Sunsets

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When you're looking at a beautiful sunset, what you're really trying to do is efface yourself so that's there's just the sunset, right? 

Like you realise the normal condition of subjectivity for us is to be thinking about it, talking to ourselves about it, saying "Oh my God, this is such an amazing sunset. I wonder what land costs here? What's possibility of buying a second home here?" You're trying to appropriate it. You're thinking about future states of enjoying sunsets just like that. Is this sunset as good as the last one? 

And you're abstracted away from it, you're looking over your own shoulder into the present moment, trying to get a hold of it, it's only through this screen of discursivity [your inner voice that won't shut up?] in each moment that you're making intermittent contact with the sensory experience of seeing this beautiful sunset, whereas if you had a greater capacity to just cut through your continuous distraction by thought and just give you attention to the sunset, or anything else, you would have this experience of just the world. You're not on the edge of it, you're not appropriating it, you're not clinging to it, and that's the whole point of meditation. 

Sam Harris - The Hard Problem of Consciousness 

https://substack.com/home/post/p-197376230

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Just the world....

Luang Prabang, Laos

Cairo, Egypt

Boracay, Philippines

Koh Samui, Thailand

Noumea, New Caledonia

Dubrovnic, Croatia

Also Dubrovnic, Croatia

Maui, Hawaii, USA (Ana and Johnno's wedding)

Ponta Delgarda, Azores, Portugal

Wanchai, [Wooloomooloo Restaurant], Hong Kong

Lombok, [Bali in the distance], Indonesia

Puna'aula, Tahiti, French Polynesia

From the balcony, Leopold, Victoria Australia

From the balcony, Leopold, Victoria, Australia

On the balcony, Leopold, Victoria, Australia

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Probably never seeing the anymore of the world, but home again possibly forever, is your faithful blogging companion over the years (who used to be funny, according to Murli), 

E@L