Michael Pollan

And are we more like the animals who can feel and die and suffer?

Or are we more like the thinking machines who speak our language?

The posture of screens, yeah.

One of the things I've been talking a lot about, protecting our consciousness and what a precious space of interiority we have, and it's this place of mental freedom.

But I realize for some people going there, it doesn't feel good.

That these are people who ruminate a lot,

And I'm prone to that too, to a lot of rumination, which is very circular thinking, often not productive.

It keeps you focused on something, but not in a way that's making progress usually.

It's a spiral maybe.

But also realizing you can take some control over your consciousness and that we need to do more to defend it.

And meditation is one great way.

And as challenging as it can be, you feel like...

Here's my mind.

I'm with my mind.

It might be painful.

It might not be.

But no one is telling me what to think.

You know, we spend so much time thinking the thoughts of other people and enduring the rants of other people and the obsessions of other people.

And meditation is, I think, a really interesting way to kind of put a fence around your consciousness.

You know, you put down your phone, you still have a pad because you're just trying to get rid of those to-do things.