Meadow - Posts tagged with reflection

Take care not to tread on those apples

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:43:49 GMT

One of my favorite authors of all time is Ray Bradbury. I enjoy the way he constructs tales, his frenzied kind of storytelling. I first got to know of him by reading the excellent Zen in the Art of Writing, a recompilation of essays around the art of writing stories. He's one of those authors that's really successful at just letting his own subconscious guide the whole process, and trusting the process enough to not get in the way. The best thing, he says, that a writer can do is to be observant, everything else takes care of itself.

...

While falling asleep yesterday, I found myself thinking of a quote I once read from Bradbury. It's a quote that he gave in an interview¹ about Fahrenheit 451 (great book by the way). I'll let the quote speak by itself:

In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

I find this really interesting. The woman was just walking with headphones on, and that was enough to cause such a reaction in Bradbury. I say "just" because for us walking while listening to music or an audiobook is absolutely inconsequential. Actually, it might even be considered to be more in the here-and-now than many of our modern entertainments. To read this quote, in our current technological world, is almost comical. And yet, I think Bradbury hits it right on the head. The anecdote seems to ask: "Why would anyone want to escape such an idyllic afternoon stroll?"

We have a much bigger issue though: our phones. They not only capture the attention of our ears, but also our eyes and ultimately, our thoughts and minds. We've been desensitized to the ordinariness of everyday life. It's become boring. I know it can be so for me, and I imagine it is so for many others. I often find myself taking out my phone just to stare at it, even when there's a perfectly nice thing going on around me. When I'm waiting at a restaurant, or even when I'm playing with my son. The funny thing is that I don't really do anything with it. I just take it out to see if someone has written me anything. This is silly, because very rarely does anyone ever write to me. Then I put the phone back in my pocket for a while, and then the whole scene repeats itself. I sometimes open up Instagram or Reddit to look at things I really don't care much for. Why?

I often wonder what Bradbury would say about the current state of things. We think of our phones as something liberating, something that frees us from the limits of our bodies and allows us to connect with others in ways that wouldn't otherwise be possible. On one hand, that's true, as evidenced by your reading this. However, this freedom also means we're free from two essential limitation of our natural bodies: the world around us and boredom.² I think these two go hand in hand.

This freedom, I think, is way too large for our human minds. Having access to everything we see the details of nothing, we're blind to all but the coarsest shadows and we think that being familiar with them is what being an informed and socially connected human being is all about. But how can we call ourselves "connected" or "realized" if we don't even take time to see the world around us? We take no time to see the beetles scurrying along in our backyard. We're not even familiar with the birds that frequent it! It's like we're living entirely in a world of our own making, which is nothing but a bleak reflection of what's really out there.

Wouldn't it be nice if it weren't so? I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. The hard part is that the path to get there is not clear at all. What are we to do? The truth is that leaving our phones in a drawer is not really the solution, nor are they the entire problem. If we abandoned our phones I'm sure the overall situation would improve, but the basic issue is a problem of habit. Were we to give up our phones we would soon find ourselves being distracted by something else. Sure, maybe it's something healthier that offers less immediate gratification, but wouldn't it be nice if we could be really observant, present with the things around us?

This reminds me of another quote by Bradbury, this one from Zen in the Art of Writing:

[...] ideas lie everywhere, like apples fallen and melting in the grass for lack of wayfaring strangers with an eye and a tongue for beauty, whether absurd, horrific, or genteel.

May we all be on the lookout for fallen apples then. May we all strive not to squash them under our boots as we trample through life.

I tried looking for a link to the interview but wasn't able to find it. If you know which one it is then please do let me know! ↩
There's much to be said about how boredom has basically become to be perceived as one of the greatest evils in our modern world. We should avoid boredom at all costs. Just a couple of weeks ago I heard someone say that "boredom" was a bad word, and she meant it. ↩

The power of thoughts

Sat, 31 May 2025 14:11:02 GMT

This week, my wife and kids went to visit my sister-in-law who lives at the beach, meaning I've had an inordinate amount of time for myself. I have to admit I feel guilty about it! They'll be coming home later today, and that got me wondering about how different (but at the same time how similar) this week has been for me.

The first thing I noticed is that when the kids are here I always feel like I don't have time to do stuff. But now that they're not here I still feel like I don't have that much time! Sure, I do a bit more stuff, but it doesn't feel drastically different. Perhaps that's just the nature of time, or perhaps I'm using my kid-free time for things I don't really want to do (e.g. work)?

Something else I realized is that this week I've been a lot less irritated. It makes sense, of course, as I am here by myself without anyone or anything to irritate me. I've found this to be especially noticeable in my mornings, where I think I'm extra susceptible to what my kids do, or keep me from doing. It's so easy to get frustrated with them! I hope that now that they come back, and now that I know this about myself, I will be more able to stay grounded in our interactions.

Staying grounded is the goal, as once you swing out of your center then it's much harder to find your way back. On the other hand, hyper-fixating is a trap and will cause the rug to be pulled from under your feet. We'll see how it goes. But having kids is definitely a stressful hobby. Beautiful, but taxing.

...

Yesterday I was showing my niece and nephew a new project I'm working on where I use text-to-speech technologies to create audio versions of my blog posts using my own voice (I'll probably write more about this in a future post). I was curious to know if they felt the artificial voice really sounded like me. They both said it sounded similar, but not quite exactly the same.

My niece said my real voice just sounds so much happier than the TTS one. She said that my voice always sounds happy. It got me wondering that how they see me is probably not the same way as I see myself. Especially with them, I always feel I'm so... Ironic? Lofty? I don't like it, but it's a kind of wall or shield I put up so as to not be my full loving self. Why I do it I have no idea. Perhaps I think it makes me look cooler in their eyes? Embodying such an ironic persona protects me from having them see my failures and weaknesses. Perhaps I'm chasing after their approval in some twisted mind game?

"My voice is always so happy". Maybe they don't perceive my ironic facade, and instead see me as I should see myself? The faults that we want to hide are often the most evident ones after all. Perhaps the only person I'm fooling is myself... I wonder if they can perceive my internal struggle, wanting to be the cool uncle.

I should be more myself with them. In many ways this ties in with what I was talking about above regarding being centered. How we see ourselves definitely affects how we act. Do I see myself as a calm, grounded person? Do I accept my own faults or try to hide them with flaky wax? Do I see myself as loving?

In the moment, it doesn't matter if I aspire to be happy or compassionate, or truthful. What matters is how I think of myself, how I label myself, in the present. That's the thing through which my actions will be filtered before acting on the world itself. How do I see myself? And how can I see myself as I want to be?

A common phrase in spiritual circles is a variation on "you already are perfect" (e.g., Buddha mind or bodhicitta, atman, etc). Everything you have is already here. Everything. How you choose to label it is up to you.

We all have hate and anger, greed, and violence inside of us. But we also have love, happiness, compassion, wonder, awe. I would say we have them in the same measure, and it's only how we choose to label ourselves that changes how much each of these expresses itself.

A person that views themselves as wicked will do wicked things. If a wicked person repents and changes to see themselves as saved, they're bound to become a more considerate and compassionate being. But what happened with all that wickedness? Did it burn out or is it still inside of them? One would say it's the same person after all, no? But, ah, no. The person is a different one, because the core way in which they were labeling themselves has changed.

I think this goes to show just how important it is how we think of ourselves. How, ultimately, that's who we are.

The good thing is that we can choose. We can reflect on how we think, and choose to think differently. It's not all that easy, but it definitely can be done. I myself have experienced substantial shifts in my own idea of myself over the course of my life, and I would bet most other people have as well. What changed? Life is like a river that erodes us into a shape of its own choosing. And as a leaf in a river, we're powerless to resist the currents of life, nor should we. That way only lies resentment, dissatisfaction, and insanity. When reframing our own idea of ourselves, we should roll with the punches so to speak, and embrace the entirety of our lives.

How to do it then? I have no idea. But in my little experience, I know some things that help, and all of them involve getting a bit out of yourself to examine this idea of who you think you are. Psychedelics help, as do meditation and journaling.

I haven't done lots of psychedelics. Only 3 times I can actually say I was blown out of my head. During one of these, I had a strong experience where my mind was clear as the space around your hands, and I could see this thing that I called me, my ego, and all the unbelievable pressures that made it into what it is. I also saw how this me was just another idea. Just an idea. Just a thought floating in my head.

