[HN Gopher] How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself ...
___________________________________________________________________
How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself (2014)
Author : fbn79
Score : 244 points
Date : 2022-07-11 07:09 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themarginalian.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themarginalian.org)
| sitkack wrote:
| The author has another equally wholesome book, "Where Did You Go?
| Out. What Did You Do? Nothing."
| walty8 wrote:
| thanks, my son would love this :)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| This article caught my wandering attention today during an
| intermittent fast. Normally I'd take a light exercise day to burn
| a bit more, but a minor injury is telling me to take it easy.
| Reading HN and tinkering with code isn't enough. Fasting makes me
| restless. I almost never get "bored", but this brings it on. I
| want to break the link between boredom and waves of hunger. How
| we manage solitude and how we manage hunger seem connected.
| burnaway wrote:
| meta -- i'm just wondering if the OP found this blog post through
| the https://projectnaptha.com main page screenshot of the book.
| these two posts are side-by-side on HN now and it gave me the
| chills "what a coincidence" - perhaps not.
| fbn79 wrote:
| I confirm your suspect! =)
| NoGravitas wrote:
| "Boredom is insight into the essentially void nature of our
| existence and the existence of all things" -- Keiji Nishitani
| thyrox wrote:
| This post reminds me of the life of Christopher mccandless, the
| protagonist of into the wild.
|
| McCandless had happily escaped humanity his whole life, only to
| find that happiness itself can only be amplified when shared. One
| of his final quotes being:
|
| "Happiness only real when shared."
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I interpret that in the complete opposite way: he was a deeply
| unhappy person who didn't realize it until he really
| experienced being alone. I can be just as happy alone as when
| I'm with people so the sentiment certainly doesn't apply to
| some people
| Otek wrote:
| This is something many people overlook when they glorify this
| character
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I feel like describing him as a protagonist of book/movie
| misses that he was a real person.
| DIARRHEA_xd wrote:
| Let's pretend his passion was Nascar driving...
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| Even better, do these things with someone else! You're always
| existentially alone, so no need to make practical life too
| lonesome either!
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Some of us really like our own company, our own streams of
| consciousness without interruptions.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| I went hiking yesterday. I really, really wouldn't have liked
| if someone nagged me when resting while peacefully gazing
| over the valley
|
| I find it amusing how for some people the thought that
| someone might enjoy just being alone a while is some
| unthinkable Lovecraftian madness
| wetmore wrote:
| When I'm outdoors I often notice an internal conflict
| between enjoying the ability to spend the time doing
| exactly I want to do, and wanting to share the experience
| with someone.
| clsec wrote:
| I don't get lonely, I enjoy my solitude.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is a difference between lonely and alone. You can
| be very lonely while being with a whole bunch of people,
| and you can be very much not lonely being all with
| yourself.
| teh_klev wrote:
| > Even better, do these things with someone else
|
| Sure but that's missing the point of the book.
| smokey_circles wrote:
| People are not meant to alone. If the book is advising to do
| things alone, I advise not reading the book
| bigiain wrote:
| If you never do things alone, I suspect you don't read
| books anyway. So I'll just go ahead and ignore any advice
| from you about what books I should or shouldn't read...
| closedloop129 wrote:
| Could it be that books are the technology that made being
| alone possible? Apart from monks, have people been alone
| before the invention of books? Without books, would
| people learn to stay by themselves and make it a habit?
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| People have spent a multitude of hours doing other
| activities alone as well--painting alone, looking at the
| stars alone, practicing dance alone, using the restroom
| alone...
