Is living in the moment a privilege?

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TopHatFox
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Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by TopHatFox »

Thought this article was really thought-provoking:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opin ... pe=article

Most important point for me: It's like mindfulness has been bastardized into a strategy not only to increase productivity in high-stress environments (ivy college, investment banking jobs, the military, etc.), but to place the blame solely on the individual for their unhappiness rather than on both the individual and the system/external situation in which they live.

Incidentally, like many other privileges, mindfulness is still a highly useful one to practice/have. I do think I will tend ti employ it with the awareness that changing the external circumstance might be a more effective strategy for happiness than simply trying to "stay present" through difficult situations.

sky
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by sky »

Anything other than the present moment is an illusion.

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Ego
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by Ego »

People define mindfulness in a variety of ways. It is a tool. Like any tool, its usefulness is determined by how it is used.

It makes sense for companies to encourage their employees to pay attention to the present moment because, for the most part, they are paying people for their attention. There is also considerable evidence that a wandering mind produces novel solutions to problems. Depending on how you define mindfulness, it may seem that paying attention to the present moment and having a wandering mind are mutually exclusive.

If on the other hand, you define mindfulness as paying attention non-judgementally to where your mind wanders and getting curious about why it went where it went and how it got there, it can provide insight into how the mind works. Learning how a thing works can help to understand how it can be used for good and, alternatively, how it can be used to cause harm.

Amazingly, like a self-repairing machine, the act of watching how the mind works can also change how it works. Understanding that fact is certainly a privilege. Understanding that seeing the world through the privileged/disadvantaged duality can be both useful and harmful is itself a useful insight.

BRUTE
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by BRUTE »

insight: given enough time, humans will turn every idea into shit. like everything else they touch. mindfulness has been digested and shit out for at least 5 years now.

bryan
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by bryan »

@sky, more like a probability?

Well, it's certainly a skill and a privilege to be able to "slow down" and effectively notice, process state.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by ThisDinosaur »

@BRUTE
How did humans turn mindfulness into shit? It either is or is not a valuable thing. How does its popularity change that?

BRUTE
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by BRUTE »

ThisDinosaur wrote:How did humans turn mindfulness into shit? It either is or is not a valuable thing. How does its popularity change that?
by making apps about it, packaging it, talking about it non-stop, selling it, and promoting it on podcasts..

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by ThisDinosaur »

@BRUTE
Sure, its over hyped to the point of being obnoxious. That doesn't affect whether it works or not. To be clear, I'm lukewarm about whether mindfulness works for anything beyond placebo effect.

BRUTE
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by BRUTE »

also: can Olaz define privilege as meant here?

JamesR
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by JamesR »

"privilege" does seem to be the wrong choice of word here... What, underprivileged people can't live in the moment too?

bryan
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by bryan »

JamesR wrote:"privilege" does seem to be the wrong choice of word here... What, underprivileged people can't live in the moment too?
TFA says as much:
So does the moment really deserve its many accolades? It is a philosophy likely to be more rewarding for those whose lives contain more privileged moments than grinding, humiliating or exhausting ones. Those for whom a given moment is more likely to be “sun-dappled yoga pose” than “hour 11 manning the deep-fat fryer.”
But I prefer how I mean it, that the capability to live in the moment is a privilege, regardless of if you live a more privileged life, in general.

JamesR
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by JamesR »

Oh, I searched the article for 'privilege' but didn't notice that.

I notice that "living in privileged moments" and "living in the moment as a privilege" aren't necessarily the same thing (but that's just a quibble).

The author of the article doesn't seem to know what mindfulness is? Some moments being more rewarding than other moments doesn't really make sense under the whole school of mindfulness/vipasanna meditation/buddhism thing. Mindfulness is a form of detachment where you're trying to be "present" and fully aware of what you're experiencing, regardless if it's good or bad, happy or sad, no real value attachment to any of that - otherwise it'll take you back out of your 'present'. Mindfulness has some commonalities with stoicism in that sense.