We are just a thought of who we think we are.

Of course, it's easy to say all this and feel holy and whatnot when one is feeling good, when one is high or calm. But the true challenge comes when life doesn't go according to one's plans. How can we maintain these ideas when one is angry, or depressed?

A suggestion I've found useful in these cases is the metaphor of seeing your true self as clear sky, and the anger and depression as dark stormy clouds. You could be in a situation where dark clouds is all you see, from dawn to sunset, but the perfect clear sky is still beyond, still there, waiting. That doesn't make the anger or depression go away, it in fact recognizes it as what it is: just a passing cloud. Eventually it will pass, and the sky will be visible once more.

I think this exercise does something that's really useful for any person struggling with depression or anxiety or what have you: it separates you from identifying with your negative feelings. The moment you feel you are that depression then you're lost. But if you recognize your depression as a cloud, as a passing mood on the perfect clarity of your own self, then you know that the best thing to do is wait for it to blow past, not taking it personally. Not telling yourself "ah I'm such a horrible person because I feel this and this". It's just a mood, a temporary cloud.

Again, this is all easy to say when one is feeling good. I know well that, when in the midst of the cloudy weather, it's really hard to see past it, if not impossible. That's why we should try to reflect and internalize these things when we're feeling well, so they may echo in our heads when we need them. And even if the echo sounds useless (as it often does), it nonetheless offers the opportunity for us not to identify with the clouds. It won't make them go away, but it does kindle the flame of hope.

... ☁ ...

In many religions there's a practice that is basically "repeating the name(s) of God". There's a nice story about this I heard not long ago that I think merits retelling here¹.

One day, an Indian saint was talking to a group of lay-people about the importance of constantly repeating the names of god. Suddenly, a man from the congregation rose up and loudly said

"Why do we have to repeat the names of god? What good will that do? It's just a simple word, it seems silly to expect it will have any effect."

The saint sat still for a moment, and then his face turned to anger and said:

"You're such an idiot for not getting my message. I don't want any imbeciles in my congregation, please go away immediately."

The man was of course taken aback by the harsh reaction, and immediately got angry at having been insulted in such a way.

"Oh yeah? You call yourself a holy man and yet insult me with such vile words?!"

The man rose up and, out of respect for those around him, decided to leave rather than pick a fight with the saint. Fuming, he started to walk towards the door.

As soon as his hand touched the door, the saint called him by name. The man turned, now itching for any excuse to return insults to the man who had wronged him. But as soon as he saw the saint he was surprised and all his feeling of malevolence quickly evaporated, as the saint was now smiling, and his eyes were twinkling as if he had just pulled a particularly funny prank.

"Sit down sit down" said the saint amiably "You ask why repeating the name of god works, and I've just showed you"

The man sat down again, but didn't really understand what the saint meant. Before he could ask for clarification, the saint went on.

"You see, I just showed you the power of what you call simple words. I filled your head with negative words and see how easily you got upset, you couldn't think of anything but hateful things" chuckled the saint.

"Now, imagine what happens if instead you fill your head with the purest love of all, the name of God."

...

I think this is so on point. I'm not a particularly theistic person, but even I can clearly see how this story rings true. Imagine if you were to constantly repeat the word "love" or some other phrase that had especially strong positive connotations for you, and contrast that with the kinds of things we usually tell ourselves: I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, nobody likes me, I'm not interesting, people don't like me, and on and on and on and on. I know I myself am always critiquing myself. What do these words do to my own mental state? And more importantly, what do they do to this idea of what I think about myself?

I believe that the way life erodes us is by affecting our thoughts, and then our thoughts are the ones that erode our labels. To a firmly positive person, any occurrence in life will be experienced drastically differently than to a firmly negative person. Your mental state is one thing, but the way in which you see yourself will be the way in which you interpret anything that happens to you.

Think happy thoughts. Use them as the antidote for your usual mind processes.

~ 🌥

Note that this paraphrased as I I don't really remember where I read it or who the saint/swami in question was. If you do know then please ping me so I can add proper attribution! ↩

My dog doesn't want to take her medicine and a comment on Karma Yoga

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 02:42:04 GMT

This evening I tried giving my dog some of her epilepsy medicine, but she just didn't want to take it. I tried all the tricks I know and nothing worked. I even put peanut butter and lasagna in her bowl! But she would just sniff at it and then turn around to lie down or go see what the cat was doing. I imagine she was probably feeling ill, but I couldn't help getting slightly angry with her.

I'm sure I must've looked quite silly to a centered/grounded person. Getting angry with a dog, for being a dog. I guess I thought that maybe I could get her to take it if I tried hard enough, but the fact that she didn't, while I wanted her to, made me angry.

I thought about it while in the midst of the anger, and of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna repeatedly tells Arjuna to "dedicate all of the fruits of his labor to him". A hard thing to do, but I can see how, if one is attached to the expected result of one's action, we can easily get frustrated or angry when said result doesn't happen.

Is the opposite case true? I imagine it is. If I get what I expect then I'm either happier (satisfied) for it or entirely indifferent. In the happier case, I could still become attached to the fruits of my labor. Example: a sculptor being attached to their creation, or a writer to their notebook. Or even being attached to the feeling of goodness that comes when one does something successfully. This attachment is of course a source of disillusionment later on.

I don't know if it is actually in the Gita or I read it somewhere else (maybe some commentary; possibly by Ram Dass or Eknath Easwaran), but there's this really cool metaphor: a person plants a seed but it is not the person that "grows" the seed, rather, it's God/universe. Having this in mind, Krishna's words take on a slightly different interpretation: don't get attached to the outcomes, as you have absolutely no control or power over them. You may play a role in facilitating the preconditions for something to happen (plant the seed; mix peanut butter with the epilepsy medicine and put it in a bowl), but what exactly happens is out of our hands (the plant grows into a flower or a weed, or doesn't grow at all; my dog eats the peanut butter and her medicine—or not).

The thing is we of course have an idea of what should happen, which is informed by previous experience. In my experience my dog almost always eats the peanut butter. But sometimes, things go differently. We forget about the fact that this "experience" is just a historical note. We start treating these patterns as an absolute, and get upset when things go otherwise than we expect.

I think in great part this is a lack of humility on our part. We lack humility to constantly remember that what is around and inside us is, ultimately, a mystery.

On Craving Love

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 02:07:43 GMT

Something I've been thinking about a lot these days is love. Love is a very loaded word, so let me try to disambiguate. I started this line of thought actually wondering what love even means. Love is sexual, it is romantic, it is sacred, it is also personal and communal at the same time. It's a tricky thing. I boiled it down to love being the feeling you get when someone really cares about you. Or at least that's what being loved feels like. Giving love is similar.

I've been wondering to myself about this craving I have for love. On the surface it can seem like craving for sexual satisfaction, horniness if you will, but that's not the entirety of it. The actual main component is the desire of being embraced, totally and completely. Sure, sex is an excellent vehicle for this as it breaks down our usual barriers and allows us to more easily be one with the other, but sex is not the only way. I imagine many people actually get this feeling from their religion (i.e., being loved by God or feeling one with nature), and many possibly get it from other places: being valued at work, kids, community...

This made me realize actually how rare it is for someone to love (in this way) someone else! We are almost always thinking just about ourselves, pursuing the next thing that (we think) will make us happy. We're utterly consumed by this effort, day and night. Imagine how much of a difference you would make if you allowed yourself to love, really love, those around you?

Love is not a promise of safety, nor is true love a monogamous thing. Real love goes beyond that and is an unconditional way of saying, "This life is infinitely better for having you in it."

Well then, the question becomes how to do it. I don't really have the answer, but (as pointed above) I think we do know why we don't do it: because we're too centered on our own shit. It's unlikely that we'll manage to get rid of our stuff during this lifetime, so perhaps the best way to get out of this attitude is to recognize that same shit in everyone else.

Of course, this is hard, as we don't really want to deal with more stuff than we're already dealing with. I don't mean to say one should look for how others suffer (though there's plenty to find there), more that we should see our shared humanity, see how we're all just craving to be loved, how we're all scared of the things we don't understand, how we all desire to be happy in the deepest core of ourselves, to be loved. From this recognition springs compassion, for others and oneself, and compassion is the bridge over which true connections can be made.