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Meant by who? You? God?
| ano88888 wrote:
| evolution. It is in our DNA to be social. Most of us will
| die without social connections
| DocTomoe wrote:
| People without social connections die earlier
| statistically, but that can be explained by outside
| effects (e.g. if you do not live in a family structure,
| chances are you'll be found too late after suffering from
| a heart attack or stroke; less people around you means
| less immunisation for common diseases; no friends means a
| house fire may stress you out more and you becoming
| homeless ...). Calling that "most would be dying from no
| social connections" still seems a bit a far reach.
|
| Also, the "we need to be around people at all times"
| seems to be less determined by genes, but by culture:
| people in other cultures and at other times seem to have
| been fine with extended periods of no human contact.
| Think the 'forest dwellers' in Hindu culture, or monastic
| hermits.
| 93po wrote:
| To prove humans need social connection, all you have to
| do is look at the heartbreaking (and thankfully rare)
| cases of children that grew up completely neglected and
| sequestered. As in, locked in a room with no attention
| for the first decade of their life. When they're
| discovered, they're not what you think of as human. They
| never developed language. They never developed the
| ability to form relationships. They know nothing about
| the world and have virtually never interacted with
| anyone. There is no amount of therapy that will ever turn
| these young people into functional humans and in the case
| I remember most vividly, they will never develop any real
| language or ability to communicate either.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Your argument is different from your explanation. You're
| speaking about complete isolation. Children need some
| socialization for them to adapt to the modern world.
| That's different than proving humans need social
| connections in the long term. Almost all people want some
| form of socialization, some less, some more. It's
| extremely rare a person would want complete isolation
| forever in perpetuity and I say that as a person who can
| only handle about an hour of socialization before I want
| to climb in a hole. What no one talks about is when too
| much socialization can impair growth.
| havblue wrote:
| I wonder if the causation is reversed when people talk
| about living a shorter life with fewer social
| connections. If someone has mental health issues or
| substance abuse problems they're likely burning through
| their social connections and their health at the same
| time.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| But that's extreme. We don't go back to living in a cave
| and bashing each other's skulls in with rocks, just
| because that's where evolution took us. Our minds are
| above and beyond some aminoacids (or whatever) now.
| cossatot wrote:
| This book is about learning how to entertain yourself
| alone during your free time, not mandating that you only
| recreate alone, much less disconnecting yourself from
| society altogether.
| OezMaster wrote:
| People are meant to be bored though.
| N-Krause wrote:
| No need to see everything in black and white. There are a
| lot of shades of gray. You're correct that humans work in
| groups, doing things alone is inefficient, harder and
| possibly dangerous.
|
| But being alone and learning to deal with your own feelings
| and thoughts is a good way to mature and know oneself
| better. Also, there are a lot people that need time alone
| to recharge and regain energy that they spend socialising
| and interacting with people.
|
| So there are benefits of being alone.
|
| BTW: haven't read the book and do now know what exactly it
| is about.
| taffronaut wrote:
| I borrowed this book from a library at age 10 or so - 50 years
| ago. As a kid, when we went on holiday as a family the first
| thing we would do would be to visit the library at our
| destination and get 'visitor tickets'. I was an only child (still
| am) and was expected to amuse myself. The title is perfect for an
| only child. I read this book pretty much cover to cover one
| holiday and remember making darts out of sewing needles and
| matchsticks.
| memcg wrote:
| I am reminded of James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of
| Walter Mitty." So much of my life has required just waiting, so
| daydreaming, people watching and hyper-focusing on my
| surroundings have become valuable skills.
|
| These skills allow me to "be there" for others. My mom had many
| surgeries and I would go to the hospital and just wait with my
| dad. We said little. He would read paperback fiction, a pastime
| he learned riding in carpools, but he was not alone.
| WA wrote:
| I spend quite a lot of time alone by myself. I usually go for a
| walk or ride my bike. Going to the library is another way to fill
| your brain with other peoples' ideas, just like scrolling social
| media.
|
| But I have to be honest: there are zero profound thoughts when
| I'm alone. I sometimes get ideas for what I could work on. Write
| this article or that, make a standup comedy show. Write some junk
| porn novel. It's entertaining while it lasts and after a while,
| the thoughts are gone and having thought about them, the drive to
| implement them is gone, too.
|
| It's literally like writing things on a TODO list and feeling
| good about having it written down, but the desire to do them is
| gone.
