Thomas

“Children don’t see the world, don’t observe the world, don’t contemplate the world, but are so deeply immersed in the world that they don’t distinguish between it and their own selves.” - Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn

What did Huxley believe would bring about this dystopia? Not a global world order or a charismatic despot: “The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.”

“By paying a certain kind of attention, you can humanise or dehumanise, cherish or strip of all value. By a kind of alienating, fragmenting and focal attention, you can reduce humanity – or art, sex, humour, or religion – to nothing. You can so alienate yourself from a poem that you stop seeing the poem at all, and instead come to see in its place ... See more

Equanimity helps us see the world with spacious awareness – and that is a world from which we feel less divided. When we feel most separate from the world, that is when we experience most profoundly all the limiting conditions from which we seek relief: anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, boredom and meaninglessness. Equanimity offers a path th... See more

Wandering is thus intrinsic to the operation of equanimity. One opens toward being affected by things as yet unexperienced or unknown. The world becomes an expansive horizon of possibilities.

An equanimous subject is ready to meet the world on its own terms.

Equanimity is best recognised by its inherent mobility of perspective-taking. As a mode of perception, equanimity is on the move, looking over things (internal and external) with hovering attention. Equanimity is not about serenely settling. It is not averse to the presence of judgments, just to their rigidifying. It ranges over whatever may appear... See more

Equanimity, in the sense that I describe it, is not predicated upon changing anything. It lacks prescriptive value. It ‘disarms’ nothing, converts nothing, and does not necessarily end in compassion and kindness. Its basic function is simply taking up views in relation to anything and everything . It works additively, supplementally, not subtractiv... See more