On: Stephen Fry

Episode: 147

Date: February 2019

Key Subjects:

• Comedian, author, actor, etc.
• Investigation of empirical evidence and specificity of meditation benefits.
  • Meditation dulls “vices” (anger, greed, insecurity), which are needed as a source of drive and ambition.
    • Defense: Vices are more often unhelpful and even if they are beneficial at times, meditation improves your ability to control them.
  • The results of physical training can be tested and result in observably better skills. Meditation shows no outward signs of testable increased mental skills.
    • Defense: The results may not be visible to others, but are apparent to yourself.
  • The need for physical fitness is an evolutionary adaptation. There is no similar evolutionary benefit for meditation.
    • Defense: Doesn’t seem to be directly addressed.
  • It is selfish to focus on your own mind during meditation as opposed to trying to improve by observing the minds of others.
    • Defense: Meditation is not a focus on your own mind but it is training your own mind to function better (which will allow for better appreciation of other minds).
  • If some people are “calmer” from meditation than others, is it because they were innately predisposed to being more receptive to meditation or is it learned, replicable behavior.
    • Defense: Doesn’t seem to be directly addressed.
• The objective of meditation is an increased awareness of in the moment emotions and associated behavorial traps (primarily, getting bogged down in emotions).
  • Meditation is training your ability to recognize those moments and snap out of them faster.
  • Interrupt emotion-led brain chatter by engaging a different part of the brain.
  • [Benefits or claims beyond that may not be necessary and may be distracting (negation of self, etc.)?] 

Key Takeaways:

• Objective of meditation: a tool to train your mind to recognize and snap out of in-the-moment unproductive emotions.

Worth Listening:

Freewheeling discussion on mindfulness and meditating. Loose, amiable and surprisingly effective challenges by Fry of the tangible, testable benefits of meditation.

8/10