That's something I really like about blogs, that you really get to see this shared humanity right there on the page. You see the author dealing with the same stuff you're dealing with, and you see them fail over and over and over, and yet you never stop rooting for them, wishing they could see how awesome they really are.

If you can¹, think about how much you want to be loved, then think about how little love others around you are receiving.

~ 🌱

It should also be said that loving others is much easier if one feels good with oneself. Take care of yourself first, but keep these ideas in mind as you do so. ↩

Love what you think are your weaknesses

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 02:50:41 GMT

Yesterday, while driving back home, I had the realization that I should love all the things I usually don't love about myself.

For example, I've always envied those who can keep a crowd's attention and awe with just their voice. I'm unable to do this. Sometimes I can be very outgoing, but most of the time I do suffer from social anxiety which keeps me back from exploding as my real self. However, this has also given me the space to observe more deeply how people feel and what they do. I think that because of this I've developed a pretty good ability at judging emotions and motivations. I guess I envy extroverts because it's something I feel is desirable (maybe a cultural influence), but the truth is that I really do love this part of myself. I should embody it more, bring it in more, and even leverage the alternative forces it provides rather than trying to become something that has never really felt natural. Be grateful rather than ashamed.

There's also my fear and aversion of medical things and my tendency towards hypochondria. I've battled with these most of my life and would definitely be happy to see them gone. However, my struggle to find a way to cope with the opposing pressures—which at times felt were causing me to feel I was literally going insane—has also pushed me to find ways to grow as a person, to reflect and meditate. Looking back, I would never have gotten to where I am today without these internal forces, and because of that I love them. Though I would still like to grow past them ☺️

I'm sure there're other things. Lately I've been thinking about whether it would be better for me to write in my main language rather than in English. But the truth is that writing in my native language feels very strange, especially because I almost don't read any literature written in it so my vocabulary is lacking. I'm still learning to love this, but it has indeed forced me to pay closer attention to language in general and to the art of crafting written pieces. Sometimes this thought inhibits me, but some other wonderful times, it sets me free(-er) from the bounds of social norm and cultural conventions.

Love what you think are your weaknesses—they are really your life's main strengths in disguise. They are the forces that push you to become you.

Feeling worthless and then touching love within myself

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 12:50:18 GMT

Yesterday, I took my father-in-law's car to a lube center at a mall where we had some other errands to run. The guy who attended me was nice, and he took about 30 minutes to check the car and explain all the things they needed to do, and how I should do them immediately. He gave me a huge list of recommended repairs, and the total cost was quite high, around $1k. I went into a slight panic since I really don't know anything about cars or whether what he said was true. I also had no idea if the price they gave me was appropriate.

This triggered my social anxiety to levels I hadn't experienced in a long while. I managed to ask the guy to give me 10 minutes and went to sit in the car. I called my wife, who was with my parents, and told her the whole story. In the end, we decided not to go ahead with any of the repairs at this lube center since it was too expensive. Besides, we needed to talk to my father-in-law first, and the kids were already tired—so we figured it was best to just go home.

I apologized to the guy. He was nice enough, but I could tell he was annoyed. I felt flustered about the whole thing and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

I got in the car and, while reversing to finally leave, I didn't notice an obstacle in my way—one of those metal arms they use to lift cars for oil changes. I drove straight onto it with my front-left tire and immediately heard the hisshhh of high-pressure air escaping. I had punctured the tire. Well, not just punctured—it was completely ruined, with a huge gash on the side that meant I couldn’t just get it repaired. I needed to buy a new one.

I sat there for a second, breathing in and out. Then I looked outside the car and saw everyone in the store staring at me in disbelief. So, I opened the door, plastered a smile on my face, and and went to see how bad it was. Thankfully, the guy who had been helping me was super nice and changed the tire for me (which was fairly quick since they had one of those guns to tighten the bolts (impact wrenches)). Once the spare tire was on, I thanked everyone and got out of there as soon as I could, taking care not to hit anything else on the way.¹

Now, my social anxiety had escalated into a feeling of being a totally incompetent person. Incapable of anything. Worthless. Not just because of my lack of car-knowledge, or because I wasn't able to do normal adult stuff, or because I had just done something really stupid by not paying attention and gashing the tire. But also because my wife and kids were tired, and I had somehow let them down.

I knew these feelings of unworthiness well—I’ve been dealing with them most of my adult life. Usually, I manage to keep them under control, but the situation was just too much for me.

I called my wife, who had been waiting for me with the kids all the while, and explained what had happened while trying not to hit anything on my way out of the parking lot. She was kind enough, but not exactly trilled about that fact that we now had to go buy a new tire before we could go home.

The rest of the day wasn't so bad. The guy who changed the tire for us was very friendly. More than anything, we were just tired (no pun intended). As I distracted myself with other things, the feeling of worthlessness subsided a bit, but it did not go away entirely.

By the time we finished doing everything, it was already 6pm and both kids were exhausted. Our oldest fell asleep almost immediately once we started our ~1h drive back home. There was a lot of traffic so I had time to sit with my feelings.

After about 30min of observing them I started to feel an unexpected warmth of love spreading from my chest until it encompassed my whole body. If I reflected on it then it stopped, so I just let it be to see what would happen.

At this point I remembered a quote by Ram Dass (I think it's from his book Be Here Now) about his feelings of unworthiness and his guru. It went something like this:

Maharaji said to me, "Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth." And I looked at him and I said, "I can’t do that. I can’t love everyone." And he just laughed and laughed, because he saw right through me. He saw all the places where I held back my love, all the ways I judged others, and he loved me anyway.

At this thought I started feeling tears swell in my eyes. I realized how I put up this wall to protect me from situations like what had happened today, but this wall also keeps me from allowing others to love me, and (more importantly) from being able to love myself.

I wasn't full-blown crying, but it was a powerful experience. The wonderful thing is that now I feel there's a tiny tiny dent in my armor, where my heart is, and a tiny tiny light has been shining there since then. And, if I give my attention to it, I can feel it, I can feel it grow.

...

It's funny thinking about this in retrospect. At the time my day seemed so awful and I just wanted it to be done, to hide in my bed and hope that tomorrow would be a better day. The thing is that this strong experience of sadness was a necessary precondition for the realization of love that I later had in the car.

For better or for worse, only through suffering will growth come.

Now that I think about it, they seemed quite happy to see me go. I suspect they were worried that I might blame them for leaving the metal arm unfolded and try to demand some recompense. Maybe if I were someone else, I might have. But the truth is, it was as much my fault as theirs. ↩

When our feelings & emotions go against what we think is best

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:13:12 GMT

For the past month or so, I've been trying to craft (for it is an act of craftsmanship) a morning routine for myself. In an ideal world, it would look something like this:

wake up around 5:20am (kids usually wake up around 7am so this gives me ~1:30 hours),
get up and to some yoga¹,
go upstairs and make myself a coffee,
drink coffee and write until kids get up.
- it could either be journaling or blogging, or both, depending on how I feel

Of course, I almost never ever seem to be able to hit all of these. The one I struggle with the most is getting up and working out (either yoga or something else). I tend to stay in bed, procrastinating until it’s too late. Then, I get up to make coffee and write (which is easy because both of these are things I enjoy doing). The funny thing is that when I do manage to convince myself to work out, I always feel great afterward. The workout session itself is always light and enjoyable.

For the past week or so I've been reflecting on how curious it is that we're so strongly puppeteered by our emotions and feelings. When we want to do something we opt for trying to trick our emotions into aligning with what we want rather than using our willpower to assert control over ourselves.

I think we've all said to ourselves at one point or another something like "oh I'll do this thing I don't want to do and then I'll treat myself to some chocolate". It's a common mechanism we use to trick us into doing the things we want to do, by making these gatekeepers of things we do want.

Why is it so hard to put our foot down and do what we've decide we want / should do, rather than just following our internal state? We tend to think we have power over our minds but in reality it's our mind-body that has power over us—over what we do, how we feel, and how we treat others. We're all like house cats, letting our nature manipulate us and end up "fighting over a can of food when there's an identical can next to it". I know this all too well because, much of the time, I’m the first to fall into this trap, skimping on the things I should do just because I don’t feel like it.

We should treat our emotions the way Theoden (Saruman) treats Gandalf.

hehe...

though perhaps this is not the best example as Theoden (Saruman) is defeated by Gandalf, which stands for our emotions in this metaphor. Anyway... No metaphor is perfect.

