I just want to express that this blog has SERIOUSLY improved my own well-being! In particular the post "The Way You Think About Value is Making You Miserable". (In fact "well-being" seems like an understatement, it's more like "fantastic-being", "wondrous-being", "extraordinary-being"...)
You've helped me internalize how much we should appreciate our circumstances in life, and actually turn that appreciation into practice. I've taken to heart and put into practice your lessons like "I constantly enumerate the goodness of the world around me" and "My default utility gradient is +173,000 Terrawatts" and my emotional states have not only become much, much, much more positive, but more controllable as well.
I've got some visualizations that I hope you enjoy. The main one is that I now consider myself a "cloudwalker" - where ground is "neutral emotion towards present moment", underground is "negative emotion towards present moment", and the sky is "positive emotion towards present moment", I find myself walking in the clouds much more often than not - and not just in the clouds, but HIGH in the clouds, supported by the bliss of extreme gratitude.
One exercise is to LOOK AROUND THE ROOM and simply imagine how many different people's hands went into creating all the objects we have. Try it! Just look at each object around you one-by-one and at least start to imagine how many people have contributed to bringing it to you. It's positively mind-boggling how much effort has been expended to bring us the comforts we are surrounded with. So I take time to appreciate that! I call this exercise "Many Hands Push Us To Heaven", with the visualization that if you ever need a boost up into the sky to become a "cloudwalker", just look around the room and imagine all those countless hands of the countless people who have contributed to our affluence pushing us up in the air so we can walk among the clouds.
An outward-facing exercise is "Dancing Into the Clouds", which is a public display of joy and exuberance that jolts other people out of their previous mental state and puts a smile on their face. Imagine someone playfully dancing in public, full-on stupid grin on their face, encouraging onlookers (without pressure or even words) to join into the silly fun. The visualization is that the cloudwalker comes down to the surface to pull surface-dwellers up into the clouds.
These thoughts are still developing (your blog post that inspired them is only a couple months old) but I just wanted to let you know that I've really gotten a lot out of them! Everyday activities like walking to the store, making food, really everything, can become rapturously sublime celebrations of the circumstances we find ourselves in. So, thanks!!!!!!!!!
Loved your 'look around the room' appreciation approach! Very profound, & further bolsters the notion of how utterly connected we all are.
I was once working on my dad's old Volvo - & ended up accessing the sort of device which one would rarely end up interacting with (bulb-failure warning relay - very buried) - & wondered, as I removed it - who, which human - placed that there, decades ago? Where are they now? How were they in their mind & in their life at the time. I am interacting with them right now, through their work a lifetime or two ago - I wish them well right now, little do they know!
So glad I discovered you before you left the stage for however long it will be! I wish you all the best with the next phase of your life, and thanks for your departing monologue, which happens to be just what I needed to read today.
Well there's no such thing as eternal life and no such thing as an endless summer. You can't retire from being yourself. Time to come back, Mark. Return to the control room of that lovely craft you sail through the most interesting regions of the noosphere and take us readers along with you for the ride.
Only found your blog 2 weeks ago. Sad to see it stop, happy for your calm resolutions. Reading you was a great joy, and the limpid expression of your views on life gave me comfort and hope. You made me genuinely experience more gratitude and trust, and I now feel some reconciliation between the honest quest for truth and a humble, reverent attitude toward the world. Thank you, and all the best.
Good luck, Mark. I've greatly enjoyed your thoughts. Stay in touch down other channels. (Yes, being mentally as well as physically present with your family is an excellent priority that too many people neglect. You are choosing wisely. Enjoy it...)
I'll be sad to see you go. I enjoy your writing a lot -- this blog consistently surprises my worldview. I'll be looking forward to reading your blog if it returns!
P.S. 'complex ideas have a million stupid cousins' has become a standard part of my reasoning toolkit
I just want to express that this blog has SERIOUSLY improved my own well-being! In particular the post "The Way You Think About Value is Making You Miserable". (In fact "well-being" seems like an understatement, it's more like "fantastic-being", "wondrous-being", "extraordinary-being"...)
