Everything must be measured. Food. Water. Weight. Sodium intake, serum sodium levels, potassium intake, serum potassium levels, calcium intake, serum calcium levels, bi-daily symptom inventories and ADL-based quality of life surveys. I'm all in favor of the quantified self but this is just out of hand. Been eating mostly like a rabbit to recalibrate my taste buds to a lower sodium diet. Whenever I'm free to eat as I please, a salad always sounds like a good idea, but when my options are limited I come to resent them. Meditation last night was... Different somehow. I've been in a rut for a long time now with regard to my practice and last night felt like a return to the first time I touched on the phenomenon of 'watching the watcher' that's so commonly described in Buddhist and Daoist practice. I am now familiar with this, but there was an unfamiliarity to last night that felt like what I might loosely term 'progress.' Short version - I reaffirmed that I don't want to be an asshole to myself constantly. When I am being an asshole to myself, it is a reaction to a feeling of utter scarcity. 'There isn't enough, and the weak will go without. There is never enough, and the weak will go without. You are weak, you will go without' It isn't who or what I am, or what I believe. Meditation has to one degree or another showed me that I am not the angry, judgemental, disappointed thoughts that sometimes (Often) occupy my brain. It's not a solution, but it's a start.
Thinking big is a fundamental source of conflict in my physical environment. Almost everyone around me fails to understand my points (though I am aware and am honest in acknowledging I have many obstructions to remove on my own behalf to better establish this self-centered understanding of such conflicts). Meditation has brought me as much pain as it has brought me peace of mind. It's all relative to my environment. I am not a god, nor am i above having to eat, hydrate, and shit like everyone else on this planet, but a lot of people lose sight of the basics. In my development in the realm of self-reflection, I have found I was doing it far more than the majority of people at a young age. It has left me as an outsider, but I was relatively well insulated through the habit of self-reflection, though it came more in a critical perspective. Tweaking my mindset wasn't so challenging after I noticed how much harder I was making it for myself married to an objective-based resolve to everything. Nothing of much worth in life ever comes easy. This is a fundamental viewpoint to all the hair-brained conspiracy theory jargon that rewards me with the many a label... I digress. Addressing oneself will never equate to others doing the same. We're all different... but we all need to eat, shit, and hydrate. Therfore: life is a struggle, no matter how you script it. People are going to flow -like water - down the path of least resistance, especially when the direction has been artificially constructed to avoid an obstacle. But hey, thats what followers do... all too well. Anyone who takes a moment to study Chi Kung, or simply developing one's senses - maybe it starts with simply the breath... Will immediatly encounter resistance at some point. I found it more often to be the strength of habit.
It might. I recommend mindfulness to most everybody regardless of what they are dealing with, or aren't dealing with. The first exercise is to sit in silence for a few minutes and watch your breath. Just observe your inhalations and exhalations. See what happens.
No one wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror as they brush their teeth, and tell themselves "Today, I'm going to be a jerk." :)Meditation has to one degree or another showed me that I am not the angry, judgemental, disappointed thoughts that sometimes (Often) occupy my brain. It's not a solution, but it's a start.