MEDITATIVE LENGTH

December 21st, 2020

How long should you meditate for?  The longer seems better, but then concentrating on such a metric turns it into a bit of an unsavoury competition.  Is more better?  Well, it depends on the aim, the reason and the mechanics of practice.

To be frank, when all ego is stripped away, the amount of time really needed to meditate is simply a single moment.  If meditation has a goal, one of them is to merely connect with the moment.  And in order to do that, why would it take any longer than a moment to do so?

There’s an aura of misunderstanding around this point that relates to flow and the word meditative.  Some have the idea that meditation is all about getting to some deeply concentrated state.  And certainly, if this is the aim, then yes, perhaps a great deal of time is required.  But many of the benefits of meditation, and arguably the most important of them are far closer, and a flow state is potentially and probably just a different type of distraction and mental intoxication.

People have occasional spontaneous moments of mindfulness without necessarily being able to recognize and categorize them as such.  It’s much like that moment when you shake yourself out of a trance and zoom back to the present after being hypnotized by cat videos for an embarrassing length of time.  The unfortunate tendency for those who don’t meditate is that this breath reprieve to come up for air is immediately followed by another dive into some other topic of submersion. 

So why meditate for longer than a moment?  This question is trickier than it might at first seem.  One might rebound by asking: is it possible to meditate longer than a moment?  The moment is in a constant state of bloom and decay.  Can our attention also achieve a perpetual bloom and decay?  A fair ponderance and one that is worthy to try and explore in practice.  Exploring it in theory, however, is likely to be less fruitful. But to turn towards a more pragmatic answer to our initial question, the reason why it’s wise to try and meditate for a dedicated length of time is to devote specifically to the possibility of herding one’s attention back to the moment.  Doing this repetitively, and consistently simply makes it more likely that during the rest of the day when we are not explicitly practicing meditation, we will have spontaneous moments of mindfulness.  It’s a bit like physical exercise: one need not workout constantly in order to be consistently stronger tomorrow.  In a basic sense, meditation simply puts moments of mindfulness on the day’s menu of possible options.

Meditating for longer periods certainly raises the probability of invoking the machinery of mindfulness during times when we aren’t meditating, but as with just about everything in life, we’re best to ask: what’s optimal - what’s enough to get the desired effect?  It seems 10 minutes is likely the minimum length required to have an effect, but more far more important is consistency of practice across days, weeks, months and years.  Meditating for 10 minutes for the 730th day in a row is entirely different than meditating for 2 hours on day 1.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: PREDICTION MODEL

December 20th, 2020

Lucilius leaned in close to the screen, squinting his eyes.  Then slowly they grew wide as tenuous revelation filled his being.  His jaw dropped.

It had to be tested.  He quickly launched the program searcher, then checked the time.  It was 11:04.  He frantically typed into the program searcher: What will be the next news item to trend after 11:05?

He pressed enter and instantly the response came:  47 nations will sign the disarmament treaty.

Quickly, Lucilius brought up a browser and searched for the news.  There was nothing about the recent disarmament treaty which had been the subject of a much drawn out process of debate and disagreement.  He looked at the time again.  It was still 11:04.  Then he realized his question wasn’t phrased as well as it could be, though it’s unlikely much time passes before a new item starts trending in the news… he figured.  His attention suddenly snapped back as the four clicked to a five.  He refreshed the news page, and then there it was:

The disarmament treaty has been signed by 47 nations.

Lucilius sat back in amazement.  It actually worked.  He had been working on a prediction project.  His theory was that you didn’t need every little input about what was happening and what had happened in order to create a prediction of what would happen in the future - you just needed to know the right rules.  After years of work, it seemed as though it was finally working.

He spent the rest of the day testing the program against events of the day and querying about the far future, and with each test and each new thing he discovered about the future, he grew more excited, more delighted:  Humanity would be alright, in fact, humanity was about to flourish for an incredible period that would extend straight into the time of the first galactic empire.  They would make it through the filter, he knew now with relief.

