@fromjason@mastodon.social Hi, yes, hello, the line “the web that screamed in horror when summoned through a land line” in the footer of your site is fantastic.
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"text": "@fromjason@mastodon.social Hi, yes, hello, the line \u201cthe web that screamed in horror when summoned through a land line\u201d in the footer of your site is fantastic.",
"html": "<p><a href=\"https://mastodon.social/@fromjason\">@fromjason@mastodon.social</a> Hi, yes, hello, the line \u201cthe web that screamed in horror when summoned through a land line\u201d in the footer of your site is fantastic.</p>"
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I don’t post about it often, but I maintain indiebookclub, an app to help track books you’re reading on your own website. I just set up a new feature for it, a year in review page: indiebookclub.biz/review/2023
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"text": "I don\u2019t post about it often, but I maintain indiebookclub, an app to help track books you\u2019re reading on your own website. I just set up a new feature for it, a year in review page: indiebookclub.biz/review/2023",
"html": "<p>I don\u2019t post about it often, but I maintain indiebookclub, an app to help track books you\u2019re reading on your own website. I just set up a new feature for it, a year in review page: <a href=\"https://indiebookclub.biz/review/2023\">indiebookclub.biz/review/2023</a></p>"
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I took the high speed train from Miami to Orlando and I am convinced we need more of this! https://aaronparecki.com/2023/12/01/18/riding-brightline-train-miami-orlando
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"text": "I took the high speed train from Miami to Orlando and I am convinced we need more of this! https://aaronparecki.com/2023/12/01/18/riding-brightline-train-miami-orlando",
"html": "I took the high speed train from Miami to Orlando and I am convinced we need more of this! <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/2023/12/01/18/riding-brightline-train-miami-orlando\"><span>https://</span>aaronparecki.com/2023/12/01/18/riding-brightline-train-miami-orlando</a>"
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It was 11am at the Fort Lauderdale airport, an hour after my non-stop flight to Portland was supposed to have boarded. As I had been watching our estimated departure get pushed back in 15 minute increments, I finally received the dreaded news over the loudspeaker - the flight was cancelled entirely. As hordes of people started lining up to rebook their flights with the gate agent, I found a quiet spot in the corner and opened up my laptop to look at my options.
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"summary": "It was 11am at the Fort Lauderdale airport, an hour after my non-stop flight to Portland was supposed to have boarded. As I had been watching our estimated departure get pushed back in 15 minute increments, I finally received the dreaded news over the loudspeaker - the flight was cancelled entirely. As hordes of people started lining up to rebook their flights with the gate agent, I found a quiet spot in the corner and opened up my laptop to look at my options.",
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"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/12351-Solar-power-Howd-I-do",
"name": "Solar power: How\u2019d I do?",
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Marching band but make it techno: youtube.com/watch?v=dlFrI8_Orys
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"text": "Marching band but make it techno: youtube.com/watch?v=dlFrI8_Orys",
"html": "<p>Marching band but make it techno: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlFrI8_Orys\">youtube.com/watch?v=dlFrI8_Orys</a></p>"
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Official Orlando departure announcement from the captain:
"The forecast in Portland is about the same as here except it's cold and windy and rainy"
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"text": "Official Orlando departure announcement from the captain: \n\n\"The forecast in Portland is about the same as here except it's cold and windy and rainy\"",
"html": "Official Orlando departure announcement from the captain: <br /><br />\"The forecast in Portland is about the same as here except it's cold and windy and rainy\""
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welp, managed to go a whole year without a major airline snafu until my last work trip of the year. Flight from Miami to Portland was cancelled, and all the other options from Miami were bad. So I'm taking the Brightline train to Orlando and getting on a direct flight to Portland tonight!
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"text": "welp, managed to go a whole year without a major airline snafu until my last work trip of the year. Flight from Miami to Portland was cancelled, and all the other options from Miami were bad. So I'm taking the Brightline train to Orlando and getting on a direct flight to Portland tonight!"
