Awareness

Meditation thoughts: What is meditation?

Awareness / Doof / Freedom / Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / Nonjudgment / SIDCHAs

Meditation thoughts: What is meditation?

I lead a meditation group that meets in person a couple times a month. We've found we can get a laugh if we talk in the group about talking about meditation to others who don't meditate by saying, "I can't meditate. My mind is too crazy to empty it of thoughts," or words to that effect. Why does it make us laugh? Because it's like a knee-jerk reaction that betrays a misunderstanding of meditation closer to its opposite. Everyone's mind is full of thoughts we can't help. Meditation doesn't empty your mind. Meditation can do many different things for different people, but a common goal is to find comfort with the eternal state of all human minds: scattered like yours. We know that what they…

January 26, 2026

What Makes Things Meaningful in Life

Awareness / Models / Relationships

What Makes Things Meaningful in Life

Do you like for experiences in life to have meaning? What makes an event or experience meaningful? It's tempting to say it's difficult to define. The dictionary defines meaningful as "Having meaning, function, or purpose" and meaning as "significant quality, especially: implication of a hidden or special significance." Those definitions seem vague to me. They just substitute the word quality for meaning. They don't suggest how to make something more meaningful. I've been using a definition that works for me since I wrote Leadership Step by Step based on the model of emotions in it. The model says that emotions have qualities like intensity and pleasure. If I haven't seen a girlfriend in months, the emotion of missing her may be intense. If I haven't…

January 5, 2026

A sidcha and self-awareness update

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Fitness / Habits / Perception / SIDCHAs / Stories

A sidcha and self-awareness update

Doing things consistently and daily for a long time enables you to notice nuances, which increases self-awareness. Since I have a six-day exercise cycle that I begin on the first of each month, in months with 31 days, I like to vary what I do with the extra day. In December I did two things. Sorry for the long post, but what I describe below felt like a meaningful experience of aging, contemplation, risk, and humility. Longer meditation Some background on one: I've meditated daily for about five years and counting. Normally I set my timer for 31 minutes and sit for that long. Why 31 and not a rounder number? No special reason. I worked up from shorter times and ended up there. A…

January 2, 2026

Do people who fear learning to lead think it means imposing hierarchy?

Awareness / Leadership

Do people who fear learning to lead think it means imposing hierarchy?

A friend calls leadership "the l-word." I used to think of leadership as not something anyone could learn. I thought you either had it or you didn't. I also associated it with control. Today I associate it with help, support, empathy, compassion, listening, awareness, and social and emotional skills like them. It's been so long since I associated it with control, I have to work to reconnect with that feeling so it takes work for me to empathize with someone who describes it as "the l-word." I mean, when I was little we used "the f-word" to describe the worst curse word, which rhymes with duck. Today, "the n-word" seems the most taboo word to say or write, at least for people who aren't African-American.…

December 24, 2025

How do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?

Addiction / Awareness / Freedom

How do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?

First I have to make as clear as possible: I oppose imperialism, colonialism, and outcomes they produce such as slavery, racism, genocide, and the coercive, often violent and deadly destruction of cultures, including indigenous ones. That opposition contributes significantly to my work, since living unsustainably drives all those results. In light of that connection, since I know no one even trying to live sustainably, which is necessary to lead others to oppose imperialism and all downstream, I don't know anyone who opposes them as much as I do. That said, environmentalists and people who claim to support indigenous cultures and people tend to attach to indigeneity properties it doesn't merit. For example, environmentalists will fly someone from a south sea island to the United Nations…

December 1, 2025

Am I the only one who sees these problems with America’s liberals, conservatives, and libertarians?

Am I the only one who sees these problems with America’s liberals, conservatives, and libertarians?

I've meant to write this post for a while, but I feel like people will misunderstand and think I'm saying something I'm not. Sometimes I feel like everyone sees the main problems with America's liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Others I feel like I'm the only one. In fairness, each group does what the others do, but each specializes in the following: Does anyone else see that the biggest problems with America's liberals are 1) that they create and grow hierarchies based on race, sex, gender, and ethnicity, creating contexts giving them privilege over others, then 2) judge people on these characteristics and lord over them, 3) their policies increase poverty, and 4) they act as if they don't care about people less fortunate. Does anyone…