You've helped me internalize how much we should appreciate our circumstances in life, and actually turn that appreciation into practice. I've taken to heart and put into practice your lessons like "I constantly enumerate the goodness of the world around me" and "My default utility gradient is +173,000 Terrawatts" and my emotional states have not only become much, much, much more positive, but more controllable as well.
I've got some visualizations that I hope you enjoy. The main one is that I now consider myself a "cloudwalker" - where ground is "neutral emotion towards present moment", underground is "negative emotion towards present moment", and the sky is "positive emotion towards present moment", I find myself walking in the clouds much more often than not - and not just in the clouds, but HIGH in the clouds, supported by the bliss of extreme gratitude.
One exercise is to LOOK AROUND THE ROOM and simply imagine how many different people's hands went into creating all the objects we have. Try it! Just look at each object around you one-by-one and at least start to imagine how many people have contributed to bringing it to you. It's positively mind-boggling how much effort has been expended to bring us the comforts we are surrounded with. So I take time to appreciate that! I call this exercise "Many Hands Push Us To Heaven", with the visualization that if you ever need a boost up into the sky to become a "cloudwalker", just look around the room and imagine all those countless hands of the countless people who have contributed to our affluence pushing us up in the air so we can walk among the clouds.
An outward-facing exercise is "Dancing Into the Clouds", which is a public display of joy and exuberance that jolts other people out of their previous mental state and puts a smile on their face. Imagine someone playfully dancing in public, full-on stupid grin on their face, encouraging onlookers (without pressure or even words) to join into the silly fun. The visualization is that the cloudwalker comes down to the surface to pull surface-dwellers up into the clouds.
These thoughts are still developing (your blog post that inspired them is only a couple months old) but I just wanted to let you know that I've really gotten a lot out of them! Everyday activities like walking to the store, making food, really everything, can become rapturously sublime celebrations of the circumstances we find ourselves in. So, thanks!!!!!!!!!
Loved your 'look around the room' appreciation approach! Very profound, & further bolsters the notion of how utterly connected we all are.
I was once working on my dad's old Volvo - & ended up accessing the sort of device which one would rarely end up interacting with (bulb-failure warning relay - very buried) - & wondered, as I removed it - who, which human - placed that there, decades ago? Where are they now? How were they in their mind & in their life at the time. I am interacting with them right now, through their work a lifetime or two ago - I wish them well right now, little do they know!
So glad I discovered you before you left the stage for however long it will be! I wish you all the best with the next phase of your life, and thanks for your departing monologue, which happens to be just what I needed to read today.
Well there's no such thing as eternal life and no such thing as an endless summer. You can't retire from being yourself. Time to come back, Mark. Return to the control room of that lovely craft you sail through the most interesting regions of the noosphere and take us readers along with you for the ride.
Time to come back.
Stunning piece of writing. Your reflections on life and writing are truly inspiring
Only found your blog 2 weeks ago. Sad to see it stop, happy for your calm resolutions. Reading you was a great joy, and the limpid expression of your views on life gave me comfort and hope. You made me genuinely experience more gratitude and trust, and I now feel some reconciliation between the honest quest for truth and a humble, reverent attitude toward the world. Thank you, and all the best.
Sorry to see you go!
I love the quote from your younger self. Best of luck on your journey.
Good luck, Mark. I've greatly enjoyed your thoughts. Stay in touch down other channels. (Yes, being mentally as well as physically present with your family is an excellent priority that too many people neglect. You are choosing wisely. Enjoy it...)
I'll be sad to see you go. I enjoy your writing a lot -- this blog consistently surprises my worldview. I'll be looking forward to reading your blog if it returns!
P.S. 'complex ideas have a million stupid cousins' has become a standard part of my reasoning toolkit