After hours of delight and disbelief, he finally took a break to fix himself a meal.  He mixed himself a drink and raised to cheers the project and the future of humanity.  He took a sip, and suddenly the most obvious thought occurred to him:  there was no restriction of resolution on his program, which meant that he could look up what would happen to himself.

He put the drink down and walked over to the computer.  He typed in his first query, but he squinted with a bit of confusion at the answer.  He put in another query, then another.

Finally, he got up, took his drink to the window and took a long sip.  The program was definitely working, because he’d run a few more tests between queries about himself.  It was still predicting the events of the day perfectly, but queries about the far future changed slightly as Lucilius queried more about his own life, and most importantly, the answers about himself were inconsistent.  He’d originally thought that such a machine would help humanity and that he would achieve tremendous fame for securing a faith in the future, but it was clear now he’d been a bit naive.  For example, there was no answer about Lucilius’ own future that mentions the machine itself.

That was it, Lucilius realized.  He went back to the computer and typed in a new query:

What happens to the prediction machine built by Lucilius?

He pressed enter and for a brief moment the machine calculated before returning the answer.

The project is abandoned by Lucilius.

Dismayed, Lucilius typed in another query: Why does Lucilius abandon his prediction machine project?

The machine calculated, and then returned the answer:

Lucilius realizes after 979.9 instances of use that further use of the machine, or even it’s knowledge among others would result in the destruction of humanity.

Momentarily frustrated, Lucilius leaned forward and began pounding in a new query but the flurry of punched keys slowed until he lifted his hands away from the keyboard.  

He sat back, slumped.  Once or twice a new idea flickered - a potential loophole - and he sat up to type more but resorted each time to leaning back as another thought nullified each idea.  Eventually he took up his drink and walked back to the window where the day had grown dark.

He took a long sip and muttered to himself… “oh well.”

On the screen remained the nearly complete query that Lucilius would nev-

PURSUITS OF CURIOSITY

December 19th, 2020

Around the world, there are so-called ‘science-museums’ or exploratoriums that are designed in such a way to evoke an excellent amalgam of wonder and problem solving.  The most famous of these is likely the San-Fransisco Exploratorium.  All such places are consciously designed to arouse curiosity.  This the underrated superpower, often hibernating in each and every person.  Curiosity is simultaneously the super fuel and the machine that can dig into subjects with great depth, speed and revelation.  The likely reason why it’s underrated is because it’s a bit unpredictable, but what’s strange is how little discussion exists around optimizing for curiosity considering the tremendous ROI curiosity can create.

Human society has a very nervous relationship with the future: we are always trying to predict it, in order to gain advantage, but for a sense of comfort.  Few things are better at producing anxiety than uncertainty - and for good reason: our brains are prediction machines.  We are constantly trying to predict what will happen.  The only reason we think the coffee mug will shatter when we let go of it and it falls to the ground is because we can form this prediction based on countless previous experience and testing with similar circumstances.  There is the likelihood it may just stay where it is when released: we might find ourselves in a dream, or on the international space station.  

This drive to predict has a double-edged byproduct: we seek to make things predictable.   And much of society’s function is based on this.  We form schedules not just to get things done, but also to create a predictable future.  We need only wonder what percentage of the total scheduled tasks we have on deck as a species are actually productive.  Chances are the percentage is depressingly low.  But, it would certainly be understandable considering our anxious relationship with the future.  As is often said: the best way to predict the future is to create it: problem is, many of us aren’t creating a very interesting future, individually, in groups large and small,  - but hopefully as a species we’ve got the scale tipped in the direction of something lively.

Curiosity doesn’t fit into a schedule very well.  Once we commit to the rabbit hole of some errant interest, there’s just no telling how long we’ll be gone.  In this sense, a trip on a psychedelic drug is a bit more predictable than curiosity at full power.

This may be the root of our problem: many people have their greatest power in sleep mode because to power it up puts a person at odds with society.  At least, this is the case for many people who have to adhere to a schedule in order to pay the bills, amongst other obligations.  So many pursuits of curiosity are subdued or put off until a time like ‘retirement’.  Frankly, the best reason to try and amass a great deal of wealth may simply be so that a person can finally be free to follow their curiosity.