I've been following a YouTube channel called Yoga With Adriene which has a lot of great, beginner friendly yoga workouts. What I enjoy the most is that she has a bunch of 30-day yoga playlists so I don't really need to think much about what I want to do on a given day. Just do one playlist at a time. I'm grateful for her taking the time to making these, and making it as easy as possible to jump in. ↩

Good morning

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 17:32:44 GMT

Woke up pretty early today, around 4:30 AM, and didn’t manage to go back to sleep. But all is good. I spent pretty much the whole time listening to Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythms of War, and it was awesome! It’s cool when an author can evoke a whole range of emotions and even move you to tears with just skill and imagination. It also helps that I was dedicating my full attention to the audiobook. Magic rarely happens when you're multitasking.

It’s now 06:32, and I’m doing something I haven’t done in quite a while: brewing myself a cup of coffee and watching as the light starts to pour in through the windows. The coffee isn’t ready yet, I think, and I feel the pressure to go back to our room in case the kids wake up, so my wife doesn’t have to deal with them alone. I’ll probably need to get into the habit of leaving the baby camera on before I come upstairs so I can know what’s going on.

... coffee is now ready. The sky is a beautiful gray outside, chilly and wet, full of promise...

As I sit here nursing my coffee, I’m wondering: is this going to be a journal entry or a blog post? What actually do I want to write about now that I have a blog again? Funny how we think we need to write about anything specific, force ourselves to produce—always producing. I guess yes, this will be a post, but I don’t know what it’s going to be about, maybe nothing specific. Maybe just me and my morning ruminations. After all, can there be anything more intimate than the internal thoughts of a wandering mind? Not trying to make anything, just convey—in probably more words than necessary—the internal landscape of the soul. The effervescence of the quiet morning, the cup of coffee.

So here we are. No need to do anything. Chill for a while, enjoy it. Collecting energy for the day to come, especially once the little ones wake up. They know not the meaning of the word pause. For them, I feel it's all a mix—a blend of play and relax and laugh and sing—with no pause. And that, in itself, is beautiful, wonderful. I cherish my moments with them, most of the time. Other times, I escape them, trying to burrow into my phone. I try not to, knowing these escapes are exactly the thing I want to avoid most. And I’m happy to say it's getting better. But you know, things go up and then go down—the eternal dance. Being entirely surrendered to the present can be hard. Being entirely surrendered to anything, dedicated wholeheartedly to a single thing, is hard.

I often think about how, in olden times, people had no easy access to distractions. Now, most of the world’s population carries an instant gratification device in their pockets. At any time, they can flip open their phone and look at interesting photos or funny videos. Like parrots looking at ourselves in the mirror, we are. The thing isn’t wrong in and of itself, but think about what it does to our mind habits. We’ve built this compulsive habit of avoiding boredom at any cost, as we're told by our culture that it's one of the greatest evils. And perhaps it was so also in the olden times. But then, you had to work to get entertainment, while now it’s as cheap as it can get.

I imagine writers from previous generations. Most of them likely wrote because they found it to be great fun. Would we, for instance, have had a Tolkien in our modern world? Or a Keats? A Jane Austen? Or the Greek myths? Who knows, maybe yes, but I tend to think they would be drastically different, and not necessarily for the better.

I guess I’m just making excuses now, and falling into this act of victimizing myself (and the whole of humanity). But as they say, "criticizing is easy, fixing is hard".

...

Ahh, it has started to rain now. I guess today will be a stay-at-home day. At least for most of it. Yesterday morning, the sky was the same, and then it cleared up around noon. We’ll see.

Have a good day ☕️

Initial thoughts on The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:10:00 GMT

I finally started reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I've tried to start this book many times before, but I always stopped in the first chapter or so because I felt that the author was being unnecessarily airy and, more importantly, he directly claimed that he ended up in this semi enlightened state but doesn't rightly know how he got there. This point was the point where I always stopped, but this time I decided to power through it, and in doing so I discovered I've been missing an important part: after not knowing what had happened, and just living in a state of present bliss, Eckhart discovered that what had happened to him is what many religions aim as their ultimate goal, so he went on to discover more about that and how a normal person might get to his state, but told from his point of view.

Now, there's definitely wisdom in his writing. It's clear and well presented, and offers argumentative clarifications every once in a while that I find really useful. However, I have some reservations. First — though it can easily be brushed aside as an issue of semantics — master Eckhart says he's enlightened in the buddhist sense. Again, this is not really that important. My main reservation is my natural cynicism wondering is this true? or is it just an elaborate money grab?

From what I've read online people seem to think highly of Eckhart, but you know me. For now I've decided to suspend my disbelief and just listen to the audiobook as if it were all real. A large part of me wants to believe it is. What makes me feel better is that his message is really simple: in the now there are no problems. And this is quite easy not only to understand intuitively, but also easy to see for myself that what he says is true. It might be that he's not really enlightened and he's just paraphrasing buddhist doctrine, but if it continues to be like this (self verifiable) then there's no harm in it.

Anyway... positive thoughts, positive thoughts.

For the past days, whenever I put my oldest son to sleep, I meditate (or at least attempt to meditate) while I wait for him to pass out. Since I started reading The Power of Now I started adding something new to my meditation which I think is actually something that should perhaps always have been there, but whether due to bad instruction or complacency on my part, it has never found its way into the forefront of my mind. I'm talking about the watcher. Usually my meditation is pretty much loop { breath until distract } , but now I'm making a change where breath is my center, my heart, and at the same time there's an effort to watch for thoughts as they come into my mind, and that reminds me not to engage with them. If ever I do get carried away by a thought then I go back to my center, my breath. But these two things are always there, watching and focusing on the breath. I think it's working fine for now, though I've hardly tried this out while sitting on a cushion in proper meditation, something which I've been wanting to do for a while, but not wanting to dedicate time to it (oh the woes of my life).

Another interesting idea master Eckhart talks about is how when we're identified with our thoughts we're also controlled by them. This is so true for me, and something I've been observing more and more since I first read it. I, and I think everyone, gets taken away by one or two things that interest us at a given time. My mind is fixated on these and can hardly think of anything else, and even less can I contemplate the idea of not doing them, even if I know they're harmful in some way or another. Recently for me this has been playing games on my phone, lately Marvel SNAP and FarmRPG (which aren't as bad to be honest), and I know that I could "not play them" and feel better overall with not having them in the back of my mind all day, and yet, I can't just leave them, can I? I am, as Eckhart says, identified with these thoughts, but once I know and see this I also see that I am not them and their strength over me is lessened.

"Your mind is a tool; use it, don't let it use you" is a (paraphrased) quote from him that comes to mind right now. I think I, and everyone, tend to just go along with what our minds say. It's not only games or other things we're compulsive about (addicted), it's everything. From whether we should drink that thing, or watch that video, everything. The only thing that's no-mind is dropping everything and being in the present: meditation. Everything else is us just being led on a leash by our mind. Arguably even the desire and act of meditating is something that we're led to by our thoughts, but one hopes that in this gordian knot we'll find the same sword that cuts through it.

That's perhaps the reason why I'm so reticent to meditate, because my mind just wants to play, do what it's used to, instead of stopping for a while. Again, here is an example of my thoughts controlling me rather than the other way around.

It's a messy business, knowing who's what and what controls which. Not one we need to get into. Suffice it to say that, in most things, we're just bulls being led by rings in our noses.

On surrendering and the fallacy of control

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:34:00 GMT

Yesterday, around 1:30 AM, I woke up with a feeling that I needed to vomit. I tried getting up, but I immediately felt faint and did indeed faint. I was a bit sick all over the place. Thankfully, it was very little, so it was mostly easy to clean. However, it did leave me feeling weak. I still feel weak, though it's slowly getting better.

Now, the fainting itself was not too bad. It was uncomfortable, sure, but I didn't feel like I was resisting it too much. I think that because of this, it didn't feel as intense. I believe this might be the first time I noticed I was trying to resist as it was happening. Then I just let myself go with the flow. Easy. No stress, extra suffering, or resistance. Just take it as it comes.

I should add here for context that I'm someone who frequently faints. Much less so now that I'm older, but when I was younger, I would almost always faint when I was sick or when going to the doctor for blood samples or injections, or when seeing blood. For me, fainting is (usually) extremely uncomfortable (and even terrifying in some way). This has left me with a strong feeling of avoidance (fear, even) regarding doctors, and I do my best to avoid them if I can. I can't remember the last time I had a checkup. Anyway, I digress; this might merit a separate post in and of itself as it's something I've been trying to work through for a long time...

