When Michael Pollan traveled to a cave in New Mexico to try to understand consciousness, he learned what good meditation is really made of. 'The recipe was simpler (and much less appetizing) than I would have imagined,' he writes: 'To transcend the self, force yourself to be alone with it long enough to get so bored and exhausted that you are happy to let it go.' As Pollan intuits, this practice isn't all that fun at first. But by the end, you get somewhere that makes it all worth it. Deep, existential thinking is a little like exercise, Arthur C. Brooks wrote in 2024: We might avoid contemplating big questions because of the short-term discomfort, but in doing so we ignore the bigger payoff. You can schedule deep thinking into your life in the same way you would a workout, Brooks argues: Take time out of the day to meditate and consider meaningful ideas, or go for a morning walk without your devices to spark contemplation. Today's newsletter explores these and other ways of turning...
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