November 14, 2025

We respond differently when society conflicts with men versus with women

Awareness / Perception

We respond differently when society conflicts with men versus with women

I keep meaning to write a post on the pattern I keep seeing, but for the time being, I'm just going to collect and list examples of it. The pattern isn't perfect and anyone who thinks I'm suggesting it is misunderstands me, but the pattern I see is: When society conflicts with men, we say men have to change or take responsibility. When society conflicts with women, we say society has to change and we all have to take responsibility. I welcome counterexamples. I like to learn when I'm wrong. For now, I don't plan to go out of my way to find examples, just to post them as I find them. Here's the one that prompted me today to start the list: An event:…

October 15, 2025

Passing fancies and shiny objects sap life of meaning, if you don’t know your values and how to live them

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises

Passing fancies and shiny objects sap life of meaning, if you don’t know your values and how to live them

I said the following words today and realized I had to post them here: Chasing shiny objects means you're running away from what you value. For background, I describe passing fancies in my book Initiative: Passing fancies are things we enjoy in the moment but don’t bring long-term emotional reward. Since everyone’s values differ, your passing fancies will differ from mine. Our world is full of passing fancies like social media, fun classes, action movies, and some friendships. Our culture bombards us with more. From grade school through commencement, mainstream education spreads us thin with classes, extracurriculars, double majors, triple minors, sports, after-school jobs, and so on—too thin to go into depth with any of them. Most jobs continue the pattern. Rarely do you act…

October 10, 2025

The easy and hard parts of exercise and another value of sidchas

Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs / Stories

The easy and hard parts of exercise and another value of sidchas

This morning's calisthenics involved four sets of burpees. I noticed a funny thought as I started the third set. I had barely done a tenth of a burpee in that third set when I thought, "Only one set left." That's an odd thought. Since I had barely started the third set, I had closer to two sets left. Why did I think I had one set left when I actually had closer to two? Because of an effect nearly all of us have experienced. One version is when you planned to jog or go to the gym but you're sitting on the couch relaxing. It's hard to start, but you also know that once you start running, you're likely to keep running, or once you…

September 20, 2025

I love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1

Addiction / Awareness / Creativity / Freedom / Hands on Practical Experience / Perception

I love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1

A recent article on artificial intelligence in the New Yorker wrote about how people who are suffering from loneliness are finding help from artificial intelligence. Some people can't help loneliness, not out of character defect but circumstance. It gets the reader thinking about the elderly, for example, who outlive everyone they've been close to, or it describes as worse, if those who remain are senile. Sorry to give away the ending but it suggests that for however it helps people who can't escape, it will create dependence in far more. The article is A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem: The discomfort of loneliness shapes us in ways we don’t recognize—and we may not like what we become without it. by academic psychologist…

July 15, 2025

Another sad reminder of our culture as it is: dumping garbage on memorials of our loved ones

Awareness / Perception / Visualization

Another sad reminder of our culture as it is: dumping garbage on memorials of our loved ones

I walked past what was once likely a planter bed filled with lovely flowers or maybe a tree. I presume it was something nice because someone installed a plaque that began "In loving memory of." Instead of flowers, a tree, or anything lovely or nice, the bed was filled with garbage. I've passed it before and seen it filled with garbage. It's nice to think that environmental problems haven't hit us yet, since then we'll act. What more sign do you need than that were desecrating our ancestors? Can you imagine what our ancestors from before plastic would have thought of how we honor our loved ones? I can't imagine them finding filling a space dedicated to love and memory of loved ones with garbage.…

June 6, 2025

If you pollute and deplete, make your peace with the consequences of your actions instead of accusing others of making you feel guilty

Awareness / Nature / Nonjudgment / Tips

If you pollute and deplete, make your peace with the consequences of your actions instead of accusing others of making you feel guilty

I've written before that if you do something that kills people and you don't want to kill people, you have to stop doing that thing, even if you like it. That sentence seems about as matter of fact as you can get. It's not designed to make anyone feel guilty. That polluting and depleting kill people isn't an open question. We all pollute and deplete. Come to think of it, wouldn't not feeling guilty be a problem? But I didn't start this post to talk about an old one. I started there to point out I'm not starting today to use the direct language of what polluting and depleting does (kill people) instead of the abstract talk I used before, since everyone else did, like:…

May 30, 2025

Ayahuasca and psychedelics: I propose an alternative if you want to learn about ego, life, the universe, and everything

Awareness / Doof / Fitness / Nature / Tips

Ayahuasca and psychedelics: I propose an alternative if you want to learn about ego, life, the universe, and everything