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{
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"url": "https://nadreck.me/2023/12/the-internet-is-worse-than-ever/",
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"name": "The Internet is Worse Than Ever",
"content": {
"text": "If you\u2019re not familiar with Kurzgesagt, they\u2019re a Youtube channel that does well researched, informative videos about a broad range of topics. In this case, it\u2019s about the impact of social media on society, and clarifies some information about social filter bubbles and social sorting.\n\n\n\nI suppose it\u2019s unsurprising to say that I agree with their thoughts on how to improve the situation \u2013 move out of the \u201cdigital town square\u201d and get back to smaller communities. It\u2019s healthier for society, it\u2019s healthier for you. This also all puts me in mind of a recent article in Garbage Day, which was discussing that the internet has actually gotten smaller, with a subset of creators making an outsized portion of the content you see day-to-day. In short, social consolidation leads to a reversion to the same sort of \u201cbroadcasting\u201d mentality of older media. Social media serves as a channel for this sort of broadcasted content, and if you want to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of content, the answer is to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of online communities.\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s a trade-off, economically speaking: if you make it big in a centralized outlet, you stand to make a lot of money \u2013 smaller communities inherently have less money to offer. But, that presumes you\u2019ll manage to rise to the top of the creator heap \u2013 it\u2019s far more likely that you\u2019ll fall somewhere in the long tail of a pareto distribution. In a more distributed, fractured internet, the peak is lower, but you have more opportunity to get a slice of that sum, so you might actually end up making about the same (or more). It\u2019s hard to say.\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s a bit of a digression, though. Go watch the video, it\u2019s only ~11 minutes long, and let me know what you think.",
"html": "<span style=\"text-align:center;\"></span>\n<p>If you\u2019re not familiar with Kurzgesagt, they\u2019re a Youtube channel that does well researched, informative videos about a broad range of topics. In this case, it\u2019s about the impact of social media on society, and clarifies some information about social filter bubbles and social sorting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suppose it\u2019s unsurprising to say that I agree with their thoughts on how to improve the situation \u2013 move out of the \u201cdigital town square\u201d and get back to smaller communities. It\u2019s healthier for society, it\u2019s healthier for you. This also all puts me in mind of a <a href=\"https://www.garbageday.email/p/selling-your-filter-bubble-back-to\">recent article in Garbage Day</a>, which was discussing that the internet has actually gotten smaller, with a subset of creators making an outsized portion of the content you see day-to-day. In short, social consolidation leads to a reversion to the same sort of \u201cbroadcasting\u201d mentality of older media. Social media serves as a channel for this sort of broadcasted content, and if you want to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of content, the answer is to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of online communities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a trade-off, economically speaking: if you make it big in a centralized outlet, you stand to make a lot of money \u2013 smaller communities inherently have less money to offer. <em>But</em>, that presumes you\u2019ll manage to rise to the top of the creator heap \u2013 it\u2019s far more likely that you\u2019ll fall somewhere in the long tail of a pareto distribution. In a more distributed, fractured internet, the peak is lower, but you have more opportunity to get a slice of that sum, so you might actually end up making about the same (or more). It\u2019s hard to say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a bit of a digression, though. Go watch the video, it\u2019s only ~11 minutes long, and let me know what you think.</p>"
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Alright, Geico is frustrating me to no end. They 110% do not let you get to talk to a human on the phone and their site doesn't tell me anything about my pending auto policy. Anyone have better auto insurance recommendations for California?
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"text": "Alright, Geico is frustrating me to no end. They 110% do not let you get to talk to a human on the phone and their site doesn't tell me anything about my pending auto policy. Anyone have better auto insurance recommendations for California?",
"html": "<p>Alright, Geico is frustrating me to no end. They 110% do not let you get to talk to a human on the phone and their site doesn't tell me anything about my pending auto policy. Anyone have better auto insurance recommendations for California?</p>"
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Got to visit some alligators up close today
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{
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Today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I learned of the collective Publishers for Palestine and the Free Palestine Reading List they’ve organized, encouraging people to read books by Palestinians. This week they have more than 30 e-books available for free. Check it out!
