The problem is centuries and millennia are but fragments of time compared to the entire life of the universe...so it's kind of like the ant analogy of a colony in San Fran looking for one in Paris, but only looking from 2:10 pm and 5 seconds to 2:10 pm and 5.1 seconds. Even less than that, probably.
More like a padawan mind trick...pretty transparent, if you ask me. You're right, "brothers and sisters" had me rolling my eyes as soon as I read it. Not to mention all those articles saying he sold his shares of Zynga right before the layoffs..
I disagree. The problem lies in the definition of "passion," which a lot of people take to mean that it's going to be some sort of thrilling, meaningless underwater basket weaving. In reality, combining interest and hard work can lead to more fulfillment than simply drudging in and out of an 8-hour work day to collect a paycheck. When a person simply believes that they're working for a paycheck, their satisfaction will tend to decrease, as the paycheck starts to seem smaller and smaller with regard to the amount of time they're putting in. 8 hours a day is no small chunk of one's life. It also doesn't have to be the most fulfilling time in a person's day, but to say that having a passion for your work is a BS ideal (and to attribute it to baby boomers at that) is oversimplifying the issue.
That said, you're completely right that living a normal life is not enough for some people. These people will tend to be either extraordinary or extremely depressed, all the while thinking they're normal/below normal.
>In reality, combining interest and hard work can lead to more fulfillment than simply drudging in and out of an 8-hour work day to collect a paycheck.
And how will that work to fill societies needs for waiters, garbage disposal guys, cleaning ladies, supermarket clerks, miners, clerks, accountants, etc etc? There are tons of jobs where almost nobody has a "passion" for. At worst people follow them because they need to feed themselves, at best because they feel they can do that line of work competently and make a decent buck. No passion involved. They still need to be done.
You'd be surprised by how passionate waiters can be about their jobs. None of these claims are universal, and not everyone can be passionate about their jobs. I agree that society needs garbage men (and garbage men actually get paid quite a bit), but that doesn't mean that for those of us who have more of a choice/desire to find fulfillment in work we should completely ignore the idea of seeking such fulfillment because some others choose not to.
Why apply free market tactics to a service that is almost certainly necessary for everyone in their lifetimes? If anything, I feel like that would make things more expensive because this is a resource that people can frequently NOT decline (at the risk of losing their life) because the cost is too high. People are essentially a captive audience, so that's where regulation should ideally step in to keep costs down. Obviously that's not working, though..hmm..
I did the "attractive women" thing (took a hit for the team, for science) and that was absolutely true. The odd thing was, the first random girl I clicked on was this girl I kinda had a crush on in college (all my "People you may know" recommendations were from college, even as I'm three years out) who happened to be Asian. Then...all of the "Also Viewed" were fairly attractive, well-groomed Asian women. Isn't that interesting? I thought at the very least it would break me out of race, but apparently they're their own class.
The other thing I'll say is perhaps this author is tapped out of "People you may know" and LinkedIn is simply guessing . Mine looks fairly reasonable, random, and not like they were digging particularly deep.
It's funny that you say all of this, because I think it's completely true. I've never tried mushrooms, LSD, or any sort of hallucinogen beyond MDMA. MDMA alone changed my life, but what followed was how I utilized that moment of awareness that I experienced. I started meditating, read The Power of Now by Tolle, and having had enough of a philosophical and meditative foundation for understanding what Tolle was saying, I can occasionally enter a realm of understanding far beyond the shallow experiences I had lived in my life up to that point. It's so true when you say that reality is so much bigger than you think, because once you realize the ridiculous amount of depth that goes into every single thing around you (even the room your in contains materials built by dozens of people from across the world - think of how long it takes you to cook breakfast in the morning) then everything in your life begins to take on a sense of perspective.
That said, I really want to try mushrooms/acid because I feel like I'm at this midway point, bobbing back and forth between the awareness of meditation and the power of the present and slipping back into old thought habits and anxieties. I feel like a pokemon evolving, flashing between my old form and my new form and my ego keeps wanting to hit B to stop the evolution. :P
Cool! If you can, try mushrooms or acid with people coming with that intent. The setting and your intent going in matters. Best if your guide is someone who treats this as a sacred rite.
Something else that complements vipassana well is the method described in Tsultrim Allione's Feeding Your Demons.
I was just thinking about this recently. Our generation is so fucked. Tuition rising, fewer jobs, recession, social security not going to be there when we get older, the first true tax increase for every American (payroll tax, we all felt it to the tune of 2% on our first paycheck of January) since the mid-90s, and now the retiring generation is saying "Welp! It's up to you to fix it! Good luck!" Assholes.
