| Monday, December 12, 2005 |
 | From Mildly Diverting, the The London Review of Breakfasts.
From Interconnected, a guide to being uncomfortable, with specific reference to meditation. Matt and I both flashed on the same extract:
The back of your hand will itch. A lifetime (at least) of habit will urge you to scratch your hand. Don't do it. Let the itch be there. Experience it as vividly as you can. If your attention has left the object of your meditation, put it back, without trying to block out the itch, or make it go away. If you refrain from scratching once, and just notice the itch, without trying to make it go away, you have just done something with your experience that is profoundly different.
Which is interesting, if a little overuniversalised. It put me in mind of the altered state created by that discomfort in itself - not as an aid to meditation but as a change of mental state. Specifically, responding to non-fatal but intense discomfort by fighting and fooling oneself into some other response or state of mind. Which you could go a bunch of ways with, of course, but I was thinking for my part of skin, a locus of two universal truths: that sensation exists as phenomenon and metaphor, and that rubbing doesn't help. It happens as pinpricks, as burning, fire ants, cat scratches, stitches and ruptures, strike and surgery. What does one do with pain without fear?
Elsewhere, I think from Linkmachinego, Coverflow is a utility that allows you to browse your iTunes by album cover. Considering its utter pointlessness, this is actually rather fun, and provides a clearer proof to apply to how goddamn indie you are - how many of your albums have no recognisable imagery available on the Internet. The "technical demo" will apparently shut down after the 15th December, so not sure what the plans are after that - either a freeware or shareware release, I suppose.
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