Reverie Alone Will Do

Your Ai Mindfulness Coach

Ai summary: Cures for low-level anxiety focus on natural lifestyle adjustments, stress management techniques and behavioral shifts, such as deep breathing, exercise, meditation and limiting caffeine. Effective, immediate techniques include grounding exercises (like the 5-4-3-2-1 technique), journaling and engaging in calming hobbies to reduce stress hormone levels. 

Key Natural Coping Strategies:

Grounding & Relaxation: Practice deep breathing exercises, the 5-4-3-2-1 sensory technique (five things you see, four feel, three hear, two smell, one taste), or use a weighted blanket to trigger the body’s relaxation response.

Lifestyle Adjustments: Prioritize 7-9 hours of sleep, maintain a balanced diet to avoid blood sugar drops and limit caffeine and alcohol consumption.

Physical Activity: Regular, moderate exercise or yoga helps metabolize excess stress chemicals and boosts endorphins.

Mindfulness & Routine: Meditate, journal thoughts or use a set daily routine to reduce feelings of being overwhelmed.

“What-If” Analysis: Actively challenge anxious thoughts by asking, “What is the worst-case scenario?” to stop repetitive, worrying thought cycles. 

Being Alive

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) was a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist and author who was called the "father of mindfulness." He popularized Engaged Buddhism, which applies Buddhist insights to social, political and environmental issues (Ai summary).

Mr. Peace Prize Starts His War

It's Trump, and with Trump the outcome is always complete chaos. And that's because Trump is an ignoramus and a moron who cares about nothing but himself. So strap in or bail out.

Someone's Angel Today

"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers." – James Baldwin

A Room or an Hour

"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning — a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be."

— Joseph Campbell

William James on Mindfulness

Harvard professor William James (1842–1910) was an American psychologist and philosopher who is regarded as the “father of American psychology.” He developed of the philosophical school known as pragmatism. 

Count Calories and Encounters

NPR, i.e. 'No Point in Reporting'

In a snotty and condescending tone, the NPR journalists said that journalists should not address their audience in a snotty and condescending tone, and should report what their audience wants to hear.

So far, sounds just like Fox News.

In an era when journalists are being arrested by a totalitarian GOP government merely for reporting the facts, I don’t think the problem is that the reporters are insufficiently “folksy.”

“The customer is always right” is a rule of thumb that may work for grocers, but it decidedly does not work for professionals like physicians, lawyers and journalists. The journalist’s mission to provide accurate, important and relevant information to the public, particularly information that the public does not know it needs to know.

How We Got Here

A country where citizens must prove their citizenship to masked strangers who don’t have to prove they’re law enforcement and can kidnap and/or kill them on the spot may be many things. But not one of them is “free.”

Ask Not for Whom the Sirens Sound

Obviously, Trump’s real goal is to start a civil war and use it to seize totalitarian power. If his goal was deporting undocumented aliens, he would have sent his masked secret police from ICE agents to Florida and Texas, not Minnesota.

And think of all the things the nervous corporate news media now refuses to report on, starting with Trump's obvious cognitive collapse. They've gone Pravda on us.

Code name: Manchurian Cantaloupe

Funny that Trump says he has to take Greenland to keep it out of the hands of the Russians, but Russian state propaganda applauds the idea of Trump's seizing Greenland.

Add that one up and see what you get.

The Dust of Snow

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a celebrated American poet known for his realistic portrayals of rural life, especially in New England, and his masterful use of everyday American speech to explore philosophical themes about nature, humanity and choices, making him one of the 20th century's most beloved and widely read poets, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and the unofficial U.S. poet laureate. (Ai summary)

We Told You So

I am amused by people who think there is something called “the law” the Trump will obey. This dictator will obey nothing.

By granting Trump total immunity, the Supreme Cult has rendered itself irrelevant, and the law impotent. It has wrecked the country.

Those of us who have seen this disaster headed straight at us for many years have felt like the mythological Cassandra, able to predict the future but cursed so that no one would ever believe us.

As Austen Leigh said, the hardest part of descending into fascism is bearing the weight of those who don’t see it.

Never Own a Disease

At age 71, it occurs to me that my actual job, for the rest of my life, is to have peace of mind and enjoy myself. I mean to work at that with some determination, whatever the vicissitudes that come my way.

Arts Education Eminently Practical

Yes, a university liberal arts education is so useless, I'm sure the rich will stop sending their children to get them at expensive private schools. Or is it only the working class and the middle class who are supposed to remain ignorant of the finer things in life?

How to Let Go

David R. Hawkins: “The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going.

"When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates."