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Eric is Awake

The Anonymous Citizen

Notes from a fleshy tube of chemicals in UK Inc.

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Meditation for Misanthropes

8/18/2013

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Listening, not for the first time, to celebrity ex-addict Russell Brand expound upon the merits of meditation and how world leaders should all practice a daily cleansing dose of Transcendental Meditation to improve the planet and all its ills, I am reminded to pass on the tenets of a more pragmatic philosophy increasingly pervading the ranks of the less karmically inclined. The ones who bought all this New Age stuff and tried traditional meditation only to find they yinged when they should have yanged.

The best way to practice the radical mindset of Inconsequential Meditation is to find an actor whose vocal style most resembles Charles Bukowski, Kurt Vonnegut or Sylvia Plath and get them to record the following text in a slow, dolorous voice to assist you with your daily meditation.  

“Now find your meditation posture. This can be cross-legged and upright in your local park, in the foetal position in the bed of a stranger you met only last night or slumped on a couch in the small hours. Take deep cleansing breaths. Concentrating on your breathing, calm your raging emotions and find your place in the Universe. Do not attempt to find your centre. You are not at the centre of anything. You are barely on the edge of a periphery. You are one segment of a Higgs Boson particle in one universe amongst an infinity of universes. In the great scale of all that exists, you don’t even qualify as a speck. You aspire to be a speck, an ambition that will never be realised.

You are not at one with the universe. You aren’t even a pimple on the arse of the universe. The universe has no interest in you. If the universe stepped on you on the way to infinity, your lifeless stain would not be remarked upon on because eternity is unaware of you. You. Don’t. Matter. And because you don’t matter, nothing matters. Your rage at the parking ticket, your frustrations at your work, the emptiness or turbulence of your relationships or your lack of them, your aches and pains, grief and loneliness, your impending death. All will pass into nothing within the briefest sliver of time on a river of eternity that will wash away your existence so that no trace can be seen because you were barely a trace in the first place. Now you know your place. Now you can find your purpose. Take a deep breath through your mouth and slowly release it through your nostrils over the following thought. You are here to unlearn everything you have been taught. You are here to fill your tiny segment of forever with as much sensation as you can cram into our lives. You are here to suspect widely held beliefs, shibboleths and Godheads. You are here to experience everything a fleshy tube of chemicals is capable of feeling. And you are to remember at every stage that if the Universe does not care about you, you can ignore it. You have your own Universe. You are at the centre of it. You decide whether it is a selfish or an altruistic place, where kindness reigns or tyranny prospers. You are in charge and you are mad with power.”

Repeat daily. The misanthropic meditator, like Brand, aims to become a better human being. But there are many routes to Nirvana and we who take the route of ‘No one Mindsfulness’ don’t even have Nirvana entered into our Sat Nav. We are on our way to nowhere and we can’t wait to get there. Have a nice day.


1 Comment
Omi
8/25/2017 01:35:08 pm

This is the most wonderful thing I have ever read. Thank you.

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    Dom Shaw is the author of 'Eric is Awake' and also a fleshy tube of chemicals working as a writer, scriptwriter and filmmaker in the UK. Was a boy, now a man. He lives.  

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