Unhappy Wanderers

The importance of mindfulness — the mastery of one’s attention, and the practiced ability to maintain conscious awareness of our subjective experience in the present moment — is a major principle of Buddhism, Sufism, the Gurdjieff work, and, I suspect, just about every esoteric system of inner development. (I’ve mentioned it before, for example here and here.)

A new study showing a correlation between “mind-wandering” and unhappiness supports the view that there is genuine value in mindfulness, for those who had any doubts.

Here.

5 Comments

  1. I thought this was funny — first, we read:

    “The study tracked 2,250 people via the trendy iPhone gadgets using an application, or app, that contacted volunteers at ‘random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or something else that was pleasant, neutral or unpleasant.'”

    And then we read:

    “Subjects reported being happiest while having sex, exercising or having a conversation.”

    That would suck, being paged during sex. I wonder whether the subjects were allowed to respond with an “I was happy… until you fucking contacted me.”

    Posted November 12, 2010 at 7:21 pm | Permalink
  2. Malcolm says

    Yes, QM metaphors pop up everywhere, it seems! Talk about disturbing the system you’re trying to observe…

    Posted November 12, 2010 at 10:28 pm | Permalink
  3. JK says

    My thoughts on reading this wandered where Kevin’s seem to’ve. But, I should probably contribute something, seeing as how I’ve not commented recently, unhappy at the prospect ya’lls minds might be wandering, worrying I might be dead or something:

    “If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” Albert Einstein

    Posted November 13, 2010 at 1:06 am | Permalink
  4. Hmmmn! Perhaps I should have a shot at that that Buddhism stuff because if indeed it does help “the mastery of one’s attention, and the practiced ability to maintain conscious awareness of our subjective experience in the present moment” I would be able to remember where in hell I left my specs – which I do approxiamtely six times a day!

    Posted November 13, 2010 at 4:33 am | Permalink
  5. Sorry, I drifted off . . . what was your point again, Malcolm?

    Jeffery Hodges

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    Posted November 13, 2010 at 4:33 pm | Permalink

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