What stimulates your intellect? What tickles your cortex? What gives you a mind-boner? What keeps you interested in life?
I'm interested in how you guys keep on top of your game and generally just work-out your mind.
First contributions -
I love reading philosophy, and especially listening to awesome philosophy lecturers/podcasts like Rick Roderick or the Partially Examined Life.
I like to write down random thoughts whenever inspiration hits and elaborate on them later on. Trying to explore a question down to its innermost depths (there's always more ways to go).
I like to go on midnight walks and pick out the shadows and lights of the world. We live in a fucking masterpiece of architecture. It's in the trees. It's in the way the light falls. It's in the patterns of chaos as they fracture the degrading synthesis of cement and concrete. Until you open your eyes you never realised all you saw was the inside of your eyelids. Most people live in a daze - be the one who sees.
Another great thing to do is ask questions as much as possible. If the curious mind has been quelled in you (we are all born as bundles of pure curiosity, just watch any child for 5 minutes) as is often the case in this society where dogmatism is not only acceptable but expected then deliberately try and deconstruct this. Question everything, and try to dwell within the question without jumping to any conclusions. This is greatly uncomfortable for the primitive aspects of our minds. To it, uncertainty = unsafety. In the animal kingdom, certainty is required as the basis for any action, and action can be the difference between life and death.
We are, it seems, on a very deep level, conditioned to tend towards dogmatism over open-mindedness. Yet something in us goes beyond the other animals; we have the power of abstraction. We can abstract ourselves from the situation and engage in a meta-evaluation of the interaction between our behaviour and our environment. This stepping back, this abstraction, this deep questioning allows us to alter our own behaviour and establishes a feedback loop directly into this behaviour; as opposed to the animal whose behavioural feedback loop is tied solely and directly to the environment via instinct. This is all to say that it is possible, nay, imperative, to go beyond the mechanical dogmatism of our ancient forbears and realise what it truly means to be human - and that is to question.
In order to germinate and cultivate the questioner once more, you need a certain perspective on your own mind and thought process. The best way I know of achieving this is through a consistent meditation practice, which is incidentally another great way to stretch your mind-muscle. This to me is far more foundational than any nootropic.
The basic structure of meditation is as follows;
- Sit or lie down in a comfortable position, if sitting keep your back reasonably erect to aid focus
- Release tension progressively throughout the body. Tension in body = tension in mind and vice versa. If one is tense so will the other be. Pay particular attention to the face and throat area as slight muscular contractions and strain occur when you subvocalise. A cool way to decrease the mind chatter is to specifically relax these areas.
- Begin to focus your mind to a single point by engaging your attention with a spot just below your navel. This begins the process of misidentification with the conventionally considered 'mind'.
- The focus should be light, not heavy. Think holding hands not clenching fists; firm but relaxed.
- If your attention wanders, as it inevitably will, guide it gently back to the object of your attention.
- This is a process of purification. This process does not reside in the stillness, it follows from each successive return of attention. This is the training itself, so do not be discouraged by it.
- Fight nothing that arises. Antagonism is tension - Relaxation is unity.
- Do this 20 minutes a day for at least 3 weeks and you will notice profound benefits. Search pubmed or simply people's experiences over time to find voluminous amounts of research and anecdotal reports on the subject.
Well that's about it for now. So now lets hear about how you keep your mind healthy!