Some people get a bit lucky: the timing, composition and direction of their curiosity is happily in sync with their culture and society, resulting in a career around their interest.  Such people really are quite lucky, because to consciously pull this off is very difficult by dint of the fact that so few people make it happen.  

In modern conversation, curiosity is forced to take a bit of a back seat.  It’s a bit of a fluffy word, or at least it’s treated as such, but this is because it’s impossible to predict and more importantly: it’s requirements are enormous.  Curiosity requires a lot of time, on it’s own schedule, and depending on which way curiosity veers, the raw materials can be expensive.  And this is all without any guarantee of a return on investment.  No wonder society treats it like an ignored mis-fit.  Curiosity quite literally doesn’t fit into society’s structure.

Society is still quite fragile from the perspective of nurturing and benefiting from curiosity.  If society was more robust and didn’t need to rely on the vast mechanical cooperation of so many people, then it would be possible for more people to follow their curiosity, and society would naturally benefit from the unexpected fruits of such exploration.  That being said, many of the truly wondrous inventions that we use everyday and take for granted are evidence of a more robust society which can support such curiosity.  Civilization has achieved a variety of upgrades through the millennia that have variously allowed for more time to explore.  Indeed it seems Mother Nature herself has been doing this.  Most animals spend the overwhelming majority of their time dealing with the topic of food: herbivores spend most of their waking hours eating and digesting and avoiding becoming food, and the rest are hunting and also avoiding the possibility of becoming food.  The gravity cost relationship regarding energy as it’s transferred between species via consumption results, ultimately, in the fact that humans have a lot of time to watch Netflix, and maybe, follow some curious pursuit.

Returning to those exploratoriums that can be so fun to visit, notice how they revive our curiosity: the factor of time is already some what handled, considering we’ve taken the time to actually go to the place and spend some money to get in, and then the place is often as random and open ended as a forest, it seems there’s a puzzle and portal scattered everywhere, it is, simply: unpredictable where you might go and what you might find.  Could there be a simpler description of curiosity than that Dr. Seussy sentence?

Perhaps the best way to optimize for a good life is to simply try and optimize for curiosity.  But I have bills to pay, responsibilities, I have a job.  All valid, and things that shouldn’t be ignored, but why not incorporate those things into the optimization of curiosity.  Such pursuits are often siloed in the limp category of ‘hobbies’, but why can’t it simply be another avenue of curiosity to wonder: how can the hobby help solve for those constraints of money and responsibility?  If a curious pursuit can replace the job, then that solves for the money problem and suddenly there’s enough time for the curiosity given the absence of the job.  Aw, but there’s the rub.  How is that sly switch accomplished?  

One factor is trying to explore curious avenues before life piles on too many responsibilities and obligations.  It’s likely society would be a happier, more fulfilled and more productive version if kids were encouraged to combine hard work and curiosity, and then naturally devote those freer years before the onslaught of obligation piles on to get a curiosity-optimized life up and running.  For those already saddled with a structure of obligation, then it’s simply got to be a conscious effort to try and get curiosity to thrive in the small spaces that exist.  With enough consistency and love, who knows what might grow out of that little daily block of time when we take the opportunity to nurture our greatest asset. 

SUBTLE KEYS

December 18th, 2020

The subject of nuance isn’t nuanced; unless of course the ingredients to notice and understand nuance aren’t present, at which point it might as well be as inscrutable and complicated as the stars were to the critters of the Paleozoic era.  If perspective functions as anything, it’s a filter for the situation at hand, and perspective augments and shape-shifts based on the situation, meaning that the details that get through for us to consider also change.

The details of meaning for this present sentence, for example cease to be important if you suddenly realize your hair is on fire.  In that instant perspective snaps to a radically different shape, filtering for a totally different set of information, like that bucket of water that happens to be right next to you.   Nuance of meaning regarding words and sentences isn’t simply of no importance, but concentrating on the topic is simply impossible with your hair on fire.  In such a state, we are overwhelmed with a different set of priorities.

