msaltz

Yeah that’s fair, that’s why I put the “or arrange things in a certain way” - imo wanting to be observant of thoughts and sensations is a choice one makes that implies a value judgement, i.e. that it’s “better” to to be observant of thoughts and sensations, which I don’t think is necessarily true. For instance if I consider the best conversations I’ve had, it’s because I was “lost” in conversation - just having the conversation, not even aware that that’s what I’m doing. To me being nonjudgmental doesn’t mean viewing something and having a neutral view of it (which is still a judgement), it’s being entirely free from judgement by not being apart from it. This way when you’re judging something (“ugh I don’t like this coffee”) there’s no problem with that either.

All that said I think if someone wants to choose to meditate, or to spend time being aware of feelings or whatever form of meditation they choose, they’re totally welcome to do that. And I agree that if you do that, it’s helpful to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

This is a great point. This is why I don’t meditate :)

It became clear to me at some point that meditation was another way I was creating some standard for good or bad, and comparing myself to it. Would be annoyed at myself if I weren’t “mindful enough” etc. I think even if you don’t have this tendency, but you’re still meditating with the intent to be in a certain state or arrange things a certain way, you’re still doing a minor version of this - how I was before, not good, how I am now, better.

What I do now instead of meditating is to just sit without doing anything on purpose. I don’t try to prevent myself from thinking or direct my intention in any way. So I just am as I am - maybe my mind wanders, maybe it doesn’t. This way there’s no contradiction. When I’m anxious, I’m anxious. When my mind wanders, it wanders. When I think about cheese, I’m thinking about cheese. If I think “I’m feeling kind of present right now”, then there’s “I’m feeling kind of present right now”. And before I know it, it’s something different

This version of doing nothing IMO is still “doing something”. It’s clearly not “just existing” to have a standard that you must hold still, not look around the room, not engage in thinking, notice how you’re feeling, etc.

It’s clear when you see the picture of the cat in the article that the cat has none of these concerns.

I’d consider this to be a form of meditation - still containing ideas of “this, not that”.

Something that has felt much more rewarding to me is to really just exist, but without any ideas of being present, or things you must do or not do. I just sit and take a break from doing anything on purpose. My mind might wander, or it might not. When it does “wander”, and I realize that it’s been wandering it almost feels like a miracle - how is this thing doing this on its own? But that’s not really the point either. Whatever is here now, is here now, whether you notice it or not. And by the time you notice it, it’s gone. So what difference is there between thinking and not thinking?

Thanks! I’m most proud of those. Glad you liked them :)

Hello! It probably doesn’t make much of a difference now that the post is flagged (I assume that it has something to do with people thinking it’s an ad?) but just for the record, I really didn’t intend this as an “ad”. No one asked me to write this and I didn’t plan on writing it. It basically happened just how I described it - I went home, had some extra energy, wanted to build something that needed both 1) an LLM to help me build the thing and 2) an LLM to use within the thing I was building. So I decided to try the Modal endpoint bc it was top of mind and I didn’t want to upgrade my Claude account. Had I not thought it was cool I would not have written about it, but what made me write the thing wasn’t “Modal is cool”, it was the feeling I describe in the post. I was a little worried it might come across as an ad and considered removing the links but figured, “oh well”. It was a nice plus that it involved the company I’m at doing something cool, but that wasn’t really the point. In any case, I’m glad some people found it interesting, and maybe this was flagged for some other reason, but thought I might as well respond, even if I may not convince anyone :) Possibly even given the above it’s not HN-appropriate somehow but I thought that the sentiment might be appreciated

I love her. Listening to her album sounds like you’ve opened a time capsule that’s been left undisturbed for years. It’s so unique and the lyrics are so lovely. Talkin’ Like You is my favorite.

“I don’t stand in the need of company / with everything I see talkin’ like you”