television

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May 7, 2016

On Buying TV With Meditation

Posted by Nathen under meditation, television
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I’ve been watching more TV than usual this year. The recent crop of comic book shows got me, starting with Agents of SHIELD, then Daredevil, then Jessica Jones, and finally The Flash (trying to lighten things up). I loved comic books as a kid, collected Daredevil, Iron Man, The Hulk, Defenders, and some X-titles. I hear people complain about all the big budget superhero stuff, but I love it–so much fun to watch, and they generally do justice to the comic books.

But these TV shows are dark! After one particularly dark Jessica Jones (S1E9), I stopped watching everything to rethink. I realized that watching dark TV shows is the opposite of meditating. With meditation I observe my internal reality, as objectively as possible, in a way that decreases anxiety. When I watch dark TV I’m taking in someone else’s fantasy in a way that increases anxiety. It’s fun, but sometimes so creepy or scary or gross that I’m conflicted about watching the next episode, and when I do I’m sincerely hoping it’s not as f***ed up as the last one.

I’d been wanting to meditate more anyways, but hadn’t been finding time, so I decided to start buying solo TV time with meditation time, 1 for 1. (My wife is not into dark or comic books.) I counted up and I’d watched 27 hours (!) of TV since the first of the year, and meditated 8. So, 19 hours of meditating before any more TV. That was on February 20th.

It’s working out great so far. I’m carving out way more time to meditate, both in small chunks between clients or case notes, and in larger chunks in the mornings and evenings. And I’ve had no problem abstaining from solo TV watching, possibly because of having less time to carve out for it. I have not watched a single minute of solo TV since February 16, even as episodes of Agents of SHIELD began to pile up in iTunes.

I sat down to finish this post today, May 7, recounted, and found I’m up to 27 hours and 34 minutes of meditation so far in 2016. Ten more minutes and I can watch an episode of SHIELD…

One last point, for meditators only: I’d almost always meditated with a timer: set it for 30 or 45 minutes or whatever and sit until it went off. This seemed important because I didn’t want my stopping point determined by my inner state. I didn’t want to stop because I got too uncomfortable, for example, or to stay at it until I’d achieved a certain level of comfort. I was a bit nervous the shift to using a stopwatch would be bad for my meditation. So far, though, it hasn’t been a problem at all. I can meditate and stop meditating without mind games, and just feel glad I took the time.

 

May 2, 2010

My Mom’s Prescription for Hyperactivity

Posted by Nathen under advice, affection, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Benjamin Lester, children, Darlene Lester, family, nature, parenting, reading, stimulants, sugar, television
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My mom sent me this in response to my posting the diagnostic criteria for AD/HD yesterday. She’s not a health care professional, but she did raise five boys. Since I’m the oldest I got to see her do it. I also got to benefit from her love of nature (and sending us out into it), reading to her kids, being affectionate with her kids, making nutritious food, and her skepticism of TV and traditional schooling. And many, many other things, like her faith in her kids. The first thing they told us in my class on psychopathology was that we were not to diagnose ourselves, our friends, or family, so I won’t, but I suspect that all of us (except perhaps Ben) fit the diagnostic criteria for AD/HD for periods of our young lives. She wouldn’t even feed us sugar, much less amphetamines, so it’s not like it was a close call, but thanks, Mom, for not feeding us stimulants!

Here it is:
“Be forewarned, this takes effort on the parent’s part!