|
| So, since I don't get profound motivation or breakthroughs or
| whatever, I treat time alone as some kind of mental garbage
| collector. At least I get to move my body.
|
| So, what's the lesson here? I don't know. Maybe that being alone
| to _improve_ something is bullshit. Go out alone if it suits you,
| don't expect profound thoughts. At least that's how I am :)
|
| Edit: last paragraph
| rubslopes wrote:
| It's the same for me, and that's when things go well.
| Sometimes, when thinking alone, anxious thoughts take place and
| I begin a spiral of bad thoughts about the past, things I
| should or shouldn't have done... In these cases I think it'd
| had been better to have listened to a podcast.
| ffritz wrote:
| That sounds very normal, at least it's the same for me.
|
| Sometimes I spent a considerable amount of time brainstorming
| an idea or concept over and over during alone times, and then
| at some point it won't return to my thoughts again, but
| something new replaces it. Sort of like I am "done" with that
| thought and my brain wants to move on.
|
| I don't know why that happens, but I guess I get stimulation
| simply from that iterative thought process. Thus your garbage
| collector comparison seems accurate to me.
|
| Secretly though, I do hope to get _that_ business idea at some
| point via that process. Not sure if that's ever going to
| happen, but that's okay too.
| garyrob wrote:
| "Go out alone if it suits you, don't expect profound thoughts"
|
| Often, I consciously decide to use time along to think. I don't
| think anything would happen without that conscious decision.
| But I've gotten some good results from that conscious decision.
| Once in the '90's I was driving back to my home in Maine from
| an internet conference in Boston. I had come up with a
| mathematical technique to recommend things to people based on
| their interests, and at the conference, there was a session on
| how it was hard for web sites to get advertising because they
| had to have "space salesman" to find advertisers.
|
| On the drive I asked myself, what do I know that might be able
| to help solve problems I saw at the conference? Before I'd
| gotten north of Massachussetts, I had the idea that advertisers
| could send their ads to a central hub that would distribute the
| ads to web sites based on people's interests; so the web site
| wouldn't have to do anything and ads would be chosen
| automatically. Interests would be discovered by keeping track
| of which ads people tended to click on and other factors.
|
| But I didn't know how to keep track of those clicks. Over the
| next couple weeks I looked into using Netscape's cookie
| mechanism along with other possibilities. But cookies had
| built-in privacy constraints. From my write-up at [1]:
|
| """ At first blush, cookies didn't appear like they could help,
| because they could only be written or read from the internet
| domain from which they were written. So, if a cookie was
| written by, for example, a CGI at golfing.com, it couldn't be
| accessed by a CGI at boating.com. It followed that the idea of
| having the servers for golfing.com and boating.com both
| accessing a central server at some other location to track user
| activity wouldn't work; there was no way to know that the same
| user had visited both sites because any cookies written at one
| site would be inaccessible to the other.
|
| But as I looked further into the general topic of Web
| programming, I noticed that a Web site running on one domain
| could invoke a CGI running on another domain. And there seemed
| to be no reason why that CGI, running on that other domain,
| couldn't write its own cookie to the local computer. """
|
| Now, Google owns the patent that came out of it (which did NOT
| claim the "tracking cookie" on its own, but only using it with
| MY particular mathematical algorithm for picking ads.) As far
| as I know the patent has never been used offensively, but even
| last year Google and Twitter were using it defensively against
| a patent troll. ( In their petition[2] in that case, Twitter
| and Google repeatedly refer to the tracking cookie as
| "Robinson's Cookie.")
|
| So anyway, my advice is that you consciously CHOOSE to think
| when alone, while doing something like walking or driving.
| Somehow that low-level, automatic activity makes a huge
| difference to me in my ability to think, and most of the best
| ideas I've had in my career have come while driving. Other
| people have their best ones while walking. I don't HAVE to be
| alone, but I pretty much have had to say to my wife in the
| passenger seat, "Please don't talk to me now, I'm thinking."
| She doesn't mind because the results have sometimes been good
| in the past!