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"text": "Today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I learned of the collective Publishers for Palestine and the Free Palestine Reading List they\u2019ve organized, encouraging people to read books by Palestinians. This week they have more than 30 e-books available for free. Check it out!",
"html": "<p>Today is <a href=\"https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people\">International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People</a>. I learned of the collective Publishers for Palestine and the <a href=\"https://publishersforpalestine.org/2023/11/20/join-readpalestine-week-november-29-december-5-2023/\">Free Palestine Reading List</a> they\u2019ve organized, encouraging people to read books by Palestinians. This week they have more than 30 e-books available for free. Check it out!</p>"
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{
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"published": "2023-11-28T00:28:39-08:00",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/7067-What-time-is-it-Unstructured-rambling-time",
"name": "What time is it? Unstructured rambling time!",
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These kittens have been living with us for only a week but I already can't imagine life without them 😻
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"text": "These kittens have been living with us for only a week but I already can't imagine life without them \ud83d\ude3b",
"html": "These kittens have been living with us for only a week but I already can't imagine life without them <a href=\"https://aaronparecki.com/emoji/%F0%9F%98%BB\">\ud83d\ude3b</a>"
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{
"type": "entry",
"author": {
"name": "Jared White",
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"url": "https://jaredwhite.com/articles/barbie-mindfulness",
"published": "2023-11-26T09:28:18-08:00",
"content": {
"html": "<img alt=\"\" src=\"https://res.cloudinary.com/mariposta/image/upload/w_1200,c_limit,q_65/barbie-meditation.jpg\" /><h2>I have often wished people who aren't familiar with mindfulness or who have written it off as just more hokum could gain a better idea of what it actually is, and how it is actually beneficial. And nowhere have I seen this better depicted on-screen than in the 2023 film Barbie.</h2>\n\n<p>It has been quite the while since I last wrote about my experiences with mindfulness meditation. I touched on it in <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/articles/what-synchronicity-means-to-me#the-skill-of-mindful-observation\"><em>What Synchronicity Means to Me in Everyday Life</em></a>, saying:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Learning the skill of mindful observation and how it can transform the neural wiring of our brains truly changed my life. It\u2019s a skill you can apply at any time to gain deeper access to your inner life.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But to the uninitiated, what does this really look like? What does it <em>feel</em> like? Well, that\u2019s where <strong>Barbie</strong> comes in.</p>\n\n<h3>Moving Past the \u201cHippie\u201d Stereotype</h3>\n\n<p>It\u2019s long bothered me that anything \u201chippie\u201d or \u201cnew age\u201d is often the butt of jokes in popular culture (namely movies and TV). Now listen: I\u2019m totally willing to concede there\u2019s a volume of snake oil and grifting and obvious nonsense being peddled out there. For whatever reason, anything related to the \u201cspiritual\u201d or \u201csupernatural\u201d seems to attract bad actors preying upon the weak-minded and looking to make a fast buck. (Probably because these are areas of subjective truth, not objective, so it\u2019s nearly impossible to prove anyone \u201cwrong\u201d. You have to <em>be a skeptic</em> already in order to remain skeptical.)</p>\n\n<p>But just as cynical jerks (or fanatics) who pervert religion don\u2019t make religion inherently bad (skeptics, please don\u2019t email me), jerks who pervert meditation don\u2019t make meditation inherently bad either. If you think the lengthy silent retreats and the candles and the pillows and the Buddha statues and all that is \u201cweird\u201d, I\u2019m not here to argue with you.</p>\n\n<p><strong>But I will happily state with confidence that meditation has changed my life.