1. Remembering the kind of meditation I like
I wrote in March about trying to get back to my sitting meditation. What I think has perhaps helped me with making it stick was remembering that I don’t really like guided meditation–which tends to be the default in many of the popular apps. Instead, I really like just using a simple meditation timer in the Calm app (not at all sponsored). With it, you can listen to different nature scenes, and this is what I realized helps me meditate best: the sound of water, birds, and the wind in the trees. Ten minutes in the morning is what I’m doing right now, and that seems to be going well for me.
2. The idea of a new self every day/moment
Meditation perhaps magnified this insight, but it’s one I’ve thought about before. Recently though, it’s been helpful to return to this idea that we are always changing, never quite the same person we were yesterday or even the moment before. As someone who likes to think very literally at times, it’s fun to just think about this even in cellular terms. My cells are constantly dying and regenerating. So, there’s perhaps very few physical things about me that have stayed the same across time. This thought helps me embrace the ways I might feel different moment-to-moment.
3. Listening to Science Friday
I love working toward getting my PhD. What it means though, is that I’ve taken a really deep dive into a very narrow part of the scientific ocean. And while I love learning so much about a very specific set of topics, I never want to lose sight of the larger scope of what other scientists are working on all the time. It’s such a joy to listen to new discoveries about things like octopus sleep states and how AIs are learning the piano. As I shift out of my work during the week, I like to put on a Sci Fri episode and zoom out into the larger scientific sphere, if for just a little while.
The Lazy PhD 