☕ saturday mornings - september 2, 2023

needing each other, consolation & meditation mutiny

Happy Saturday!

I hope you’re having a beautiful start to your weekend.

August is over. Wow. Summer has slipped by and now fades into Fall.

What I’ve been up to:

• I spent my final few days out west with family, visited the spa of the Banff Springs Hotel (fancy right?), and went on a pretty intense hike, summiting Cirque Peak at 3,000m elevation.

• I flew back to Toronto, went to the CNE with my Mom, and then got back to business. It's nice to be back in routine after two weeks without much writing or work. Book stuff with Noah is ramping up, and I have travel plans to iron out and some big essays to write.

Here are the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.

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✍️ quote i’m pondering:

An email from Steve Jobs, sent to himself, on how much we all need each other:

"I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being."

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📚 book passage i loved:

“Do not think that the person trying to console you lives effortlessly among the simple, quiet words that sometimes make you feel better. His life is full of troubles and sadness and falls far short of them.

But if it were any different he could never have found the words that he did.”

― Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

I tried to capture the same idea in my essay on The Illusion of Writing.

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💡 idea from me: meditation mutiny

This year, I’ve leaned into meditation more than ever.

For a four-month stretch, I was meditating 30-45 minutes a day and even did a full-day in-home meditation retreat.

Last week, I was talking to my Uncle about my plans to go on a 10-day silent retreat.

He asked if it would be good for me. And I said "yes, I think so".

Then he asked if meditation is one of those things that you do for decades. And I said "yes, it requires consistent practice over your lifetime and the truly transformative experiences seem to require thousands of hours".

And then he asked what if I took those thousand hours and instead did charity work? Think of the impact I’d make on other people (a lot more than sitting cross-legged on a cushion)? And wouldn’t I get the same effect? A transcendence of the self? Forgetting myself and how much I think I matter? And I said "yes, that’s a pretty good point, I’m gonna write about that".

I’ve noticed how meditation feeds into itself. The most avid meditators I know only want to meditate more.

I have a friend who said her first 10-day retreat felt like "a single snowflake out of a thousand." Her three years of in-home practice before was nothing. Inconsequential.

I’ve experienced how meditation can be isolating. Create distance, separation. I’ve seen it happen to others.

I have another friend (crazy right?) who meditates two hours a day and has done several silent retreats. While he seems fulfilled and calm and spiritually attuned, I’ve noticed his growing alienation from the world. How it has become increasingly impossible to resonate with other people, including his family, when he occupies such a different plane of consciousness. I admire him but it also makes me a bit sad.

I’ve learned how deep meditation can go. Sensed it myself.

At Rabbit-hole-athon, one person studied cessation experiences: “the end of thought or feeling”. The meditator can effectively disconnect their mind, turn consciousness off, and enter a trance-like state. With “a total absence of sensation and awareness.” With no concept of space or time. For many hours (some for six days!)

At times, spirituality feels beautiful and true and inviting. Other times, it scares the heck out of me.

Full of wonder and mystery but infinitely complex and seismically above my head.

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❓ question i’m asking:

Did the person actually tell you no or did you just assume they would?

I'm great at fabricating fictional "no's".

One benefit of working with Noah Kagan is I've gotten much more comfortable just asking for things.

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📸 photo of the week:

Summit of Cirque Peak in Banff National Park & looking like a literal caveman

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With love,

Tommy