[aebtebeten]

I don't know about common, but meditators and rifle shooters both:

- relax their muscles and search stillness

- maintain awareness of their breathing and heart beats

- focus without letting their minds wander

so there are definitely parallels!

(on theory vs practice, I have a minor comment that can wait for a thread with some PH participation)

[gsf_emergency_6]

Fwiw I'm quite alright at (low calibre) rifles & terrible at meditation..

(I do wonder at, say, Hunter S. Thompson's skill level, which is where I'd guess the median gun rights vocalist would be at --to ask Gemini later)

am myself curious at how PH would answer your death / Kohut questions, amen on squatting.

[aebtebeten]

Hmm... I'm a relatively poor shot, and I've never tried meditation myself, only listened to people talking about it, so maybe I should retract that. What would you say the major differences are?

(might you see more of a parallel between ice climbing and meditation?)

[gsf_emergency_6]

To your kind of meditation, yes!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41326474

To Fehmi's (& what I called "meditation"(/"prana-bindu") above, to be investigated..

Happy 2026!

Ps presumably your dad was with the Navy?

[aebtebeten]

Have an excellent 2026! (and a good slide in, on the slim chance it's not too late for you)

PS the US Navy (although its final cause is instrument of empire) is one of the easier ways for a young man with little cultural capital and even less economic capital to find himself in an organisation that not only values lifetime learning but even goes out of its way to support it.

[gsf_emergency_6]

In ("cultural") theory, USMC, being "integrated", should have an advantage over USN but in practice(, putting sentients together in a confined space .. :)?

[aebtebeten]

In theory, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кот_Матроскин was surprising to Fedya's mother because he knew how to sew. But of course he does, because on a cruise one can't just run into town in order to get something done by someone else; it's not just his striped pattern that makes him resemble a sailor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fedya,_His_Dog,_and_His_...

[gsf_emergency_6]

(That was not to imply that I have firsthand familiarity with iceclimbing; I was just wildly extrapolating from rock climbing and friends')

The major diff is paying attention to external (nontactile) sensations perhaps?

[aebtebeten]

ice climbing is way more meditative than rock!

(because (a) crampons mean you get to study the ice and make your holds, instead of rapidly making use of what's there, and (b) the process of making them takes time... I was very pleasantly surprised; I'd expected it to be more thrilling and above all „Besonders Im Winter Arsch-Kalt“ but it was actually relatively low-adrenaline and high-activity)

[gsf_emergency_6]

Gemini: Hunter Thompson "milks the trigger", "drugs+guns"

Any high-adrenaline meditative sport (:) to recommemd (besides fencing, I found that too un-meditative but then again that could be a skill issue)

[aebtebeten]

Never tried it myself, but this Gracie interview (7:30-8:32) makes it sound as if Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (at least with enough skill) could be high-adrenaline meditative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdRIBYw6kNQ&t=450s

(also 9:00-9:15. I believe what's happening here is that Gracie calls the end result, but he has multiple paths to get there; the interviewee defends against one path, and Gracie, like water, just "flows with the go" along another path)