|
| [1] https://www.garyrobinson.net/2021/07/did-i-invent-browser-
| co... [2]https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/ptab-
| filings/IPR2021-0048...
| WA wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, maybe the intention does make a
| difference. Or maybe I'm a bit too self-critical. I probably
| get some kind of breakthroughs or profound thoughts after
| all, but only on a fraction of all walks and rides - which is
| okay.
| garyrob wrote:
| Yes, expect to have _major_ insights on only a small
| proportion of walks or rides! :) But that 's fine! Just
| make the conscious effort to solve problems, usually using
| pieces you already know about!
|
| For me, it's fun. There have been a number of times I've
| done the 5-hour drive from Boston to my Maine home, and
| then didn't want to stop, because I was chasing interesting
| ideas in my thinking!
| fleddr wrote:
| You need to let go of the idea that every moment of your life
| needs to have purpose or some productive output. Luckily you
| already come to that conclusion: a way to reset the brain and
| moving your body is always a good idea.
| Kiro wrote:
| I feel the exact opposite. I only get profound ideas when I'm
| alone. Spending time with others is leisure but does nothing
| for my creativity. So definitely not bullshit for me.
| romanovcode wrote:
| But isn't the idea to be alone and have no important thoughts
| in itself is good?
|
| For example, you have this huge complex problem that you cannot
| solve, then don't think about it and relax for one day and then
| all of a sudden you get an easy solution without even thinking
| hard about it. Happened to me quite some times.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| Holy smokes I feel bad for you. What happened to your curiosity
| (wo)man? I really can't empathize at all with comparing a
| library with scrolling social media. That's apathy to the max.
| ratww wrote:
| I think the scope of what you think matters.
|
| For me it's the same as you, but only with "big" ideas that
| will require a lot of effort to get off the ground.
|
| But I have been able to have a lot of great (to me)
| breakthroughs by focusing on smaller ideas: melodies or lyrics
| for a song, ideas for an algorithm or architecture for
| something I'm working on, perhaps planning a whole talk or
| presentation.
|
| I believe most of us who are developers do that at work
| already, so it's not too hard to extend it to alone time or
| exercise time.
|
| On the other hand, I had the idea for a business I'm currently
| starting on one of those walks. So there's exceptions.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Are you a developer or somehow creating complex things?
|
| Because for me, I get a lot of solutions when I'm alone (eg.
| shower). Sometimes I get stuck on a problem, or don't find a
| solution that feels right. A lot of times during these quiet
| times, some solution pops out of my (probably unconscious)
| brain.
| voidhorse wrote:
| That's consonant with my experience and I think that's kind of
| the point. Being alone is more about getting the necessary
| space we need for our brains to reset for once and not have to
| focus on anything or waste cycles on distractions. I often feel
| more refreshed after sitting around doing nothing outside for a
| second than I do after sleeping.
|
| I think this is another reason being outdoors during solitude
| is great, it's like a relaxation and brain refresh force
| multiplier.
| andreilys wrote:
| It all depends on whether you're getting sufficient external
| stimulation.
|
| If I go through an entire week of interesting
| experiences/conversations/etc. then spending a day alone will
| yield all kinds of interesting ideas/concepts/revelations.
| Usually because I didn't have time to reflect during my busy
| week.
| bardworx wrote:
| Out of curiosity, when you're spending time "alone" are you
| day dreaming, actively thinking, or actively day dreaming, or
| something else entirely?
