I still sort of feel like I’m hunting for a really practical “cashing out” of the benefits I guess.
My turn to list some benefits:
A sense that more is possible: a greater appreciation of mindspace, and better knowing what it’s like to not have all of your thoughts and emotions bent by needless affective judgment.
Being more the person I want to be. (Especially for the 30 minutes after meditating, but also in life generally; though I’ve been leveling up pretty fast lately so it’s hard to attribute my better general dispositions to meditation per se.)
As a cause and effect of both points above, wanting to be more the person I want to be: trying harder to be awesome. No, not trying: just being awesome. Actually thinking hard for hours at a time instead of just having my thoughts lazily drift around hypothetical scenarios or transient environmental factors. Actually striking up conversations with cute girls when I go out. Creating a framework for reasoning about the effective acquisition of meta-level dispositions for acquiring new and awesome skills and dipositions. Establishing goals and targets, creating a path for myself so that I can keep my growth going, hopefully in recursive fashion. Fluidly and reliably going meta and then connecting my meta-optimizations to my actual next action. (I think telling people to ‘just fucking do it’ as a general rule is damaging: a lot of effort is wasted on suboptimal work. Meta-optimization is always a better call if you can do it right.)
Not flinching away from thoughts or ideas. Internalizing the Litany of Tarski. (Not entirely; I think that’s an Enlightenment thing. But still, I’ve improved.)
Gaining an appreciation of the cognitively low-level existence of confirmation bias.
Gaining an appreciation of the constance and strength of affective bias.
I’ve noticed that going meta (which I take to mean thinking or intuiting about whether what I’m doing makes sense in terms of my goals in such as way as to lead to appropriate action) is a distinct mental state.
I’m not sure where to go with that except to ask whether it seems that way to other people, and for any further thoughts on the subject.
That’s interesting; I’ve found myself to be quite groggy for at least the few minutes after meditating. Takes me a little while to get back into the real world. But I’m also still new at this.
My turn to list some benefits:
A sense that more is possible: a greater appreciation of mindspace, and better knowing what it’s like to not have all of your thoughts and emotions bent by needless affective judgment.
Being more the person I want to be. (Especially for the 30 minutes after meditating, but also in life generally; though I’ve been leveling up pretty fast lately so it’s hard to attribute my better general dispositions to meditation per se.)
As a cause and effect of both points above, wanting to be more the person I want to be: trying harder to be awesome. No, not trying: just being awesome. Actually thinking hard for hours at a time instead of just having my thoughts lazily drift around hypothetical scenarios or transient environmental factors. Actually striking up conversations with cute girls when I go out. Creating a framework for reasoning about the effective acquisition of meta-level dispositions for acquiring new and awesome skills and dipositions. Establishing goals and targets, creating a path for myself so that I can keep my growth going, hopefully in recursive fashion. Fluidly and reliably going meta and then connecting my meta-optimizations to my actual next action. (I think telling people to ‘just fucking do it’ as a general rule is damaging: a lot of effort is wasted on suboptimal work. Meta-optimization is always a better call if you can do it right.)
Not flinching away from thoughts or ideas. Internalizing the Litany of Tarski. (Not entirely; I think that’s an Enlightenment thing. But still, I’ve improved.)
Gaining an appreciation of the cognitively low-level existence of confirmation bias.
Gaining an appreciation of the constance and strength of affective bias.
I’ve noticed that going meta (which I take to mean thinking or intuiting about whether what I’m doing makes sense in terms of my goals in such as way as to lead to appropriate action) is a distinct mental state.
I’m not sure where to go with that except to ask whether it seems that way to other people, and for any further thoughts on the subject.
That’s interesting; I’ve found myself to be quite groggy for at least the few minutes after meditating. Takes me a little while to get back into the real world. But I’m also still new at this.