I don't know what it's like where you are, but in New York, people talk about psychedelic drugs a lot. Everyone is talking about microdosing (probably not as much as in California), going to shamans in Peru for ayahuasca, and so on. People describe the value of the experiences as life changing. I'm prompted by a recent New Yorker piece This Is Your Priest on Drugs: Dozens of religious leaders experienced magic mushrooms in a university study. Many are now evangelists for psychedelics, by Michael Pollan. He cites that "Ninety-six per cent rated their first encounters with psilocybin as being among the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives." I think we're supposed to think, "Wow, if I take some mushrooms I can…

May 27, 2025

Interesting trivial meditation story and book pictures

Awareness / Creativity / Stories

Interesting trivial meditation story and book pictures

I meditate first thing in the morning every day. I've experimented with apps, but found them distracting. I joke that the countdown timer on my phone is my app, set to 33 minutes. I start the timer, then sit down and meditate until it goes off. Why 33 minutes? I ramped up over time and that's where I've reached. I can usually tell around when the time is nearly up. When I started my legs would start to hurt after a few minutes. Now they might feel like they're falling asleep slightly near the end, but not much. Then while meditating the other day, my legs started hurting a lot. I couldn't understand why they hurt so much. Plus it felt like I was meditating…

May 19, 2025

“In the next 30 years, we’ll make four times more plastic waste than we ever have”

Awareness / Nature / SIDCHAs

“In the next 30 years, we’ll make four times more plastic waste than we ever have”

I hope I don't start a habit of posting references to articles, but it's hard not to share ones that say "In the next 30 years, we'll make four times more plastic waste than we ever have." That headline came from science.org, which referred to a journal article, Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made, from Science Advances. We're drowning in plastic. It doesn't break down on human time scales. According to this research, we've barely started. Plastic destroys life, liberty, and property, as do pollution and depletion in general. It seems to me government should treat it as it treats other activities that destroy life, liberty, and property, like murder, theft, and arson. Actually more like slavery, which the Thirteenth Amendment abolished…

March 7, 2025

Bigger distractions than BP’s

Bigger distractions than BP’s

People constantly cite BP's promoting personal footprints as a distraction. Nearly everyone who cites it acts like a know-it-all so I find them annoying. The main reason I find them annoying is they use it to justify themselves buying more of what BP sells. I wish more people understood how their minds rationalize and justify, but I'll write about that topic in another post. Today I want to point out two giant distractions more relevant than whether we attribute emissions to companies or the people who buy from the companies. Distraction 1: emissions distracts from extraction We shouldn't use emissions as the most important measure of greenhouse gases, but extraction. Burning wood doesn't introduce new greenhouse gases into the biosphere. Extracting fossil fuels does. I…

February 16, 2025

Why do people like hearing me share my vulnerabilities?

Awareness / Nonjudgment / Relationships

Why do people like hearing me share my vulnerabilities?

People like hearing me share my vulnerabilities. I'm not special. People like hearing anyone share their vulnerabilities too, but I noticed it this week about myself. At the beginning of this week, I thought about blind spots. We all have things we do or don't do, or know or don't know, and we aren't aware of the consequences differing from what we expect. Learning about them can help us improve our lives and relationship. This topic came up in conversation with a group of friends who help each other to grow personally and professionally. Could I find any of mine? Almost by definition, we can't see them, so maybe trying to find one's own blind spots wouldn't work. Others see them, though, so I thought…

February 7, 2025

What people mean when they say “We have to have a conversation about…” (hint: it’s not about having a conversation)

Awareness / Relationships

What people mean when they say “We have to have a conversation about…” (hint: it’s not about having a conversation)

I hear people say "we have to have a conversation about..." some controversial topic like racism, abortion, and the usual topics. Yet the controversy shows we're talking about them. So what do they mean if the conversation is already happening? What they don't mean While I can't read anyone's mind, I know they aren't saying they want to learn new views. They can learn by reading and watching. If they want to learn from people they disagree with, they can just ask, but they don't. Judge for yourself, but when people say it, I hear them coming from a place of self-righteousness, not humility or desire to learn. People who feel self-righteous don't feel they're lecturing or self-righteous. They feel they're helping people out of…

January 31, 2025

Why we feel so busy

Addiction / Awareness / Freedom

Why we feel so busy

Do you feel busy all the time, like no matter how much you do, you still have more to do? I used to feel that way, but less so now. I still have to pay bills, buy food, and so on. It's more that I recognized how our culture rewards companies and industries making us feel that way. Here's how. Advertisers have learned to manipulate our emotional systems, often better than we can ourselves. Once they know how to prompt craving, they can sell you something to stop it. Entrepreneurs and product developers won't say the following is their strategy, but it amounts to it. They look for emotions we feel, the stronger the more effective. Then they think of how they can excite it,…

