tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13178668.post116742992740793887..comments2020-12-31T03:57:29.549-08:00Comments on Dear Gregory: I'm Going To Write My Own Goddamn Book On HappinessUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13178668.post-1167611004244567522006-12-31T16:23:00.000-08:002006-12-31T16:23:00.000-08:00Irontastically, 10,000 is a significant number in ...Irontastically, 10,000 is a significant number in Tibetan Buddhism. There's a little joke that goes "How many Tibetans Buddhists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Only one, but he has to do it 10,000 times." There is a prophecy from a certain Buddhist sect (I can't remember which) that states that peace will prevail 300 years from now when 10,000 Boddhisattvas reside on Earth. <BR/><BR/>"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery in the world."Thaddeus Gunnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11021029096128783698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13178668.post-1167602756662455092006-12-31T14:05:00.000-08:002006-12-31T14:05:00.000-08:00The subject area of "happiness" deserves its own b...The subject area of "happiness" deserves its own blog, and you're just the man to do it. Humanity awaits. <BR/><BR/>In his excellent treatise on music and neurology - Your Brain on Music - Daniel J. Levitin posits that the aquisition of new skill sets (playing the tuba, for example) requires the individual to consciously practice a given methodology for roughly 10,000 hours. Does the "10,000 hour rule" apply in this case, or is "happiness" a primary, natural and preexistent state of mind that simply emerges when other states-of-mind (those that produce "unhappiness") are observed through mindful practice and detachment? Perhaps what you are suggesting is a method for observing and detaching from all states-of-mind that do not produce happiness in every moment. Journaling would seem to be a practical and familiar Western alternative to the Eastern practice of meditative detachment. I can well imagine that it would require 10,000 hours before the conscious observation and practice of happiness would become reflexive.<BR/>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<BR/><BR/>I found my well-worn copy of the Max Schlossberg Daily Drills and Technical Studies for the Tuba the other day while cleaning out the garage. Thumbing through it, I came across a faded inscription that I had penciled in the margins of a particularly difficult passage thirty-six years ago - "Don't think about cheeseburgers, the weather, tomorrow or anything else. Think about the music."<BR/><BR/>And so it has become. In the moment - and there never seems to be enough of them - I disappear and there is only the music. I go there now as often as possible, but getting there for the first time took 10,000 hours. Let's get started, shall we?Sandia Crest EPGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15309467038293766876noreply@blogger.com