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| i do not believe being alone is meant to be the source of
| profundity, but of serenity * it is much cheaper (energy/time)
| to obtain profundity from others, but serenity can only be
| obtained after acknowledging that whatever i call I is always
| already locked in some kind of inside and only by being alone i
| can regulate this inside in such a manner as to be(wel)come
| (the) serene => alone not to improve, but to survive
| cableshaft wrote:
| I sorta get that, in that I can get a lot of game and story
| ideas that realistically will never make it into a full game
| (and recently it's been way worse, I need to fix my environment
| to facilitate creative work), and I have way more ideas then
| I'll ever have time to make into games or stories, but I've
| gotten plenty of ideas from those walks that I have
| successfully executed on afterwards.
| maskedinvader wrote:
| yeah this sounds normal and a lot like what I feel too, No real
| profound ideas or aha moment still, but I do end up spending a
| lot of time alone, either walking or biking or swimming , the
| best I can get out of that time is the ability to fill my nice
| to have todo list with some random diy projects, or web tools I
| know I wont prioritize building ever. But I do still like to
| spend that time alone lost in aimless thoughts as I feel it
| enables me to feel happiness and pleasure when I do have
| company or I am interacting online with friends and colleagues.
| donkeyd wrote:
| A couple of years ago, I was going through a short stint of burn-
| out. I needed some time away, so I put a mattress in the back of
| my car and went to Germany for a few days. I loved the idea of
| not having to go anywhere and not having to discuss the next
| location with anyone. If I saw a place with a nice view around
| dinner time, I'd just stop there, warm up some food and eat,
| enjoying the view. Those couple of days were zen. I need to do
| this again some time, but for some reason when not burnt out,
| people are less accepting of this kind of thing.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Sounds like a great vacation! And never mind other peoples
| opinions, some even call what you did "Vanlife", I know it as
| camping. If you enjoy, just do it!
| tinsmith wrote:
| There is something to be said for the recovery that comes with
| just experiencing a place in the world without any agenda or
| accountability beyond simply being a living being. I'm glad you
| got to experience that. i've achieved this maybe a handful of
| times in my life, and it seems significantly harder to do in
| the US than elsewhere.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I did a spiritual retreat a few months ago at a Jesuit centre,
| and I think it was a bit like this-- just leaving my phone in
| my room and spending the entire day taking everything an hour
| at a time with no obligations or timelines or goals at all.
|
| Obviously the religious side of it isn't going to be for
| everyone, but absolutely the "hard break from the real world"
| side can be.
| amelius wrote:
| "All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit
| still in a room."
|
| -- Blaise Pascal
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Then our cultures will actively penalize people who can sit
| still and be happy doing nothing. "laziness" is a cardinal sin
| and "lack of ambition" a critical issue.
| goldfeld wrote:
| However possibly he meant sit still usefully, otherwise why
| sit rather than lounge in an ottoman? sit still, that is,
| sustain study, or read literature, or have creative idylls,
| write, comtemplate the inner realms. Sounds to me like the
| quote is the classical ideal of useful employment, by which
| comparison much social interaction or being glued to a phone
| is judged as laziness or, anachronically, dissipation.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The sitting part is actually not in the original quote
| ("Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui
| est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre").
| It was just about staying at rest in a room.
|
| Note that "at rest" being specified, it really was about
| doing nothing. And sure, Blaise Pascal was extremely
| active, extremely prolific since his very early days, and
| he probably couldn't stay still doing nothing for long.
| hinkley wrote:
| A great deal of human bonding is based around frothing each
| other up about a topic that either doesn't really matter, or
| the group present has absolutely zero control over.
|
| I'm sure most people notice this, but if you have freshly
| improved skills in 'sitting still in a room', this phenomenon
| is quite noticeable and, if I'm perfectly honest, somewhat
| alienating.
| ianferrel wrote:
| I read this book as a child in the 1990s. I think I picked it up
| at a garage sale, along with another of his books _" Where did
| you go?" Out "What did you do?" Nothing"_, an entertaining memoir
| of his youth and all the nonsense he got up to with the other
| kids.
|
| Highly recommended by 12-year-old me.
| ribs wrote:
| "[The Internet] also grows exponentially worse at helping us
| discover what we don't yet know we ought to know, those
| invaluable unknown-unknowns."
