[Aaron Poochigian]

I have no regrets about bringing poetry to a wider audience.

[Quincy Lehr]

“Mindfulness” helps people... treat systemic overwork in a sociopathic economy with an eviscerated safety net as an essentially psychological problem, and the professional-managerial class to regard doing so as a sign of virtue!

[Julie Steiner]

My parents spanked me for biting my nails to calm myself, in the absence of better coping mechanisms. I don't think nail-biting was the source of my problems, Quincy. I think you are similarly choosing the wrong target here.

[Roger Slater]

Even if that's accurate, Quincy, if mindfulness actually makes people feel better, it's a much more accessible palliative than fixing the sociopathic economy, so maybe it's worth practicing until your words are heeded and capitalism becomes a relic of the past. But I also think it's pretty silly to suggest that the only obstacle to peace of mind that people face is economic.

[Quincy Lehr]

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/corpo...rser-interview

[Mark McDonnell]

Sorry to pile on, Quincy. Mindful meditation is a good thing whatever your stress levels and whatever the cause of them. It needn't be mutually exclusive with active engagement in the outside world or attempting to change it.

Its current faddishness can be annoying but the practise itself can't be blamed for that.

Edit: we cross-posted and I think I kind of anticipated your objections.

[Mark McDonnell]

I totally get what the Jacobin article is saying about the cynical adoption of mindfulness by corporations. But it seems strange to hear the interviewee, a practicing Buddhist apparently, describe its benefits as "probably no better than going walking in the woods or going for a jog". Done properly, not as a goal-oriented thing, it is the key Buddhist technique for enlightenment. Its current, annoying ubiquity in boardrooms shouldn't lead one to throw the 3000 year old spiritual baby out with the corporate bathwater.

https://www.wired.com/2017/08/the-sc...ss-meditation/

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

if mindfulness actually makes people feel better... maybe it's worth practicing

Of course. As Mark has pointed out, it doesn't mean not trying to fix the system.

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

until your words are heeded and capitalism becomes a relic of the past

Quincy hasn't (in this thread) advocated for discarding capitalism, and it's dangerous to believe (as I see, maybe inaccurately, implied in your wording, RogerBob) that improving the system requires impossible-to-achieve reforms.

Originally Posted by Quincy Lehr

sociopathic economy

Well put.

[Julie Steiner]

Funny how poetry and poets seem to have opposite effects on my stress levels. I wonder if anyone's done a scientific study.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Funny how poetry and poets seem to have opposite effects on my stress levels.

Ha!

You lower my stress level, Julie. I think it's your mindfulness.