</strong> And in particular, the category labeled <a href=\"https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/mindfulness-exercises/art-20046356\">mindfulness meditation</a> which the Mayo Clinic describes thusly:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you\u2019re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I have often wished people who aren\u2019t familiar with mindfulness or who have written it off as just more hokum could gain a better idea of what it actually is, and how it is actually beneficial.</p>\n\n<p>And nowhere have I seen this better depicted on-screen than in the 2023 film <em>Barbie</em>, as played by Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Warning: minor spoilers ahead! If you haven\u2019t yet seen Barbie, you may want to come back to this!</strong></p>\n\n<h3>The Bench Scene</h3>\n\n<p>For reference, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=K-xHvro7rRI\">here\u2019s a YouTube video of the scene I\u2019m about to describe</a>. I apologize the clip is very dim (not sure why, the picture is supposed to be much brighter).</p>\n\n<p>Shortly after arriving in The Real World, Barbie is quick to notice things here aren\u2019t quite as she had imagined it. After a series of fish-out-of-water mishaps, she finally sends Ken packing for a few minutes, sits down on a park bench, closes her eyes, and tried to connect with the \u201cowner\u201d of the doll which has been adversely affecting her.</p>\n\n<p>Before long, Barbie is successful in reaching out with her mind and gets to witness a series of flashbacks of the owner\u2019s life and experiences around childhood and play. It\u2019s a poignant moment, especially as further scenes of growth and very human struggles show a less-than-idylic scenario.</p>\n\n<p>Barbie slowly opens her eyes, only to realize she is shedding a tear. What is this strange sensation? \u201cThat felt achy\u2026but good.\u201d</p>\n\n<p><strong>If the scene had simply ended here, it would have been a good one.</strong> We get to see Barbie start to grapple with real human emotion and the vast expanse of human experience both good and bad. A helpful stepping stone on her journey through the course the film.</p>\n\n<p><em>But wait, there\u2019s more!</em></p>\n\n<p>Now with <strong>eyes open</strong>, Barbie starts to look around. She sees families playing in a park. Children with bicycles. There\u2019s a couple arguing, not connecting. Confused. Then she starts to glance up at the trees overlooking the park. She sees the slight movement of the branches, hears the wind blowing through them. Birdsong. Then she notices a couple of men bonding over something amusing. And then another man, alone, appearing like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.</p>\n\n<p>Barbie is reacting a bit in the moment to each of these real-life dioramas, but mostly she is simply witnessing. Observing. <em>Feeling but not judging.</em></p>\n\n<h3>You\u2019re So Beautiful</h3>\n\n<p>This scene\u2014already an outlier in the mile-a-minute sensory overload that is modern cinema\u2014culminates in Margot Robbie\u2019s character glancing over to the other end of the bench where an old woman calmly sits. The newly-enlightened Barbie closely observes the woman, and after a long pause of them exchanging soft glances, remarks with quiet amazement \u201cYou\u2019re so beautiful.\u201d</p>\n\n<p>Now at this point, your instinct as the audience member is to assume the response will be \u201cwhy, thank you dear!\u201d or \u201cgosh, you\u2019re beautiful too.\u201d But instead our expectations are subverted, and we are given something far more profound and meaningful to the entire story of the film. The old woman proudly states:</p>\n\n<p>\u201cI know it!\u201d</p>\n\n<p>And then they laugh.</p>\n\n<p>You see, the old woman already understands her beauty. Her worth. She has accepted her unique contribution to the world, as well as her role as interconnected within this world. Life itself is beautiful, yet fleeting, and this woman\u2014who is indeed nearing the end of her life\u2014is already at peace, having pierced the veil of individual ego and experienced a glimpse of the oneness of all things.</p>\n\n<p>If there\u2019s any other scene in modern cinema which so captures the journey of mindfulness meditation and its role in helping us attain some semblance of what might be deemed \u201cenlightenment\u201d, I\u2019m not aware of it. This pivotal moment in the film when Barbie is able to gaze upon an old woman who is by no conventional beauty standards \u201cbeautiful\u201d and call her <strong>beautiful</strong> <em>could only have happened</em> after Barbie is able to raise her experiential awareness through mindfulness meditation. The meditation on the bench and the exchange with the old woman aren\u2019t two separate events. <em>They\u2019re the same event.