In my search for good meditation tools I’ve come across alot of bunk, and a handful of really useful ones. ‘Noting’ is absolutely fundamental, but I just want to drop 2 other simple thoughts that my practice center around. Also, i have ADHD, so I can tell from experience the days I meditate are very different from the days I don’t.

• Yoga. If you can’t ‘get out of your head’, it’s because you’re ‘stuck in your body’. Yoga as USians call it is just the exercise portion of meditation training… yoga as a tradition literally means union. Some people legit CANNNOT get out of their heads, until they get some kind of somatic relaxing goin on.

• This one is deceptively simple, but i swear by it. Any meditation follows 2 rules (the 2nd of which is pm ‘noting’ like op is about)

1. Pick something repetitive (whether it’s a mantra, just your breath, or anything else; it doesn’t really matter)
2. When your mind pulls away see rule #1. ‘Noting’ is a more elegant tradition of communicating just this, but that’s it.

I think a lot of people try their hand at meditating without being told that first rule, including myself for a long time. I used to just sit there while my mind wandered, which simply isn’t meditating correctly. The proper state is cultivated by ‘noting’ (a la OP) all the thoughts that interfere with your ‘rule #1’ repetitive task. Eventually after enough practice, the mind becomes fully focused on the chosen #1, and you find yourself in a pecuilar state of identifying yourself in new and sometimes powerful ways (choose your own metaphysics)… and if your ego doesn’t start reshaping automatically you’re either already perfect, a narcissist, or meditating wrong, imho.

Sounds like harlan ellison’s “i have no mouth and i must scream” but in a lame chud way

I was trying to read Anti-oedipus by Deleuze& Guattari, but now I’m actually reading their “what is philosophy” since I was pretty fucking lost. Maybe not lost, but not exactly prepared for the density.

I’ve been saying all marketing is just black magick. Manipulation, lying, hypnosis, etc. Makes sense to me, anyway.

Unfortunately no, animal agriculture (& really therefore all agriculture, since most food grown on earth currently goes to feeding livestock) actually is the main culprit for greenhouse gas emissions. The oil & transport cartels are the reason theres too many cars, and the parking lots heat up entire cities by 20+ degrees. It’s a big part of it. Planes, and water shipping have impacts too. But yea, in a literal way agriculture is indeed the main driver of climate change.

Yea totally! Being able to point the blame somewhere accurately instead of internalizing our lack of success as some personal failure is pretty nice.

For starters it’s an offshoot of cognitive behavior therapy. So it’s not like analysis, it’s more like working through patterns and defining alternatives. The process of learning it felt like learning a skill, not being analized in that way. It was about gaining tools to do my own work. An example of how i use DBT is like when i feel like an imposter as an organizer i remind myself what i’ve accomplished already. Then boom, just from talking to myself i feel better, and as a bonus i used it to make myself more ready to revolt.

here’s a link explaining it better than i can.

Also, in general i agree with you comrade, just wanted to add that important nuance. Systemically therapy is a shit sandwich. All my therapists have been total libs too, but theyve also been nothing but encouraging and validating for me personally. Caution at the potential for abuse is very wise, indeed.

…and i agreed i was lucky to have a good one. Im confused by your statement, tho. DBT is a dialectical approach, not a contradiciton in itself. What? Pessimism v optimism is a mental health dialectic.

My point in the first place was a dialectic thought antithetical to yours. Not an argument, so we can chill. You basically said therapy here isn’t therapy its subjectivication, and i said sometimes therapy is good. Thats a dialectic contradiction. Synthesis? Idk revolution in healthcare.

I find this take problematic. Therapy suffers from capitalism obviously, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely useless or just a tool to subjectivate you. I think what youre saying is true, but incomplete. Therapy absolutely helps me be a better communicator and organizer, and always supported my activism. Granted i was lucky to find a good one. I’ve learned mental/emotional tools now that help me more than i can say.

I resent this aspect of capitalism as deeply as anyone. My fear about your take is it could dissuade people from getting help who really need some in the meantime, even with things as they are. It’s a bit too doomer for my taste, maybe.

Also, DBT is literally dialectics. That’s like…our whole thing. As a modality it even de-emphasizes the expert/patient relationship. I see it as a potential line of flight out of commodity therapy, personally.

I use it for myself all the time. Its the best medication free approach ive tried persoanally

I like the way you phrase “asymptomatically approaching normal” 👍. I think i know the feeling, almost like you have to iterate a brand new personality to interact with the world. Previous normal is just kind of shattered into fragments that inform the new normal, but there’s a real uncomfortable space in between.

Ive been “blessed” with many experiences i describe as spiritual.

Well, being around death was pretty cerebral for one. Felt sad obviously, but like a full awareness my life had suddenly changed. You sure appreciate things differently.

Psychedelics did (…or do?) the trick in my case, but your mileage may vary, what can i say. Buyer beware. I come away with profound insights that help me cultivate a sense of, or develop a “relationship” with, you know… the divine. It feels like a trip, man. And then afterwards life still seems to confirm its trippiness.

Magick is another thing i might say triggered a spiritual experience. My first real “spell” was a simple chaos magick sigil casting experiment, and it blew my mind. I had what felt like a full blown psychedelic experience from that, even though i wasn’t on anything.

Also, at the rehab i went to (p m unrelated, but not not part of my experience), they offered “Holotropic Breathwork”. The things i experienced in that state while totally sober were some of the most viscerally profound, and life-changing intensities I’ve gone thru. Far out.

Yoga & meditation are also good catalyst’s. I got those as tools in rehab, too. Even with shoddy commitment to them, they seem to continue deepening the whole syndrome.

Shit can still suck but u learn to roll with it, cuz we’re all one thing experiencing itself,… so i guess it’s fine. 🤷

The numbers on forearms used to keep track of holocaust prisoners used by the nazis… was a proprietary system developed by IBM for the nazis. Does that count?

Youre what’s for sale. When they log your biometric data, like images of your face, voice, or fingerprints, then sell that to a 3rd party, it’s literally the things that make you an individual that are up for sale. Neat huh