The feeling masturbating, problem-solving, reading, engaged in delightful conversation, and competition have in common is the silence of peripheral thoughts and the loss of time awareness. These effects come about from achieving a singular state of mind i.e. the mind is focused on one thing.

Achieving a singular state of mind is vital to being virtuous, but only when done through will. This state is attainable through will in many ways, many of which have been outlined by Hinduism. In my previous posts on Hinduism, I write about the different yogas. All of them in effect help to achieve a singular state of mind. You’re an emotional person who does everything with their heart? Religion and/or community is your answer. Devote your heart to a God or Gods, to a figure, think about them with your every action; before you eat, sleep, shit, shower, talk to another person. If you’re an inquisitive intellectual person, you must have an intellectual pursuit of some kind. Something to quench your erratic mind. Writing, problem solving, art, any kind of intellectual or creative outlet. To add in my own observations, if an emotional person doesn’t have that figure or community, they become a Karen. If an inquisitive person, doesn’t get a playground for their mind, you get a self-pitying midlife crisis off-putting middle-aged in teen fashion passive-aggressive snarky superficial unprincipled person, call them Albert. I don’t arbitrarily portray both these archetypes as middle-aged people. The younger Karen was likely surrounded by company; their pride in youth and social connections was enough for their young minds. But age can reveal the fickleness of these things. The younger Albert was devouring the world’s intricacies in college, grad-school, building their technical career, doing projects. But with age, and especially in a non-intellectually fulfilling job, their minds will lurch out with its one-hundred limbs onto easy dopamine triggers, a hedonistic lifestyle. Hedonistic living is a cheap way of temporarily grasping a singular mind-state, by the command of your primality rather than your will. Something common to Albert and Karen is an inferiority complex. They haven’t devoted themselves to anything and have nothing meaningful to show for their 50 years on earth. The patterns described above is them coping. A Karen in a strong religious community, crafts club, etc. or an Albert that is a researcher, author, surgeon, avid reader, etc. have their identities rooted in something and have clear, confident identities. A geyser of qualities spews out rather than generic traits when prompted with that person’s name.

I think having a confident self-image leads to everyday virtue (not intense moral questions molded by culture), the kind described by Rudyard Kipling in “If”. An insecure person falls apart in those ways and falls to backhanded coping mechanisms unconducive to everyday virtue.

I can only hope I don’t turn out in the ways I’ve seen some of those around me have. I feel disappointed hearing the pointless lies, the superficial bravado, the pedantic bickering, the material distraction, and the snark remarks in attempts to maintain flimsy facades. I say all this as if I have the existential high ground above a cesspool of sham, but I also realize I could very well end up slipping down there.

I don’t like to speak in generalizations, writing all of this felt incredibly icky to me, but doing so has helped me relieve some recent incessant frustrations toward certain people. Frustrations that begin to fester the longer they’re in your system. So, I’ll just make sure to qualify by saying all of this is anecdotal and in no way definitive.

We like singular mind -> we’re stardust -> space is expanding -> big bang theory -> singularity -> universe nut? Sounds awesome. The ai singularity? -> we’re currently sperm in testes -> technological nut incoming.