January 7, 2025

Pollution, depletion, and overcoming addiction

Addiction / Awareness

Pollution, depletion, and overcoming addiction

My book Sustainability Simplified treats addiction in depth because it's so connected to our environmental problems. All of those problems result from our behavior. We aren't stopping behavior putting civilization at risk, harming people globally. Read the book for more detail, but I think you can see our dependence on polluting and depleting qualifies as addiction. If you want to overcome an addiction, whom do you ask for help: people who have overcome similar addictions or people who do it the most and don't stop? If you want to overcome a heroin or cocaine addiction, would you ask help from someone who has overcome a heroin or cocaine addiction or people who use the most heroin or cocaine and aren't even trying to stop? If…

December 4, 2024

Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures

Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures

I'm updating My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences in two ways. Cardio days First, in my 6-Day Exercise/Mindfulness Cycle, I'm changing day 6, which was "Cardio, at least 300 calories rowing or meaningful effort plogging, biking, walking, or climbing stairs." I did cardiovascular exercises for two reasons: To improve my heart and lung health and capacity To burn more calories Since around May, I've been experimenting fasting on day 6. That is, instead of burning more calories, taking in fewer. Doing cardio almost inevitably led to me eating more on those days, so exercising more wasn't in practice leading to getting rid of fat I didn't want. In practice, fasting is resulting in getting rid of more fat I don't want. As for heart…

October 16, 2024

Why do liberals consider political views they disagree with “wrong” but different skin colors and sexual preferences “diverse”?

Awareness / Models / Nonjudgment

Why do liberals consider political views they disagree with “wrong” but different skin colors and sexual preferences “diverse”?

People are going to read their preconceptions into what I'm asking, so if my question of this post seems provocative or you think it implies I'm promoting or espousing views, you're misreading. There's a pattern I see often. One example was last weekend at an alumni event at Columbia University. Former US Attorney General Eric Holder spoke. He's a Democrat and liberal. As best I can tell, so were most members of the audience. Between his talk and the questions from the audience, everyone valued diversity. When they promoted diversity, they talked about people with different skin colors, women in positions of authority, people from different countries, and people with different sexual preferences. I inferred from them that people's different identities along these lines were…

October 4, 2024

When you know someone will (mis)interpret everything you say their way, do you talk to them?

Awareness / Nonjudgment / Perception

When you know someone will (mis)interpret everything you say their way, do you talk to them?

The title says half of it: When you know someone will interpret everything you say their way, do you talk to them? The other half: What if they're your parents? No, I didn't just have a fight with a parent, but I do talk to a lot of people who interpret what I say as best I can tell based on preconceptions of what they expect someone talking about what I talk about to say. For example, if I suggest how for nearly all of human existence our ancestors lived with more equality and freedom than we do, they respond "You want to return to the Stone Age?" If you want, I can list more examples. The pattern reminds me of my parents growing up,…

August 4, 2024

A rare 360 degree rainbow in the middle of a sunny day yesterday

Awareness / Nature

A rare 360 degree rainbow in the middle of a sunny day yesterday

The title and the pictures speak for themselves, though can't capture the beauty of seeing it in person. Also, when you see a rainbow, pointing it out to people creates fun and connection. I was in Washington Square Park and I saw not one person see this rainbow except people I showed it too and the people who saw the joy and amazement in the people I showed it to. I saw a 360 degree rainbow from my rooftop a little over a year ago, also on a sunny day. I saw a beautiful rainbow near my home over a decade ago. How much natural beauty are we missing, too busy looking at our screens? I hope I didn't blow out my camera pointing straight…

July 27, 2024

Misunderstanding Hate and Humanity

Awareness / Leadership

Misunderstanding Hate and Humanity

I wrote last year about how We can’t turn off our emotional systems and we all share the same emotions, regarding NYU's likely well-intentioned but misguided posters decrying saying "hate has no place at NYU." I wrote then: To say “Hate has no place at NYU” seems like saying “Thumbs have no place at NYU” or “Spleens have no place at NYU.” We all have the wiring to hate. To say it has no place at NYU means no human has a place at NYU. To clarify: I understand they don’t mean it literally. I’m not trying to single out NYU. I hear these phrases everywhere. Overall, I’m confident I agree with their intended message, though I can’t be sure, since whatever they mean to…

July 18, 2024

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