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Humor is a potent medicine.

It’s an interesting way of thinking, but I’m not sure it always applies. Look at what happened in the Laptop industry in the last few years for instance. Apple turned the laptop CPU design philosophy on its head by prioritising performance-per-watt (CPU performance per unit of electricity) above all else. Prior to that, Intel and AMD had sought to create balanced architectures with fair performance and fair efficiency (perhaps what you might call an 80/80 solution).

But by starting with a best-efficiency, low-performance solution — the ARM architecture — and then relentlessly pursuing performance-per-watt over successive yearly generations of chip design, Apple created a system that matched the performance of the very best at a fraction of the energy usage, and was able to offer Laptops that had truly great performance as well as all-day battery life.

It has taken AMD and Intel three years to respond, and create chips of their own that are starting to focus on efficiency. They are still lagging substantially however, and Apple is reaping the benefits of having started from a new micro architecture design with a lot of room to grow, and in those three years Apple have doubled the performance per core while still keeping the low power use of their systems.

Can you apply this philosophy to other arena’s, by starting with a best-efficiency, low-performance approach and scaling it up to become high-performance, and to in this way achieve a higher peak ‘work per unit of energy’ output? I’m not sure, but it sure feels possible.

This is my attempt to write down a way I've slowly developed/evolved to look at the world. I'm sure it will be scattered and incomplete.

Its based on a couple rough principles. First is the notion of low hanging fruit, that you can get say 80% of the juice with only 50% of the effort. To get the last 20% takes more and more effort with diminishing returns as you try to get 100%.

Second is somewhere along the lines of tradeoffs and balance. Power vs efficiency in a vehicle, for example. You can have a very powerful race car that uses large amounts of energy on one side and you can have a very efficient vehicle that doesn't really perform at levels that serve people's practical needs. Somewhere in the broad middle there are lots of places to find a balance that serves different needs.

Combine the two principles and theoretically you could spend 50% of your effort to get 80% of the performance attributes and 50% of your effort to get 80% of the efficiency attributes. 100% effort produces a 160% outcome.

Obviously the math is stupid, its only to point out a principle. Instead of putting all of our efforts into maximizing one value, we're better off dividing and integrating our efforts and intentions to achieve a whole that is greater than the sum of our efforts.

This basic philosophy applies to all sorts of things. Worldly life vs spiritual practice. Balancing time spent with family and friends, areas of knowledge, politics, on and on.

We live in a fairly specialized world, where an academic has to pick a discipline and spend all their efforts in one sphere to really get to the cutting edge. Where media (social and mainstream) specializes in delivering one thing, so when people want that thing they know where to get the best of it. I think this has certain benefits for society at large, but it also misses area where an integration of fields/values gives added benefit. I'd like to say more about how integrating differing areas can create something greater than the sum of its parts. I have an intuition that this can be true in many circumstances, but I haven't investigated and thought it through enough.

Anyway, its really only partially formed. I guess I'm saying I think you can get more with a balanced, integrated approach than an all in specialized approach. Though now that I write that I think it probably depends on the context. I think its good general worldly advice, but if your goal is enlightenment or curing cancer specialization and maximization is what is required.

I was just watching this on Netflix, and found it quite tough to get through. Mainly because it implies that we are being lied to on a grand scale. The docu sets out how modern brands use planned obsolescence and wasting to pump more product into the system without looking at the end-of-life of what they make. They spoil and throw any goods they can’t sell. Everything from shoes to clothes to electronics to food packaging to cars are not recyclable, and there is a kind of waste chain, where waste gets sent to places where people pay with their health to take them apart (because it is cheap). But the brands also hide their behaviour. Then there are large scale uses of greenwashing, the process of making token attempts at being “green” while in fact not caring and putting profits first.

Profoundly shocking.

I think all our thoughts are highly tied to our emotional state. Do we think about the future or the past? If we think about the past do we dwell on positive or negative memories? If our emotional state changes our thoughts change.

I think it could be thought of as a type of karma, propelling us into the next moment.

Ornaments for today's Christmas tree.

Perhaps, memory as emotional residue is just an observable effect for the meditator.
To the degree that it patterns how we respond to any phenomena, is the same degree that our freedom & potential spontaneity in that nanosecond is limited.
To the degree that it no longer patterns how we respond to phenomena is the same degree that phenomena can instead be met with equanimity.

A Merry Buddmas to all.

grace of time

event and time. in a moment an xperience happens. that x-perience collapse in our memory or dies down to our sobstrate/subconscious brain. depending on the effect of the x-perience it is forgetten or linger brought back to conscious awareness.

but the grace of time is buddha awareness. to resolve the e-xperience. if it was a positive experience accnowledge it. a negative experience forgive and learn that memory.yes time moves you fowared called grace of time heal a wound. with more awareness of time and change the past experience will continue change your human bodhi nature.

so i do a life review in the new year. what i regret what i can change. but during the bardo state there might be a life review like in near death experience. in an essense the three e state. the life review is enter, empathy, and enlighten your experience and the other persons emotional state.

so i try to be kind and nice to people now. if in my bardo life review i can expect how it affect my conscios aware state with no body brain process. it is amazing conscious space need no brain. samsara universe is wonders of wonders .ty Love giver sammy

Is there such a thing as control of thought and emotion? I doubt it; I think there is only transformation in response to insight and understanding. And perhaps there is also repression, which we might mistake for control.

Thus have I heard:

Through cultivating a friendship with awareness, practices like meditation (mindfulness in particular), we learn to either flow with or let go of our thoughts. As the saying goes, we are what we think... but we are not our thoughts.

In other words, the thought itself is the thinker, and the psychophysical phenomenon we call the self can become either the slave or the master of thought.

Ultimately, this depends on the depth of our awareness.

This intrinsically knowing aspect of awareness observes the arising and passing of thoughts.

Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object.
It is empty, and thus it can contain everything. It is boundless. And, amazingly, it is intrinsically knowing.

@Jeroen said:

@Shoshin1 said:
...And if our thoughts change so do our emotions...
It's part and parcel of the push me pull you puppet on a string (of thoughts and emotions) thing called living.

But what comes first, thoughts or emotions? I’m very much a thought-first person, I find that my thoughts arise in response to impulses from the world, and emotions come in response to thoughts.

I haven't been able to find a beginning. I think of it as falling into dependent coarising, like two cards holding each other up. Emotions give rise to particular thought patterns, thoughts direct and reinforce emotions.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change
By doing so, one's awareness takes control and can start to rearrange

Is there such a thing as control of thought and emotion? I doubt it; I think there is only transformation in response to insight and understanding. And perhaps there is also repression, which we might mistake for control.

From my perspective there is the control of conditioning, what we spend our time and energy towards is reflected in our natural tendencies. And there is the control of awareness, when we're aware that our minds are headed in a particular direction we can use that information to intentionally steer our thinking in another direction. We act from our values rather than react from our emotions. Much of CBT work is this sort of control.

You're right to be wary of repression. Mindful awareness gives us a third way outside of repression or embracing. We hold it mindfully and allow it to come and go.