“Here is my humble prescription for hyperactivity in children (who, by the way, are usually boys): First, TAKE HIM OUT OF SCHOOL!! Live in, or move to, a rural area. (Or at least make sure there is a wild area, like woods or a meadow, nearby). Each day, after he has slept as late as he wants to, feed him a highly nutritious breakfast that contains no sugar, no additives, no colorings. Just whole foods. Then, send him outside to play in nature. Make sure he gets plenty of sun exposure. Make sure he has some of these things: trees to climb, grass to lie in, rocks to scramble on, water to swim or wade in, wildlife to watch, dirt to dig in, and bushes to hide in. (Create a beautiful outdoor environment for him if your outdoor area is naturally very stark.) Make sure he has plenty of water to drink. Let him roam freely. At lunchtime have him come in for another nutritious meal of whole foods. No sugar. Only water to drink. After a cuddle and as much attention as he wants from you, send him back outside to play in nature. Let him play as long as he wants. When he wants to come back inside, he can be read to or told stories, he can play or read quietly, or he can just rest while listening to soft classical music, or take a nap. No TV. No computers. No gameboys… no screens of any kind. Nothing with headphones. Then, back outside to play until the sun goes down. Back in for another nutritious meal, and then he is put in the bathtub. He plays in the bathtub for as long as he wants (an hour or more in very warm water is good). Then, he has a bedtime routine (thorough teeth brushing and flossing- you do it if necessary- and then jammies). After that he gets read to for a LONG TIME in bed…an hour or more is good… until he is sleepy. Make sure he has plenty of hugs and cuddles and kisses and loving words as he drifts off. Follow this prescription every day until his hyperactivity is cured. By the way, this routine could be of benefit to “normal” children, as well. It works for calming and soothing and centering and bringing color to their cheeks, and a more cheerful attitude in general. And, I’d go so far as to say, adults should try it, too… to cure whatever ails them.”

 

March 19, 2010

Birth Dearth

Posted by Nathen under babies, birth dearth, family, feminism, fundamentalism, Long Now Foundation, Philip Longman, population, predicting the future, Stewart Brand, television
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I have spent my entire adult life worried about overpopulation. What is the carrying capacity of Earth? At what point will we have a massive die-off? Will there be anything like wilderness left by the time that happens? Enough biodiversity left to adapt to climate change in a way that will be tolerable for humans? Etc etc. Just look at a chart of human population growth and it’s clear that we are in the upswing of a human version of the algae bloom/die-off.

And maybe we are, but I just listened to two Seminars for Long-Term Thinking focused on population, Stewart Brand’s “Cities and Time” and Philip Longman’s “The Depopulation Problem” and I’m thinking differently about it now. It’s looking very likely that our population has doubled for the last time, and most of the rest of our population growth is going to be in old people, not babies. People are living longer and having way fewer kids.

There are a few reasons for the radical shift in population-growth rate. First is urbanization. People are flocking to cities in massive numbers, and in the city, kids are no longer an economic asset like they are on the farm. In economic terms, if you are in the city, you are probably better off without them. Second is feminism, or at least it is a phenomenon feminists are in favor of. Women are getting educated, working, and more in control of their reproduction, so they are having fewer babies. (This is arguably another result of urbanization–if you’re on the farm, women are most economically valuable for making babies. If you are in the city and kids don’t matter so much, why not have that second income?) Third is television. Philip Longman called this phenomenon “TV taking the bandwidth out of the bedroom.” Birth rates are inversely proportional to hours of TV watched. This may be because it is urban, small families that are idealized in TV shows.

Stewart Brand’s version of the story is the more optimistic: Perhaps this means we humans have a shot at long-term survival after all. City living is greener than country living–way smaller ecological footprint per person. We still have to weather the population peak without ruining the planet as a habitat for ourselves, which will be no small feat, but at least there might be light at the end of the tunnel!

Philip Longman’s version is pretty depressing: The only population group able to withstand this small family trend are those who are highly principled, anti-materialistic, and dogmatically in favor of big families: religious fundamentalists. Liberals are a dying breed. Fundamentalist populations are burgeoning. The future looks very conservative and patriarchal. And, since we can now tell the sex of our kids before they are born, it means we will have fewer and fewer women–that is to say, more and more females will be aborted. This is already happening in China, where the sex ratio has reached 6 men for every 5 women. With women a scarce resource plus a highly patriarchal society, and the outlook for women’s freedom does not look good. On top of that are the economic problems that come along with an aging population with fewer and fewer workers to sustain it. We are about to get a small taste of that with the retirement of the Baby Boomers. Over the next 100 years that situation will be global and on a much bigger scale. The poverty and desperation that will produce will put ecological concerns on the sidelines, making Stewart’s version of the story unlikely. He advocates governments giving incentives to have kids, but says that it hasn’t worked at all in countries that have tried it.