|
| Really? Has the author ever been to Hacker News, I wonder.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Quoting from a past comment[1]. This is from the late Mihaly
| Csikszentmihalyi (of "flow" fame):
|
| _" The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of
| experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external
| demands to give structure to attention. It is relatively easy to
| become involved with a job, to enjoy the company of friends, to
| be entertained in a theater or at a concert. But what happens
| when we are left to our own devices? Alone, when the dark night
| of the soul descends, are we forced into frantic attempts to
| distract the mind from its coming? Or are we able to take on
| activities that are not only enjoyable, but make the self grow?"_
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28942369
| dinvlad wrote:
| Very profound, thanks for sharing!
| personjerry wrote:
| I find that my computer is stealing all my time. My default is to
| sit in front of my computer.
|
| I'll write an email, jot a few notes.
|
| Inevitably I will open up a video or a game and distract myself.
|
| If I'm spending time with myself and I'm at home, I'm on my
| computer.
|
| I think it's a problem. I'm considering thinking about it some
| more and writing a blog post on it.
| glouwbug wrote:
| Will you sit in front of your computer when you write your blog
| post?
| personjerry wrote:
| Yeah. I mean that's the thing, sitting in front of the
| computer is a necessity because you need to type ideas. So
| your screen has to become a catalyst for your thoughts
| instead of being a distraction.
|
| You have to build an "environment" where you can "blog" or
| w/e you deem productive. I've been looking at
| https://kinopio.club/ to be my "default screen on computer
| start" for organizing thoughts, but it's not perfect.
| ratrocket wrote:
| This _probably_ isn 't what you're after, but you can blog
| via a pen & notebook with Paper website:
| https://daily.tinyprojects.dev/paper_website
|
| (no affiliation and haven't used it, but I love the idea
| and that person's "tiny projects" are super cool!)
| nobodywasishere wrote:
| You could use a notebook and handwrite things instead, that
| helps me.
| gernb wrote:
| Just at the start
|
| > now more than ever, it seems -- have a profound civilizational
| anxiety about being alone.
|
| It seems to me the "natural" state of things is to NOT be alone.
| Did cavemen survive if they were alone? It use to be common for
| the majority of people in the world it live in single room
| houses. I'd think the "natural = better" crowd would be very much
| of the thought that being alone is a symptom of modern society.
| I'm not personally saying that being alone is bad. Only that the
| framing seems to be that not having alone time is bad and that
| seems like a strange framing to me if for most of our existance
| we were rarely alone.
|
| Also, I notice almost none of the comments are about the "Do
| nothing" part. They're all about "do something with nobody all
| alone by yourself", not "do *nothing* with nobody all alone by
| yourself"
| fleddr wrote:
| You're right. Being alone and the very idea of privacy is a
| modern "luxury". It did not exist as hunter gatherers nor in
| the "african village" model. In some cultures, it still doesn't
| exist, think a multi generational home where rooms are shared
| with many people.
|
| I think indeed the emphasis should be on the "do nothing" part.
| Which very much is natural. I've once read that hunter
| gatherers "worked" for about 4 hours per day. As for the rest
| of the day? Rest, watch the sun set, gaze at the stars.
|
| Many animals also do fuck all for a considerable part of the
| day.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| This is adjacent to the notion of a "Flaneur", someone who idly
| wanders a city with nothing in particular to do, but who engages
| with it intellectually and socially.
|
| It very much requires a high level of privledge or, in more rare
| cases (these days), the ability to survive in poverty looking
| like a homeless person yet still be interesting and welcomed by
| others.
|
| For Gen-X, this was also known as being a "slacker". It was good
| while it lasted.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Just last week!
|
| _Flanerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32002486 (125 comments)
| ThalesX wrote:
| > This is adjacent to the notion of a "Flaneur", someone who
| idly wanders a city with nothing in particular to do, but who
| engages with it intellectually and socially.
|
| I've recently started watching Seinfeld again. Kramer seems
| like exactly this kind of character.
| dmje wrote:
| This highlights what bothers me most about today's [mobile]
| culture. There are reams of other things to say about the damage
| being done (I'd recommend Johann Hari's book _Stolen Focus_ [0]
| for a great, if severely worrying, overview) - but to me the
| ability to spend time doing nothing, being with oneself, being
| alone, living with one 's thoughts - this is a hugely important
| thing.
