Workaday thoughts

It’s been lovely getting feedback on the Audible documentary I did on meditation and neuroscience.

Listening back to the edit, it’s really fascinating to hear my dynamic with Ash Ranpura growing, and reflect on the process of getting to know someone through a shared project.

I’ve also enjoyed working in a team, after many years of being a lone wolf. I was very disillusioned by working in a corporation, and I’ve always found it hard to build the kind of creative connection you need for a proper from-scratch collaboration, but the documentary dynamic has worked very well for me.

Having producers to organise (for example) the interviews and structure of the show, while not being asked to say anything I don’t mean, or represent my ideas in any way other than those that come naturally is a good mix for my work ethic. It feels like a supportive framework for creative thought, rather than a restriction of it. A sonnet, rather than free verse, if you like.

Also, deadlines are my friend.

The one thing that I didn’t like about the whole project was the final artwork that was chosen by someone further up the line. I think it doesn’t serve the purpose we spoke about with the exec producers for the series, which was to offer a more... pragmatic, data driven assessment of meditation.

We were aiming to appeal to people to whom the idea of meditation seems a little fuzzy edged; self indulgent borderline luxury mysticism rather than practical tool-maintenance. To separate the utility of mental discipline from the aesthetic of instagram sunsets and dream catchers.

Some of that work has been done by the Silicon Valley and IDW types; your Sam Harris types and the health-data, 4-hour-work-week, quantified-self-self-improvement gang, but that can be just another brand of aestheticism, and can also feel like a high lifestyle bar to clear.

It would be nice to see meditation in the same sort of framework as going for a walk - a way to clear your head, to get your blood moving, to get some distance from your problems in a way that’s easy and instinctive. To be a useful resource that doesn’t fall into the (ugh) self care (ugh) trap; something you can do to make your life better that doesn’t feel like an advertisement of a curated self.

Do you meditate? Do you feel like you should, or feel a reluctance to buy into it? Let me know.

Xx

A