I've noticed that this is something I've started to do in my life in general: just go with the flow. I have to admit that I've had some good days lately, managing to keep hate and resentment out of my mind and being grateful for things just as they are. I've even experienced moments where I'm thinking about someone, and a great feeling of love comes over me, accompanied by gratitude for the fact that these people are in my life.

I hope that this behavior will stay with me in the long run and isn't just an adaptation to feeling sick (less energy to waste on negative emotions) or something my psyche is conjuring up solely to cope with the fact that our second son will soon be born¹. It's very likely (almost certain) that I'll be the one to enter the OR with my wife.

To be honest, I really haven't been thinking about it that much. I don't feel like I'm ignoring it, though; I'm very aware that it will happen, and I'm actually counting the days. It's more like I'm not letting it worry me. "It's something that needs to be done," my wife told me when I asked her whether she was worried about it. This phrase really struck me, and I've found myself repeating it in many different circumstances: It just needs to be done. Go, do it, and then come back.

It strongly connects back to what I was saying above about surrendering to what's going on and just going with the flow. What are you going to accomplish by resisting something, especially if there's no way that this something can be anything other than what it needs to be? Worry is just that—something that takes root in our minds when we feel that something in our future can be changed or controlled in any way.

For instance, a presentation is always scary and worrisome. In some situations, it makes sense for us to worry; it motivates us to be better and do better (e.g., worry—in moderation—can be excellent fuel to motivate us to study for an upcoming exam).

But there are other situations that just can't be avoided, and they need to go a certain way: a graduation ceremony, a C-section, a doctor's appointment. Worrying about them only makes sense if we are deluded into thinking we can control what's going to happen and how. Recognizing that we can't is true liberation from constant worry.

I know, it's easier said than done. I'm not sure you could even do it in a directed way if you wished to.

So, in my mind, I'll go to the OR with my wife. I just need to be there and watch; nothing is really going to be done to me. Once the baby is born, I'm sure I'll forget about everything else.

...

For the longest time, I didn't want to see the recording of the C-section when our first son was born. Then I did, and as soon as he appeared on screen, I felt a huge wave of beauty and correctness—pure inspiration. My soul felt bigger, and I didn't care about what was being shown in the video. Now, if I felt like this while watching a recording, I can't imagine the beauty I could experience while actually standing there in real life.

He'll be born in a couple of weeks so I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while as I get into this new phase. If you're a parent of two kids then I would love some pointers! ↩

Judging is a trap

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:09:00 GMT

I was going through my Obsidian notes and noticed that there are a couple of almost-finished posts that are actually quite good—more than a couple, in fact. My intuition tells me it’s both good and proper to dedicate some time to cleaning these up.

I also noticed that many of these drafts are stale. The same goes for the ideas; I no longer care to write about them. Or at least, I don’t right now. "Right now" is the key phrase here.

There’s no permanent right or wrong. I am not an absolute judge of myself. Passing judgment is like passing gas; at least, it feels that way if one believes it to be real, everlasting doom. What right do I have to judge? To judge others, myself, or even things I’ve created? I can certainly have opinions. I can say, “I see that this could be improved in such a way.” But who knows if the opinion I voice today will still hold tomorrow? Well, probably yes. But what about a year from now? A decade?

When I think back to my teenage years, I often cringe at some of my memories. “Oh God, how did I ever think that was a good idea!” There you go. What seemed like a good idea then is not necessarily a good idea now. There are no absolutes. But one needs to be careful not to, again, pass permanent judgment. As much as that "thing" is displeasing to me now, there’s no way to know if my opinions about it will change in the future. I can definitely think of some childhood occurrences that I considered weak or unworthy when I was growing into myself, and that now—at 30—look like especially strong demonstrations of authenticity. But even here, be careful: no absolute judgments.

Or think about stories. How many do you now dislike that you once liked? And vice versa? How many games? Songs? Does that make them bad? Absolutely not. They exist outside us in their pure form and are only judged within our minds. That judgment (while transferable) is deeply and ultimately personal.

The saying “don’t worry about what others think” is a multifaceted one. Not only can you not directly control how others feel and react to what you tell them, but they themselves also can’t control or even predict how their feelings might change in the near future.

Judging, or listening to judgments, is a futile occupation. You risk digging a hole for yourself—one so deep that you'll have a hard time getting out of it—waiting to do (or not do) something but remaining stuck in inaction because you feel your desires are somehow incorrect.

Judgment forms the bars of your mental prison. Opinions are merely pathways, but be mindful of the slippery slope.

Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled. Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose.

Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it too is a vessel of perfection. Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind; a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe and a time for being in danger.

~ Tao Te Ching (Chapter 29); Ursula K. Le Guin translation

Words have power, as Ryan Wilson says in his short story. Be mindful of what you hear and what you tell yourself.

Words have energy. They carry a frequency. When they’re spoken, that energy is created and transferred to whomever hears them. Different words, different frequencies. Some low, some high. (...) You must speak words, listen to words, read words, and tell yourself words that carry higher frequency emotions. Do not belittle yourself, because your words will weaken you. Do not surround yourself with people and media that will make you fear, feel inadequate, mislead you, and put you down. Those words take your power away from you. But understand, you cannot control the external world. You cannot always control what you hear. You must discern for yourself. Allow in only what you feel you must.

Just because it’s all in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:33:00 GMT

If you're anything like me, then you're frequently told by those around you something along the lines of "Oh, don't worry about it, it's all in your head" or perhaps the more common "You're imagining things." These people usually mean well when they give such advise; they're trying to help in their own way. My parents did this all the time while I was growing up, so much so that I ended up believing it. And sometimes, it's true. It could be that "that person" is not being mean to me because they don't like me, but rather because they're having a bad day in general. I get that, and I agree that sometimes (most of the time), we make up our own problems out of confusion, miscommunication, or ignorance.

But what about deeper, more pervasive scenarios?

What about depression, for instance? People who have never had to deal with their own depression frequently give advice like "Oh, I know what will make you feel better! Just be happy!" Bless them. It's like a non-smoker telling a smoker that the best way to quit is to just stop. And perhaps it is true that the best way to get out of it is to just "get out of it," but almost always the "way out" is not immediately obvious to the person who is "in," and they struggle to find it.

Then there are other people who use the common but utterly misguided strategy of making you feel bad about being sad. "I can't understand how you can be depressed when you have so many beautiful things in your life." Well, thank you; now I feel bad about not appreciating the things I have.

As anyone who has had to deal with it knows, depression is hard. It's not the same for everyone, though, and for some, it's easier to handle than for others. But I would say that for all, there comes a time when the way forward is obscured, and the only thing to do is trust in the golden adage "this too shall pass."¹

Going back to the original goal of this post... Is my feeling of sadness "unreal" because it's inside of my head? Are my feelings of complete social inadequacy and misadaptation fake? Should knowing that they are fake make them go away and magically transform me into what I want to be? What about that feeling of being a worthless worm, lower than the lowest crawling, slimy, slithering things? Should I just be "ok with it" since it's "all in my head?"

No. Of course not. These are all real RIGHT NOW. Don't let anyone belittle your feelings; if you feel them, they're there, they're true. Know this: you're not broken because you feel things others don't.

Even though these feelings are true, they are by no means permanent. Moreover, you own these feelings, and they don't own you. Make them yours, and that's the way forward. Or at least, it has been for me in the past, many times.

It's not immediate, but I've noticed that if I'm going through a period of depression, I'm also seeing myself as the victim of my feelings and the universe—the "unfairness" of it all. Then I try to change how I relate to these feelings: rather than being a victim, rather than circumstances owning me, I own my own experience. It is still there, and the pain doesn't go away, but it allows me to relate to what's going on from a higher point of view. Instead of being inside the quagmire of chance and effect, I position myself outside it. And then, I write about it.

I write this in the hopes that it can be of help to my future self (and others) when I need it. Remember that the key to all of this is that it is true right now. This too shall pass.