|
| Other people on the thread point out that "not much happens" when
| they spend time alone - to which I'd say: that's the point. Your
| brain needs time to process, to chew through, to formulate, to
| make sense of... all the things it has been spending time doing.
| So yeh, sometimes ideas happen in these spaces (ideas certainly
| _don 't_ happen where there's _no_ space!), but sometimes nothing
| at all "happens". And...that's important.
|
| As well as that, the constant-always-filled-always-on culture
| created by mobile devices takes you away from the present moment.
| It's like the least mindful thing you can be doing, and given the
| quantities of evidence around happiness, flow, focus, etc - just
| _being in the world_ is a critically important thing.
|
| The other angle is about the ego in all of this. One of the
| strange things that comes out of a meditation practice is that
| (and bear with me here, it sounds weird) - when you spend more
| time with yourself, focusing on what your inner voice is saying,
| without constant distraction, you actually become very much
| better at being empathetic in the world. Because you understand
| more about who you are (and, ultimately, who your "self"
| isn't...), you get to understand more about other people and who
| _they_ are. I wouldn 't be at all surprised if being good at
| being alone also boosted this sense of empathy for others. It
| sounds counter-intuitive, but I suspect it's true.
|
| [0] https://stolenfocusbook.com/
| bowsamic wrote:
| > What I call zazen is not developing concentration by stages and
| so on. It is simply the Awakened One's own easy and joyful
| practice, it is realized-practice within already manifest
| enlightenment. It is the display of complete reality. Traps and
| cages spring open. Grasping the heart of this, you are the dragon
| who has reached his waters, the tiger resting in her mountains.
| Understand that right here is the display of Vast Reality and
| then dullness and mental wandering have no place to arise.
|
| https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/fukanzazengi-how-everyone-can-s...
|
| Returning to the joyful ease of a child, not putting distinctions
| and discriminations on play, or worrying about the next thing or
| even doing the current thing well, is what we train by sitting
| zazen in Zen Buddhism
| tuxie_ wrote:
| > not putting distinctions and discriminations on play
|
| Honestly that stands out for me from your comment. What do you
| mean? It does not follow logically, at least for me, from the
| rest of the things you mention.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Zazen is about sitting without making distinctions. If a good
| feeling arises, we treat it the same as a bad feeling, we
| just let it arise and pass without judging it. Same for
| distinguishing between self and other, etc. Zazen is a
| practise for learning how to cultivate a mind that does not
| attach to discriminations or distinctions between different
| mental or physical states or objects.
|
| We put distinctions on the world because we think it's
| necessary to be able to actually live here, but actually if
| you let go of distinctions you will find that life lives on
| as normal and you still somehow know what to do but in a much
| more liberated way.
|
| "Not putting distinctions and discriminations on play" means
| to play without making distinctions or discriminations, such
| as: "am I playing right?", "am I being too loud?", "is this a
| good use of my time?", "could I be doing something more
| productive?", etc. Most adults cannot play without attaching
| to those questions and being bothered by them. One way to
| learn to not attach to those questions is to practise zazen
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >We put distinctions on the world because we think it's
| necessary to be able to actually live here
|
| You'll find that living on the world without distinctions
| in some places will get you shot or eaten by wildlife.
