George Saunders

And we mistake those thoughts for us.

So, I mean, you could go through your whole life thinking that you are this cloud of thoughts.

So in both Buddhist practice and writing, you have a little bit of a chance to go, oh, those are just, those aren't,

They're like brain farts.

They're just happening spontaneously.

And I didn't actually create them.

And I'm not sure I really want to take ownership of them.

And at the same time, they're affecting my body.

So the thing is you get to just get clear for just long enough to recognize them as being separate from who you actually are.

And I think that would lead to some form of kindness.

Because if I think, like, why am I unkind?

It's almost always because I'm in a hurry and because I'm anxious.

So for me, the baby steps, I can do meditation and I can do a little writing and then be aware of how inadequate I am for the rest of the day.

One of the reasons I'm a big advocate of meditation is because I've really slacked off in the last two or three years.

And that's interesting to see the old neurosis come back.

How does that show up?

Just because of certain life things and...

I went from meditating quite a lot to not very much at all.

I'm going to get back to that.

And I can just notice a lot of feelings and thought patterns, actually from adolescence even, just kind of the monkey-mindedness of it all.