An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence. By Maria Popova Wisdom on overcoming the greatest human frustration from the pioneer of Eastern philosophy in the West. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard wrote in her timeless reflection on presence over productivity — a timely antidote to the central anxiety of our productivity-obsessed age.
Indeed, my own New Year’s resolution has been to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. But what, exactly, makes that possible? This concept of presence is rooted in Eastern notions of mindfulness — the ability to go through life with crystalline awareness and fully inhabit our experience — largely popularized in the West by British philosopher and writer Alan Watts (January 6, 1915–November 16, 1973), who also gave us this fantastic meditation on the life of purpose. If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.”
Thanks, Ken. Taming the Mind : A Conversation with Dan Harris. (Photo via h.koppdelaney) Dan Harris is a co-anchor of Nightline and the weekend edition of Good Morning America on ABC News. He has reported from all over the world, covering wars in Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq, and producing investigative reports in Haiti, Cambodia, and the Congo.
He has also spent many years covering religion in America, despite the fact that he is agnostic. Dan’s new book, 10 Percent Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story, hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Dan was kind enough to discuss the practice of meditation with me for this page. Sam: One thing I love about your book—admittedly, somewhat selfishly—is that it’s exactly the book I would want people to read before Waking Up comes out in the fall. Dan: I was incredibly skeptical about meditation. Sam: Rarely has the connection between yoga and child abuse been illustrated so clearly. Dan: No doubt. 25 Things You Need to Stop Wasting Time On. “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”
―Benjamin Franklin This morning I received a thank you email from a reader named Hope. She said our blog and book helped motivate her through an arduous recovery process following a serious car accident last year. Although her entire story was both heartbreaking and inspiring, this one line made me pause and think: “The happiest moment of my life is still that split-second a year ago when, as I laid crushed under a 2000 pound car, I realized my husband and 9-year-old boy were out of the vehicle and absolutely OK.”
Dire moments like this force us to acknowledge what’s truly important to us. It’s hard to think about a story like Hope’s and not ask yourself: “What do I need to stop wasting time on?” Here are some things to consider, that I’ve been examining in my own life: Your turn… Truth be told, the most important decision you will ever make is what you do with the time that is given to you. Related. The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) Existence is elsewhere. — André Breton, “The Surrealist Manifesto” 1. The Juice David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology, was perusing the 1996 World Almanac. In a section called Offbeat News Stories he found a tantalizingly brief account of a series of bank robberies committed in Pittsburgh the previous year.
From there, it was an easy matter to track the case to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, specifically to an article by Michael A. At 5 feet 6 inches and about 270 pounds, bank robbery suspect McArthur Wheeler isn’t the type of person who fades into the woodwork. Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. In a follow-up article, Fuoco spoke to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler’s arrest. (a) the film was bad; (b) Wheeler hadn’t adjusted the camera correctly; or (c) Wheeler had pointed the camera away from his face at the critical moment when he snapped the photo.[2] ERROL MORRIS: Why not? 1. 2. Unboxed - Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social - NYTimes. If you happen to be reading the book on the from , Mr. Wallace’s observation has an extra emphasis: a dotted underline running below the phrase.
Not because Mr. Wallace or Mr. Lipsky felt that the point was worth stressing, but because a dozen or so other readers have highlighted the passage on their Kindles, making it one of the more “popular” passages in the book. Amazon calls this new feature “popular highlights.” It may sound innocuous enough, but it augurs even bigger changes to come. Though the feature can be disabled by the user, “popular highlights” will no doubt alarm Nicholas Carr, whose new book, “The Shallows,” argues that the compulsive skimming, linking and multitasking of our screen reading is undermining the deep, immersive focus that has defined book culture for centuries. Mr. Thus far, the neuroscience of multitasking has tended to follow a predictable pattern. To his credit, Mr. But Mr. Mr. The problem with Mr.