Take care out there 🌻

Advice if you're struggling with depression, and have the energy to do so: write! Write! Write! Try to do Morning Pages if you can. It's the best way I've found to keep my own depression at bay, though it takes work. ↩

On the origins of fear and art as the antidote

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 02:16:00 GMT

I've been thinking about the sources of fear lately, and it seems to me that possibly the most commonly held belief is that all fear comes from ignorance. And this makes sense, no? In our overly scientific society, we even say, quite literally, "we fear what we don't know." At some point in human history, we knew very little about the workings of the world around us. Even quite advanced civilizations by the standard of that time did some things that to us seem silly nowadays, like believing in an incarnated god who made the sun come up every day. The leverage this god-person held over its people was that he could, indeed, make the sun stay hidden.

And how to disprove this? Imagine you've seen a person come out every morning and face East, raise their hands, and then the sun comes out. Imagine this has been happening for generations; they will all reach a point when they're just afraid to try to disprove it, even if they are open to the idea that it might not be true.

Kids don't do this. For kids, they care not about established things. In fact, they push against the boundaries of everything that intersects with their life experience. Not only to find out up until what point adults around them will allow their blasphemy but also as a means to find out what's real and what is not.

This is also a mark of a good scientist and artist; as soon as they notice something with strong foundations, they push to see if it will actually stand on its own.

Anyway, I'm digressing...

I think we can all agree that we really do fear the things we don't understand. But I would say we fear specifically those things we don't understand and feel are impossible for us to comprehend. In the past, these were the sun, rain, earthquakes, the mystical workings of the animal world, etc. Today, we fear other things: loneliness, an uncaring universe, being bored, and it is said many Americans fear vegetables and plain food. There are also some "ancient" fears which we've dragged with us through human existence: death, rejection by society, and an instinctual aversion to crawling things (among others). I think these last are in a category all by themselves that we can call "instinctual fears"; that is, things that we've evolved to fear, and their fear has made it more likely for us to survive so we keep on fearing them.

The most obvious of these is the ultimate fear of death. We probably acquired this eons and eons ago when our ancestors were first mucking about in some muddy pool somewhere, and we've had all this time to refine it into the razor it is today. If you fear dying and/or pain, then it's less likely you'll do stupid stuff.

Then came science. Science is the ultimate religion of our present day. Like so many before it, it strives to explain the world around us, but it differs from other religions in two important aspects: first and foremost, even if some academics, like the fanatical priests that they are, tend to forget it, science is aware and embraces its own fallibility, which gives it a necessary quality in order for it to grow and mutate. Second, its explanations are only accepted if they can be independently verified; otherwise, they would be no different from myth.

Now, I won't delve into it here, but there's much to be said about how our rebuttal of myths and adoption of science as a cold, hard thing has made us lose many of the symbols (as Jung would say) that form a core part of the way in which we understand the magic of the world around us. There needs to be a balance between hard science and the mythical in our lives.

Whenever we explain a new thing with science, a thousand other unknowns come up. Like the surface of an inflating balloon, the more we discover, the more we realize how little we know. (I, personally, am of the opinion that this balloon will just keep expanding forever.)

And yet we don't fear these new unknowns. Why not? Some of them have terrible implications if we really take the time to think about them, like what happens with information when matter falls into a black hole?

Like every good religion, science gives us the third, necessary element: hope. Hope that someone somewhere will shine light on those dark corners in the basement where we prefer not to go. We don't fear these new unknowns because we have hope that someday we might understand them. From here, the practicing scientist gains conviction, finally closing the loop.

I wonder if, in the olden days, religion was as good at explaining things. I'm not saying that it got things right, but that people would not question, that they would be perfectly happy and fearless thanks to the provided explanations.

There's one thing, however, that science doesn't give us: a place in the universe. We can be awed about the complexity of it all, but if it all comes down to seeing ourselves as thinking rocks, then what's the use? We've paid dearly for our dedication to science, and we see the signs of overtaxation all around us. The nihilism pervasive in our culture, our fixation on external value and productivity, our scorn of leisure time. Even personal growth and integration, the most sacred of human pursuits, is often casted by self-help literature as "a way to be more productive and excel at your job." Above all, it has cost us the magic that is our birthright as humans.

Balance is needed. But myth and magic now have few nooks and crannies in which to hide, though we still need them. However, there is a realm that we all have access to, where myth and magic not only abound but rule. That is the realm of art, creativity, and storytelling. We often, as a society, disdain art and artists, thinking art is fake, make-believe. But it is not; it's the blood and soul of what makes us human, it's what puts a smile on this "thinking rock."

So, as a parting thought, make art, explore yourself, and by so doing, help bring us all together.

🌱

Whatever are the important things?

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 03:23:00 GMT

I wanted to try my hand at what I'm calling freestyle stream of consciousness. It's a bumpier version of stream of consciousness, presented to you raw and unedited.

This is an entry on my private journal from a couple of days ago. I found the style interesting and thought it would make for a fun blog post.

Another day, another journal entry. I've been telling myself I shouldn't use these as a low-effort dump yard, so now I'm hesitant about what to write. The real problem is that lately I tend to just enumerate the things that happened to me during the day. I think the key word here is enumerate, and has the connotation of devoid of emotion or importance.

So what is important? I shall embark myself on this journey, in stream of consciousness style!

Important...

Important is taking about your friends, gushing out about the Leica Q, going on at length about the last movie you saw, pouring out all your love and excitement about Picotron. Important is saying what you want to say, sharing and opening, exploring, shining the light in those dark places where you hardly dare visit, least the monster notices the open door and flees, locking you inside. Important is paying attention to where you walk, being mindful of every flower you trample on as you walk, knowing that it couldn't but have been otherwise. Important is being there. Really being there. That's all there is.

What then should I write to feel like I'm really there? Well, that's silly! I'm already here. This is what I should write. But then the question becomes what's the limit, where does it end.

It doesn't really. Especially not figurative prose. It's just an intermixing of stuff, on and on it goes. It never ends. That is, until you close the laptop's lid and tell yourself you're done for the day. Go to bed with the satisfaction of a job well done.

What am I getting at? Is there even a point here? No. There used to be one but there isn't anymore. Now it's just waves, the ebb and flow of the words giving more of a feeling than an actual sense.

An exploration in metric it is! In stringing a feeling through letters and hope the whole thing doesn't come tumbling down once you try and lift it up.

I'm sad about my dog, she's 6 years old, and three months ago started having infrequent seizures. The vet says she's probably got epilepsy and I'm not sure how to handle it or really what that means. He says we need to run more tests. But when? I feel like I'm just ignoring it sometimes. She seems happy though, and still runs in our backyard, up and down, up and down, as always.

Ah we're back. Back to what's important. Be here now. Be here now. Do I even need to write it down?

I've skipped meditation for the past two days. I've been feeling sick. But there's another reason, one I haven't really admitted myself, and that is that I feel like I haven't been doing a good job of it lately, not being able to relax as deeply, to focus wholly as I was before. Not sure why. But I know this is a toxic outlook to have on things, especially meditation. Setting goals changes the whole thing, the whole dynamic. In the mind, placebo is everything. There's nothing else really.

What we see, or better said, what we think we see is not really it. It's easy. Everyone can come to the conclusion with some reflection. We see only what our senses tell us. But ah! Where do we see the fantastical world coming from our sense perception? In our mind of course. We think we're seeing a world out there, but really it's in here. Always in here. Who knows what's really out there? Who knows what amazing things our senses are not picking up? Our instruments, which are just imitation of our senses, blind to blooming energetic discharges. Overlapping universes in a single room.

In such a maelstrom of madness, what is it that's really important then? What is it? Tell me!

In the absence of a clear point, of a safe harbor, of an anchor, stability must be constructed. And even if constructed it does not mean it's invaluable. Even if ultimately baseless it does not mean it cannot be a place where we can sit and rest and think. Be kind to yourself and to others, everything else is just fun and games, and everything that goes contrary to this just increases the energy of the storm.

Take a breath. Be here now. See you tomorrow.

~ 🌿

When a cold allows you to reevaluate the important things

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:57:00 GMT

It's funny how being sick changes your perspective on things. Many of my past goals and wants, all seem so vain when measured against the ever changing-ness of the body, of life in general.

Right now I'm down with a stomach virus, feeling like a giant hand is repeatedly rinsing my insides against a washing board.

...

Social status is pointless. It's worth nothing and doesn't help one in any way. It's a completely aleatory way of measuring relative value. I've written about this before in Hunting a Mammoth, but basically it boils down to the fact that we as humans evolved to be like this in an environment which is very different from the one we live in nowadays.