In fact, we may be so overwhelmed with this radical new set of priorities brought about by a fire atop our head that we may even miss that important detail of the bucket of water sitting usefully and conveniently right where we need it.  Much misfortune propagates in this way: the answer, the help, the resource is never very far away, but somehow we are blind to it.  

This is the essence of resourcefulness, which is merely the ability to see something as a resource that doesn’t immediately look like one.  What’s required here in order to look at something ordinary in an extraordinary way?  

The word subtle is defined as a change or distinction so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe.  Now what exactly does a person’s attention need in order to pick up on something subtle?  The answers are obvious and simple enough: calmness and a little time being perhaps the most important ones.  Heightened emotion does little more than cripple our attentional ability to parse subtlety and pick up on nuances.  Emotion often just robs attention of the resources it needs to nurture our perspective with the right environmental details to spark good ideas.  Those details are the subtle keys to unlocking new resources that no one else notices.

Here resides a strange necessity of success: the intensity of emotions of all kinds, be they negative or positive must be reduced in order to see useful details and consider their application in beneficial ways.  Ecstatic love can be just as blinding as rage and unbridled anger.  The strange and counter-intuitive aspect of this necessity is that the very experience of such emotions automatically convinces us otherwise by dint of the fact they make us feel a certain way.  The condition of emotion is intrinsically compelling.  

Notice that thought is not intrinsically compelling.  If an idea pops up in the mind, we’re likely just to see how we feel about that idea to determine if it’s a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ one.  The trick isn’t to snuff out emotion all together and try to be some kind of cold and calculating robot, but rather to knit thought and emotion closer together.  The power of thought regarding emotion is captured by the thinking mind’s ability to simply notice any present emotion - the effect is a deflationary one.  It’s very difficult to be simultaneously very angry and self-conscious.  The second de-powers the first.  Doing so is often enough to introduce nuance and to notice subtle details and ultimately to become more resourceful by manipulating subtle details.

SERIOUS FUN

December 17th, 2020

Did Picasso take color and form seriously, or does it seem he had more fun with what he did?  As with so many things, the answer is clearly not an either/or but rather both.  Yet, we are oft to stick to a script in order to fit the occasion.

We might put a situation with more sensitivity in it up on the chopping block and ask: is it ok to laugh at a funeral?

Many are apt to think that laughter at a funeral is cruel.  But of course our choice of adjective here is key.  Though the flashy and overused adjective is often rightfully subjugated to harsh dealing in the world of writing, it is an act of definition, and one that can be decisive.  Platonic love, motherly love, and romantic love are certainly all very different things…or at least we generally hope so.  The question flips back on to the funeral situation: exactly what sort of laughter are we talking about?

Suddenly laughter seems to indicate one of two extreme opposite responses at a funeral, signally that either the person passed was so vile that the passing is a cruel and tragic relief or that the person now gone inspired such good times that it’s simply impossible to ignore just how wonderful life has been because of that person.

We generally goad one another to take things seriously to ensure that the important bits aren’t missed.  Like a beloved movie that we try to show a friend who has never seen it.  Stop joking around, you’ll miss this part! 

Picasso’s early start in the world of art fits in perfectly, even here with the example of friends watching a film.  Picasso trained in his craft for many years before he started innovating.  In short, he learned the rules so that he knew exactly how they could be broken.  We’ve heard this sort of thing before, but then why doesn’t it follow that anyone who ‘breaks the rules’ ends up creating something beautiful or magnificent? The likely answer is that there exists a deeper set of rules, or principles that are not captured by the normal, straightforward rules of learning how to - for example - draw and depict for in space with shape and color.  Learning perspective and measurement in order to make a piece of art come to life in a realistic way absolutely must be done in accord to certain rules regarding how it’s done.  But these rules do not capture deeper and more ethereal aspects of human experience like beauty.  But by thoroughly learning and exercising the discovered rules of any craft or art, the time spent eventually evokes something deeper about what can be done within the realm being explored.  In short, we take things seriously in order to get good, but in order to get great, it’s imperative to figure out how to have fun.