There is no try.....

[andrewducker]

Once again, Joe has made me think.

He asks why I'd want to shortcut through the 30 years of meditation, and isn't that a bit lazy.

To which, having thought about it this morning, my answer is "Yes. It's lazy." But it's not something I'm particularly interested in doing.

It's an answered question to me as to whether I can train my brain to do things with a little effort and a fair amount of time. I've done it unconsciously ever since I was born, and consciously on a few occasions, to see how it works. since then, learning has pretty much lost its attraction to me.

Not that I don't like learning, because it means that I know new things, and understand better, but learning isn't an end in itself to me any more; knowing and understanding are the ends (and in some ways, just understanding - since the internet came along and made knowing pretty much irrelevant when I've got access to large chunks of human knowledge, memory tricks have become about as interesting as sleight of hand tricks - fun to see, but more fun than useful and not really important. The only time I'm really interested in knowing stuff is when I don't have access to the net, or it's an item of knowledge I use on a regular basis).

Anyway, having become unenamoured with learning, I'm not terribly interested in spending 30 years getting somewhere that I want to be.

I think of it like playing the piano - I'm not terribly interested in the years of practice spent training in how to place the fingers just right, learning to read music (again), etc. I want to make the music in my head appear outside of my head. Everything else is just stuff I have to wade through to get to that point.

If I could have a plug-in marked "Know how to play piano" I'd be downloading that sucker right now.

And then I'd get to say "I know Cho-Pin" and all my friends would hit me with sticks.

Comments

piano

[(Anonymous)]

"Not that I don't like learning, because it means that I know new things, and understand better, but learning isn't an end in itself to me any more; knowing and understanding are the ends (and in some ways, just understanding -
...
I think of it like playing the piano - I'm not terribly interested in the years of practice spent training in how to place the fingers just right, learning to read music (again), etc. I want to make the music in my head appear outside of my head. Everything else is just stuff I have to wade through to get to that point."

Being -able- to play the piano which is what you seem to want to download and -knowing- how to play the piano are different. I can make guitar-like sounds with a synthesiser, but I know nothing about guitars. I understand nothing about guitars. I mean really, all you seem to want is the illusion of knowledge. You want people to -think- that you can play the piano while in fact you're sitting there with no thoughts while your fingers do the work. Or am I misinterpreting?

A brainwaving changing machine lets you watch and change your brainwaves. Whoopee. 30 years of meditation lets you change watch and change your brainwaves because you're on a higher plane of existence. You -understand- what you're doing, you're not just pushing buttons while looking back and forth at the FAQ of alt.fan.brainwavechanging and hoping there are no typos.

Re: piano

[andrewducker]

You want people to -think- that you can play the piano while in fact you're sitting there with no thoughts while your fingers do the work.

Nope, not even slightly.

I don't care what people think. I want to be able to make cool noises on the piano for my own amusement. I don't care what the mechanics of the piano are for its own sake. I don't care, particularly, about the history of the piano. I want to make cool sounds that I enjoy. That's pretty much the be all and end all of it.

Re: piano

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

I agree, I never wanted to understand music, I just wanted to make a pretty noise. Unfortunately I suffer from a condition called stubbyness.

Gordon