Money is another. It has its uses of course, but at the end of the day there're diminishing returns once you have enough to ensure you can eat and have appropriate lodgings.

Whenever I'm sick like this it's like removing some glasses that were clouding my vision. Sure, it's all a very unpleasant process but I think it is necessary, it gives me a chance to see myself from another perspective, to reevaluate who I am.

Right now I'm thinking how grateful I'm with my mother-in-law who just brought me honeyed chamomile. And with my wife who is taking care of our son to allow me some time to get better.

I'm grateful with the fact I have this activity, writing, to both entertain me as well as allow me to see myself more clearly, and to make note of the things that are important.

It's so easy to lose track of what is really important. We go after the next shiny thing in a neverending stream of shiny things. Always thinking that once we get THE THING we'll finally, blessedly, be happy. We think our struggle will finally be finished.

But that's not how things work. In most cases the happiness we get from the thing is extremely short lived. In all cases we quickly move on to something else, sometimes even before we've completely finished doing the original thing in the first place!

I remember growing up I would always hear adults and media saying things like a real man is a man with ambition, or those without ambition will amount to nothing in their lives. I have to admit I fell (and fall) for this trap, thinking I need to have some ambition to move me forward.

But if I were to die today, would I be regretting the fact that I wasn't able to get that promotion I was aiming towards, or finish that side project I was so excited about? No. Those things will likely not cross my mind at all. If I'm lucky I will find myself being grateful about the things that really mattered to me like family and the small joys one finds everywhere, maybe even the fact that I've tried (and perhaps in some measure accomplished) to make others feel happier.

In other words, I will be thinking about the important things.

All of this has been said many times before. Often by better people than I. Why is it so hard for us to stop blindly going after the shiny things? Why is it so hard to always be mindful about what's really important to us?

I think that a major culprit here is that we tell to each other what things should we collectively deem as valuable.

So maybe an idea would be to not only tell ourselves that X is something that's really important, something we deeply care about, but act in such a way that it's clear for others that this is the case. Often I find I smooth out my outward facing likes and dislikes, to fit in better with those around me. Sometimes it's more extreme, and I find I tell myself that I like something I really don't care much for.

In other words, we should be more authentic with ourselves and with each other. Be brave enough to let go of the vain pursuits that society imposes upon us, and instead allow ourselves to be who we really are.

~ Take care 🌱

Technology should enhance humans, not replace them

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 01:29:00 GMT

This morning I was listening to an interview by Neil Gaiman on an Icelandic TV channel. The interview itself was pretty short, only around 7 minutes or so. He talks about a variety of topics but there a specific thing he mentioned that I wanted to comment on here. I don't remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of:

Humanities are disappearing. There's a lot of focus right now on the importance of kids (and adults) understanding science and engineering, and I think people sometimes forget that we created these in the first place for the humanities.

In other words: the goal should be to make our lives easier, not to replace the humanities.

There is a lot to be said here about how science is important but it's humanities that make life human, that make it worth living, but I wanted to constraint myself to talk about what the current LLM¹ phenomena is doing to humanity. These are being marketed more and more with the goal of making it easier for anyone to create stuff. But who is actually doing the creation? Is it the person who prompted the model to create that beautiful image? Is it the one who asked for a wonderful kids' bedtime story?

I would say no. The creator is the model, of course. The users are just requesting what they want and the model generates it for them².

If we take a moment to look more deeply into this then it becomes obvious that, if we advance time a bet, what AI is evolving towards is a situation where humanity is offloading its creative agency to "other beings", and relegating itself exclusively to the role of consumer.

This ties back to Niel Gaiman's comment. These tools have a huge potential to help humanity be better but the way they're being (in their majority) sold to us is as a replacement of what it means to be human³.

All the existing uses for LLMs and motivations people have for using them can be (mostly⁴) boiled down to the fact that we're each trying to leverage this new technology to get one-up on each other, to be more productive, have more social merit, get ahead in the race.

Coming back to LLMs' role in replacing the human creative agent, I don't really think this will happen. Or at least not entirely. Humans have too much of a creative spark in them for all the peoples of the world to go along with this story. I would actually argue that — in a world where Netflix doesn't record their entertainment offerings beforehand but generates them on demand based on the viewer — the real, honest creations will be a premium commodity and will themselves be more appreciated than they are today.

In some way we're already seeing this shift with lots of people abandoning (entirely or in part) the use of centralized social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and instead preferring to keep a blog and follow a handful of other people, preferring the intimate over the impersonal. We're seeing a shift from quick-easy entertainment to valuing more the individual thoughts of other humans⁵.

I imagine the internet user of the future will likely employ a mix of both.

On one side they will have Netflix-LLM or some other monstrosity that generates content for them on-the-fly based on their mood and what they had for breakfast. This content will be 99.99% accurate to the tastes of the viewer and will be manufactured in such a way that it will evoke a certain emotion. This is more or less how movies work now, but producers have to consider the sensibilities of a lot of people at the same time. It's likely that this same kind of fast-food entertainment (fast-entertainment?) will also be available in shorter form (for example, a nightmarish Reel-LLM™).

However, the people of the future will also have another form of content they consume which is directly made by other humans⁶. I imagine this kind of content will be long-form blogs much like the ones you can find on Bearblog.

Of course, other human created content (e.g. movies, books) is not really going anywhere. I imagine it will be sort of like owning handcrafted furniture vs IKEA stuff. The IKEA sofa is convenient and comfortable, but only the handcrafted will be considered art.

LLM stands for Large Language Model. They're a family of machine learning models that are especially good at dealing with language and manage to generate pretty good text. The most popular example, right now, is ChatGPT from OpenAI. ↩
To be fair, there is a nontrivial amount of skill that's needed to make the model produce what you want. But I would say this is only temporary and will become less and less important as these models get smarter. ↩
This comments apply mainly the way humans have thought of using this models and not about research (which can't be stopped, there will always be someone curious enough to go poke the weird slimy blob). ↩
I should recognize that not everything is bad. There are some legitimately nice uses out there. Like having LLMs help people understand topics, or helping those that want to make art but are not able to do so for some reason. The line is blurry at best, and it's located in different places for different people. ↩
I'm most definitely biased on this, since I haven't done extensive research on the topic and the observation is limited to my personal experience and social sphere. ↩
And it won't be informational (as in how to do X) since LLMs will be better at explaining things using the best pedagogical strategy for each individual. These human posts will, by nature, be about human connection and ideas. ↩

Who am I writing for

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 02:10:00 GMT

Yesterday it happened again that I was reading stuff from other people and got demotivated. But then I reminded myself that while I enjoy writing for others, and enjoy the idea of fame and whathaveyou, that is not my goal. I don't want that to be my goal; I refuse for it to be. My goal is just that of doing something I enjoy. Of writing, and in the process get to know myself better, to allow change, and improve at something I like.

I asked myself, "who am I writing for?". As part of my process I went online to see if anyone else had written anything about this topic and found one post in particular that resonated with me: a post by Mathina Calliope. She says that there are three different categories of writers, differentiated by their motivations. Quote:

self-expression and creative fulfillment

sharing information, entertainment, and/or inspiration

calling readers to action (e.g. political, spiritual, commercial)

All my previous attempts at keeping a blog fell squarely on the second point (mainly informative or wannabe-philosophical posts), and they didn't go very well. I found my motivation quickly plummeted and I was getting little satisfaction out of the content I was creating.

I think I had the misfortune of coming up in a marketing world, and as such my blogs were that kind of blog trying to make interesting content with the goal of getting more visitors. They didn't have a soul. I think I didn't really know why I was doing it and ended up using completely the wrong motivation.

It wasn't until I stumbled on Bearblog, and especially on the blogs of tiramisu and eve, that my eyes were opened to the fact there is another kinds of blogging, ones in which there is no real outcome besides self expression.

This blog is different. It is true I think of a subset of people when I write, I have a platonic audience so to say, which more or less modulates my voice and the amount of detail I go into. But it is very different than anything I've done before in that this is done mainly for myself. Except for the first few posts I did, I try not to care about what I'll write, I just write it and then publish it. Sometimes what I publish is useful to others, sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's extremely superficial. I try not to care.

Anyway, coming back to Mathina's post, shortly after these categories she answers my question quite directly.

... we write to connect. We have something to say and want others to hear it.