P.S. "Mindfulness in Plain English" is free to read online, about ~200 pages, written by a buddhist monk back in 1991, and really is in plain english.

bryan
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by bryan »

Well yeah, I guess the Buddhists don't own the definition. One wonders why they chose it instead of "mindlessness" (marketing!). The detachment seems oxymoronic if the end result is being "fully aware of what you're experiencing". Seems more like a meta-attachment. But then again nirvanna sounds like actual detachment (emptiness)? I'm just nitpicking.. (and I don't read more into these stuffs than Wikipedia or blog posts, afaik).

Different moments being more or less rewarding seem evident, though. Unless you've already reached nirvanna.

I tend to think of mindfulness as being more in line w/ my original comment, being able receive input and acknowledge it (and maybe do some processing).

IlliniDave
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by IlliniDave »

I think it is the opposite. When survival is on the line, people revert to being completely present in the present. That's the appeal for some about things like free climbing and other relatively dangerous recreational activities. It forces you to focus all your attention on the present.

When there's no immediate threat to survival, we have the freedom/luxury to extensively, even excessively, muse about the past or dream about the future. Unfortunately, the nature of many people is that they obsessively dwell on the negative when looking forward or back.

And what sky said is correct. The past exists only as an electro-chemical imprint on your brain. Thoughts of the future are just speculation about things that may or may not make their way into the present someday. All we really have at any given moment is that moment.

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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by jacob »

IlliniDave wrote:The past exists only as an electro-chemical imprint on your brain.
Also the case for the present. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_trapezoid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_room)

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Ego
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by Ego »

Awareness Disclaimer: A critique of the fetishization of powerlessness follows. :lol:
.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/boo ... d-to-read/

“So much of the privilege conversation really is fancy people contemplating their own fanciness,” she writes. “Privilege awareness has become a status symbol.”

and

For admission to top U.S universities, “privilege awareness has become an essential competence,” Bovy argues. “An otherwise qualified applicant who demonstrates unchecked privilege is suddenly out of the running.” The trouble is that students who are truly disadvantaged are precisely those less inclined to declare their vulnerability. “Meanwhile, the students socialized to view themselves as deserving of special help tend to be . . . privileged.” This is an example of Bovy’s true beef with the privilege critique — that it exacerbates existing inequalities while offering the powerful the means to assuage their guilt. “I’ve never quite sorted out by what mechanism awareness of privilege is meant to inspire a desire to shed oneself of it,” she writes.

TopHatFox
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by TopHatFox »

That's really interesting: the fetishization of powerlessness. I wonder where the boundary is between noticing and pointing out inequity and simply glorifying our own advantages.

Perhaps then the better alternative is to quietly or briefly acknowledge advantages, and mostly focus our energies on creating a more equitable meeting space, room, college, and society. An excellent example of this is the concept of "white guilt", which is not productive at all, because it again places the debate attention on a group which as a whole has a large cultural advantage, rather than placing the attention on supporting native groups fighting for water rights via the Keystone XL, for example.

BRUTE
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by BRUTE »

Olaz wrote:
Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:44 am
An excellent example of this is the concept of "white guilt", which is not productive at all
this is why brute doesn't like the current Liberal "privilege" yelling strategy. "white privilege" is really just the absence of (certain) systematic negative discrimination. there's nothing wrong with not being discriminated against, and it doesn't mean that this group is benefitting off the back of the discriminated against. why not focus on removing the systemic discrimination instead of shaming those who got lucky?

this is obv. different for humans that actually benefit off of the discrimination of others directly, like slave holders. but those are all dead.

the privilege thing just leads to further and further fractions and splitting of groups into "privilege levels", and pitting them against each other.

here's an easy one: speak English? had food this week? privilege level: shitlord. there's roughly 6.5 billion humans less privileged than any who know the word "privilege".

vexed87
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Re: Is living in the moment a privilege?

Post by vexed87 »

http://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/book/ ... snt-money/

Here's an interesting argument from a book I'm currently reading. To sum up the point, thinking about the past and future are obsessive symptoms of our modern society, having abandoned hunter gather lifestyle (which according to the author was all about being in the moment). The shift to horticulture and later industrial agriculture made us dependent on storing capital for the off season. Nothing wrong with a bit of forward planning, but it's an interesting concept.

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