| Which does make your life in the world a wee shorter,
| yes... Although at that point I guess someone truly
| enlightened wouldn't mind it
| itronitron wrote:
| You could make the same argument about listening to
| music, that wandering around while listening to music
| will get you shot or eaten by wildlife, and yet people
| generally gain some benefit from listening to music.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Yes, however people don't come up with philosophies about
| hijacking your whole thought process so the only thing
| left is listening to music
|
| If someone is selling a fundamental truth about the
| universe, it better damn well work in every situation
| bowsamic wrote:
| One way I gain confidence in it is to think about how it
| has had 2500 years of research and development, and in
| that time has not asked the majority of Buddhists to
| accept a set of beliefs blindly. It has changed
| drastically with time and culture: Japanese Buddhism is
| very different from Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism
| in the 1200s is very different from in the 800s. It is
| allowed to evolve with what works for people, and I find
| that quite compelling. Of course that alone is not
| enough, I have to also actually do the practise myself
| and see what happens
| throwamon wrote:
| Aside from the blind acceptance, how can you be so
| confident in "it" if Japanese Buddhism is so different
| from Chinese Buddhism? Haven't the other major religions
| existed for almost the same amount of time and gone
| through just as much "research and development"? Doesn't
| that give you confidence in them? Have you practiced them
| and seen what happens?
| bowsamic wrote:
| The difference is that the Buddha specifically taught
| that the way to verify his teachings was to practise it.
| Buddhism gives you a path to become a Buddha. In
| contrast, Christianity does not give you a path to become
| Christ, or even become sure of Christ. You are expected
| to believe in Christ without ever seeing any evidence of
| it. It is the same for many other religions, they do not
| offer empirically tested methods for personally verifying
| the teachings, but Buddhism does.
|
| Japanese Buddhism is so different from Chinese Buddhism
| because the cultural background of Japan is very
| different to China, so people have different needs,
| propensities, and capabilities.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Have you tried it? If you did you will realise that
| actually it isn't our attachment to distinctions that
| propels us, but there is an automatic animal decision
| making process before we rationalise about it. We
| actually do this a lot but we just don't realise it,
| afterwards we think that our rational sense of "I" is in
| the driving seat but really it is a bit different. As I
| said, it's hard to believe that you could live a life
| like that, but I promise you that after dropping
| distinctions you will handle the person shouting at you
| or the bear attacking you far more effectively than you
| would if you were rationally deliberating over it. But
| you'll have to try it to believe me perhaps, I was
| surprised too. Part of the reason why enlightenment is a
| long and difficult process is because we are so convinced
| that we need to hold onto things to keep surviving. Some
| people are so shocked by the realisation that they even
| commit suicide, particularly if done in an unsafe setting
| without support.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| I don't think deliberate thoughts are the best tools for
| all circumstances. That's not my point
|
| Actually getting rid of distinctions requires an
| overwriting of the non-deliberate thought processes too.
| You won't "handle" the person shouting at you or the bear
| attacking you more effectively, you won't handle anything
| at all. You'll just be the cognitive equivalent of a
| rock, but in human flesh
|
| You seem to be using "distinctions" as a synonym for
| deliberate thought (I could be wrong, of course)
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yes, by distinctions I mean rational deliberate ones that
| arise from attachments to ideas that we have about the
| world. For example the idea that I am me and you are you.
| We are attached to this idea and act in a non-optimal way
| due to it. Being before that mind is called "prajna" or
| wisdom in Buddhism, prajnaparamita being the "perfection
| of wisdom". I don't mean the distinctions made by our
| material condition such as hunger or flight and fight, I
| mean the reactions to those things.
|
| It is the Buddha's parable of the two arrows: the first
| arrow (pain) is unavoidable, however we also then take on
| an unecessary second arrow (negative emotional reaction
| to pain) that is totally avoidable. I'm talking about the
| second part.
|
| Letting go of our conscious attachment to distinctions
| and discriminations we can play like children again
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Might want to start using "deliberate thinking" (or
| something like that) instead of "distinction".
|
| Even if it's valid, "distinction" also has other meanings
| that might come to mind first in the same context, which
| can lead people to misunderstand what you are talking
| about. It's what happened to me
| bowsamic wrote:
| Apologies, Buddhist terminology is extremely difficult to
| translate accurately into English. For example the word
| "suffering" is not quite right for translating the
| sanksrit word "Duhkha". It's easy to forget to clarify
| the translations, but that's part of why it is so
| difficult to learn. When we get more Buddhist texts that
| are written primarily in English first, it will be easier
| to communicate
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