I know some very nice cops.

I think that the ui designers aren’t clear on what exactly they are designing.

A good ui has like 5 branches at every node.

About the vax.

When did pharma companies become our trusted friends?

Ditto the government.

Am I the only one alarmed that almost literally everybody swallowed the official narrative hook, line and sinker?

What’s the contraction of “UI is”?

What’s up with that person flipping him off?Kinda harsh.

I do zazen too. Or rather Shikantaza. Nice to meet you.

I have strong opinions on the subject. Yes. But I try to be empirical about it. We can do that. That’s guaranteed common ground.

(sorry. Nevermind. Satire conveys badlyin this medium.)

Heck yes!

Yes scant and born of conventional thought. You talk like a guy who just finished reading a pop-psychology book on meditation.

And your retort consists of “well no kidding” (so we agree, right?) and “it isn’t a grand cosmic revelation” (or “deep philosophical mystery”) (which I didn’t say at all).

Look, if your reality consists of what you see, circumscribed by what you don’t see, and attention draws that line, then yes, I’d say that “axis of reality” characterizes that nicely.

And if your attention is bound by, say, a thousand habits, and meditation removes those habits (temporarily, messily, in the case of drugs), replacing them with intelligent action (a flying-like freedom, one might say), then yes, “wings” fits nicely too.

As for the difference between drugs and meditation. You are splitting hairs. I’d call the one splashing on the shore and the other going for a swim. Same ocean tho.

But you think I’m overstating it and my metaphors are overblown, well, that’s just your opinion and there is a strong possibility that our experiences simply differ.

Meh. Your view is born of merely conventional thought and scant experience.

Here’s better.

Meditation is a thing that you do with your attention (aka awareness, sati… depending on who you talk to).

By attention I mean what you direct when you pay attention, what do you concentrate when you concentrate and what gets jerked around when you are distracted.

Attention is the axis of your reality. Its action determines what is visible and invisible, what is important and unimportant. Its shape determines your perspective.

We basically have 2 forms of meditation. 1) a refined form of concentration 2) sortof the opposite.

Drugs influence the attention via the flesh. Like a rough road bounces the driver by bouncing the car.

Meditation addresses the attention directly.

Drugs are limited the way any device is limited. It is crude the way any dumb machine is crude. It is weak as all dumb things are weak. Weak borrowed wings

Meditation is not limited this way. Meditation shows you your own wings and then you pump up those wings and make them strong.

Gimme your better explanation please.

Elevated mood combined with strange perceptions.

Or, to explain by example. You ever used weed, cocaine or shrooms? It’s in that general vicinity.

To the passenger it’s all about the exotic destination. To the pilot it’s a whole world of weather, physics, mechanics, skill and discipline. Not to mention a whole dimension of destinations never mentioned in the vacation advertisements.

The pilot gains not just an exotic trip but an expanded perspective and understanding. An expanded world. That’s a big difference.

The smile at the end makes all the difference.

I think that people who have experience with drugs are good candidates for learning meditation. Autists, spergs and ADHDers too.

Drugs are like an airplane ride to an exotic destination. Meditation is like getting a pilot’s license.

Well it gets me high. It’s a standard result of meditating. Some even warn us to not get carried away with the high.

And yes, drugs, like meditation, alters my awareness. Not saying they do it exactly the same way but yes, the same stuff, altered.

Well meditation gets me high.

And meditation, like drugs, alters my awareness.

I’ve been meditating for a while. And I’ve done a variety of drugs. So I speak from experience.

Meditation, like drugs, gets you high and changes your perceptions.

Meditation, unlike drugs, takes effort and practice. It’s also way way smoother. And there’s no ceiling.

And here’s a thing. Consider the act of concentrating your attention. The control, clarity and depth of perception that it brings. It’s something that we all use. Every scientist, engineer and artist uses concentration as his main tool, without which none of that would be possible. Concentration is the backbone of our culture.

One meditation technique (we basically have 2) takes that further. It takes that awesome power of concentration to very deep and strange places. Magical even. But still, it’s just that same old familiar magic that we all depend on, just taken further.

(Therefore, if you respect science, technology and art, then you must pay equal if not greater respect to a further venture into the depths of concentration. Right? I mean, that follows)

And then there is another meditation technique too.

Meditation doesn’t get you high?

Drugs don’t alter your awareness?

Goddammit. It makes me want to do drugs

So you’d sacrifice individuality? That’s a good scifi one.

If The internet gets good enough with chips in our head and everything. I guess that’s what we’d basically have. Access to each other’s memories and senses. Just ghosts and an internet of flesh