Not only are there people who want me to shut (the f) up — and I mean a lot of them — there are many other people who think they actually know what I should be saying, thinking, or doing! To you! With you! Yes!

They -tell- me what I should be thinking, saying or doing! But it gets even better, they keep telling me that ‘I can just stop thinking’ and this will be enlightenment! Can you imagine?

They feel ‘very sorry for me since I am thinking all the time’.

Really. This is for real.

Now, as a person who meditates… I have some vague familiarity with this idea after 30 years of doing it. But that’s not what they are talking about! They -actually- told me ‘thinking is just suffering, you have to stop!’. Can you believe that?

Now, in a -paradise- they might be right. But in a place where people are burning down the world, human intelligence, each other… and the future?

I am afraid that some thinking is going to be required. Seriously. And while preoccupation with thought leads to suffering — thinking is not suffering. [Redacted]. That’s suffering. And worse still? It’s culturally contagious. Big time.

When people tell you that you no longer need to actively engage with your own representational intelligence? Tell them to go eat a stone. Or leap into a wall. Or fly off a handle. Or something.