It is somewhat contradictory to what I've been saying but it has the ring of truth to my ears. If I were only writing (entirely) for myself then I wouldn't bother with having a blog at all. I wouldn't make the effort in posting these ramblings online. The true reason I'm writing is, as Mathina says, to connect with others. I know I have things I want to say, I feel a pressure inside me wanting to get these things out. I don't know what these are yet, but that's why I write. To uncover, and hopefully in the process to connect with others.

In some way it's a twisted exercise in self-gratification, but that doesn't mean it's worthless. I sometimes feel like a stone caked with mud and clay, and my job with these pages is to slowly chip away the clay, wash the mud with a river of ink, to finally uncover the lumpy, weirdly-shaped stone inside. What I'll do with it once I've set it free? I don't know. Maybe show it to others?

~ Take care 🌱

Shame in Writing

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 01:35:00 GMT

I haven't told my family (or friends) that I have a blog. I don't know why. The emotion I feel towards the idea of sharing this with them is shame. And that's just telling them of the act. Actually having them read it is positively terrifying. I've had this feeling for a while now actually, that writing is something to be done in the dark, when no one is seeing.

Looking deeper I think it's because I'm afraid of them reading my stuff and then realizing I'm no good, and making fun of me in some way. I feel this most especially with my wife (which is weird since she, and everyone else close to me, has been nothing but supportive with whatever it is I want to do), but it's still present, to a lesser extent, with everyone else I can think of. Even with internet stranger — although you are at the end of the spectrum. Still, that's probably the reason why I haven't shared any stories online.

In my early twenties I got into meditating quite a bit, and was a fan of Buddhist literature. I was — and still am — impressed by their whole view of the mind. Growing up a Christian (who later became an atheist) it was a whole revelation, a new way of thinking about good and bad, about happiness and sadness.

Anyway, I'm digressing. What I wanted to talk about is that at this point — I must have been around 21 or so — I felt ashamed of people (and again, especially my wife) seeing me meditate. I would even go to such extents such as locking myself in the room before sitting on the cushion. I can only wonder what it was she thought I was doing.

It always struck me as interesting. Nowadays I still meditate (less than I would like) but no longer feel any shame about it. Although there was a moment when I had to go through the transition. I would work up my courage to tell her I'm going to meditate and she would just say go for it or some such. I don't think she ever realized that it was a big deal for me to deal with the uncomfortable-ness of having her in the room with me. Our minds can be quirky sometimes.

Maybe I should take the same approach with writing and just bite the bullet as they say. Although I don't think I'm strong enough. At least not yet.

~ Take care

Finding my own feet

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 00:08:47 GMT

This is some sort of continuation to my Introduction post.

So, cool, now I have a blog, but what am I going to do with it?

I have been thinking about what to write for my first post and decided that to get it out of the way I would create a meta-post of sorts. Like a stream-of-consciousness thing, thinking of setting a direction for the blog.

As I mentioned in the introduction post, I've made some attempts at writing a blog in the past. They inevitably fail because I stop writing on them; I lose my movitivation and the thought of spending time writing stuff becomes a burden rather than something I do for enjoyment, something I look forward to. Why is that?

I think the answer is that I end up forcing myself to write useful stuff all the time, so eventually it gets to the point where I don't feel that what I'm writing is good enough, and the impostor syndrome kicks in.

I don't want this to happen to this blog. I want to be able to write as the birds fly, as fish swim¹, without a thought to what I'm doing, organic and free flowing.

Why do I box myself in? Where do these walls come from? My immediate intuition says it is because I care too much about what others think of me, even if they have no idea who I am. But a second reason, and probably a more important one, is that I don't love myself as I should. This is something I'm striving to change.

I've recently (2 or 3 months ago) started the online course Buddhism 101 from The Open Buddhist University, and one of the first few videos is a talk given by a monk called Ajahn Brahm about how to be positive. The talk is pretty entertaining (he is an excellent speaker and I thoroughly recommend it), and one of the things he mentions the most is the need to be kind to oneself. Listening to him made me appreciate how little kindness I show myself, how high I set the bar. Impossibly high.

While writing this I'm reminded about a passage from Ray Bradbury's excellent book Zen in the Art of Writing:

[...] What are we trying to uncover in this flow? The one person irreplaceable to the world, of which there is no duplicate. You. As there was only one Shakespeare, Molière, Dr. Johnson, so you are that precious commodity, the individual man, the man we all democratically proclaim, but who, so often, gets lost, or loses himself, in the shuffle. How does one get lost? Through incorrect aims, as I have said. Through wanting literary fame too quickly. From wanting money too soon. If only we could remember, fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with our best, our lonely, our individual truths. Now we must build our better mousetrap, heedless if a path is being beaten to our door. What do you think of the world? You, the prism, measure the light of the world; it burns through your mind to throw a different spectroscopic reading onto white paper than anyone else anywhere can throw. Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper. Make your own individual spectroscopic reading. [...] A sense of inferiority, then, in a person, quite often means true inferiority in a craft through simple lack of experience. Work then, gain experience, so that you will be at ease in your writing, as a swimmer buoys himself in water. There is only one type of story in the world. Your story.

Interesting how the mind can sometimes dreg up forgotten treasures. I haven't touched this book for quite some time, and the passage refers almost directly to the feeling of inferiority (as Bradbury puts it) I'm talking about.

Experience is of course the key. But experience in what is more of the question. I'm aware that my general way of communicating through the written word can be improved, but that's not really it.

Maybe what has happened to my other blogs is that I fell for the trap of having incorrect aims as Bradbury says. If I have to say what this "wrong aim" was I would say it was that of trying to fit in, of writing to please an imaginary crowd, instead of writing my story.

I think that to feel free while writing I need to make myself vulnerable and accept that that's a good thing. To talk about my wants and fears. Embrace my uncertainties rather than hiding them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist.

I usually avoid talking about my emotions, telling myself I don't want to be self-pitying and that people are not really interested in reading about them. But maybe recognizing them is the first step towards self-love, and to really being able to write as the bird flies.

Recently I stumbled upon tiramisù's blog, and especially this post that they recently published about having reached 100k words. In the post they mention they've been following the example of another person, Visa, where they write wordvomits without thinking too much about it. Tiramisù quotes an article by Visa which I'll reproduce here (hopefully they don't mind).

I recommend that you measure your progress as a writer by sheer volume of output. You WILL be a different writer at the 100,000 and 1,000,000 word marks respectively. Hell, you’ll be a totally different person.

And don’t try to write well. Just write. Why? Because you can’t write well before you know what good writing is. And you can’t know what good writing is until you’ve done a lot of reading and writing.

So if you want to write well, you have to let go of the perfectionistic death wish of trying to write well.

Instead, accept in advance that a lot of it will suck. Embrace the suck. Make love to the suck. Don’t try to avoid it or outsmart it. Acknowledge it, face it, and get used to it. Day after day after day.

Funny how they're looking at this text in the context of looking back, while for me it's very relevant looking forward. Reading it I also get echoes from Bradbury's quote I shared above.

Maybe this will help. I realize that I have a strong perfectionist leaning and that in turn keeps me back from experimenting, exploring, and making mistakes. I force myself to stay on the safe path for fear of doing anything wrong. That's what really happened to my previous blogs: I got bored of them. Stale writing is no fun.

Thank you for reading! And remember to be kind to yourself 🌈

I take this from a quote about Go Seigen, a master player of the game of Go. The actual quote goes like this: “He played like the birds fly: swift and light. Suddenly the position could get frozen though, and then one would get a glimpse of the universe of variations hidden below the sky that Wu had spanned in the earlier stages”. — Jan Van der Steen on Go Seigen’s (Wu) game ↩

Meadow - Posts tagged with reflection

Take care not to tread on those apples

Footnotes

The power of thoughts

Footnotes

My dog doesn't want to take her medicine and a comment on Karma Yoga

On Craving Love

Footnotes

Love what you think are your weaknesses

Feeling worthless and then touching love within myself

Footnotes

When our feelings & emotions go against what we think is best

Footnotes

Good morning

Initial thoughts on The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

On surrendering and the fallacy of control

Footnotes

Judging is a trap

Just because it’s all in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real

Footnotes

On the origins of fear and art as the antidote

Whatever are the important things?

When a cold allows you to reevaluate the important things

Technology should enhance humans, not replace them

Footnotes

Who am I writing for

Shame in Writing

Finding my own feet

Footnotes