alt Hacker NewsYour brain is a prediction machine. I am afraid doing nothing is inhibiting that function. I think it's perfectly healthy to not want to be a vegetable. Maybe using that life force to focus on the things you're avoiding by rumination and escapism is good enough, and we don't have to be cosplaying the dead to get there?
Replies
Sure - no real argument but it's maybe worth examining the assumptions underlying this which you know exist because you say 'maybe' and 'I am afraid ...'. Accounts abound as to why 'doing nothing' is not necessarily a negative activity. If you're in good health, sometimes absolutely passivity after having drunk in the fact that 'For a while I am alive and consciousness in this inexplicably incredible universe and it's a massive privilege' is extraordinarily beneficial for the times you are not predicting.
> Your brain is a prediction machine
It's not.
> I am afraid doing nothing is inhibiting that function
It isn't.
> I think it's perfectly healthy to not want to be a vegetable
Not having an opinion about everything for 3 minutes != vegetable.
The author of the post is selling what he himself doesn't understand. Paying attention to your inner chatter without judgement is part of a much broader tradition. Westerners stealing bits from cultures they don't understand is nothing new. Neither is the polarizing fascination/dismissal it entails.