body (with mindfulness)

- I can focus better (if I do enough breathing meditation)

- I love people more unconditionally (with loving-kindness meditation)

There are many more things, but that's what I'm seeing for now.

Re: Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

#10

Post by Krasnol »

I got into meditation after reading Thomas Metzingers "Ego Tunnel" and it was a real blessing since.

His newest book is on the experience of pure consciousness and is based upon 500 experimental reports by people who meditate. It's an interesting read. He even made it available for free here: https://mpe-project.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Metzinge...

The homepage of the project: https://mpe-project.info/the-mpe-project/

On Metzinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Metzinger

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