</em> Barbie tunes out the noise in her head, moves past her fears, moves past even her immediate goals (find the girl, figure out what\u2019s wrong with me), and simply begins to <strong>observe</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>She observes her own emotional state.</p>\n\n<p>She observes people in her environment having experiences of their own.</p>\n\n<p>She observes the natural order around her: the trees rustling in the breeze, and the birds for whom the trees are a home.</p>\n\n<p>She observes how everyone at first seems like their stories are differentiated and unique, but upon further observation the natural world and the experiences of humans everywhere are in a certain sense <em>universal</em>. We are all connected. We are all part of something bigger. <em>We are all one.</em></p>\n\n<p><strong>This is the enlightenment of mindfulness meditation.</strong> Barbie was able to move beyond the rigid artificiality of her plastic world\u2014though it had once seemed to be the epitome of joy and perfection\u2014and furthermore she was even able to move beyond the temporary pressures of her own anxiety and inner turmoil and the immediate \u201cwhy\u201d she was there. Suddenly she wasn\u2019t sitting on that park bench merely to \u201cdo something\u201d (find a girl, figure out what\u2019s wrong with Barbie, fix the situation, and go back to how things were). She was there <em>because she was there</em>. And that\u2019s good enough. It is always good enough.</p>\n\n<p><strong>I am beautiful. You are beautiful. Life is beautiful.</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>I know it. You know it.</em></p>\n\n<h3>Further Analysis</h3>\n\n<p>As incredible as this scene is (I\u2019ve cried literally every single time I\u2019ve watched it. I\u2019m wiping back a tear even as I type this!), I do want to acknowledge that Barbie as a film overall exhibits some problems around intersectional social justice and concerns beyond the simplistic dichotomy of men vs. women and their ongoing power struggle. The irony of Barbie being angrily labeled \u201cwoke\u201d by the anti-woke establishment is that it actually isn\u2019t woke enough in many respects. For an incredible deep dive analysis on the topic, <a href=\"https://www.patreon.com/posts/93296344\">check out this video essay by Jessie Gender</a> (currently Patreon-only, but perhaps there will be a version up on <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@JessieGender1\">Jessie\u2019s YouTube channel</a> soon). Jessie\u2019s comparison of the structure and resolution of Barbie vs. The Matrix films was particularly clever and insightful. (And I\u2019m <em>always</em> a sucker for any mention of my favorite movie of all time\u2026)</p>\n\n<p>Despite all that, I enjoyed Barbie tremendously\u2014in no small part due to the mindfulness meditation scene alone. It\u2019s wild to discover after the fact that <a href=\"https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/greta-gerwig-almost-cut-barbie-movie-scene-ann-roth-margot-robbie\">this scene was almost cut short</a>. As Greta Gerwig so aptly put it: \u201cIf I cut the scene, I don\u2019t know what this movie is about.\u201d Truly, this scene <em>made</em> the movie.</p>\n\n<p>My daughter enjoyed the movie as well, but much to my chagrin she thinks all this mindfulness stuff I always talk about is loopy. (Maybe some kids just aren\u2019t ready for it yet\u2026) She definitely enjoyed telling me about all the old Barbie references peppered throughout the movie that somehow she knows about even though she herself never played with Barbies much and doesn\u2019t really like them anyway! (Yay for the YouTube algorithm, I guess?)</p>\n\n<p>At any rate, I hope you yourself are intrigued by this amazing onscreen depiction of what mindfulness meditation can be like in The Real World, and that you\u2019re motivated to dig a little deeper if you don\u2019t yet practice mindfulness regularly. I know there is plenty of annoying mumbo jumbo out there surrounding meditation, and you may feel like you\u2019re not even sure where to begin.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Maybe take a page from Barbie!</strong> Sit on a park bench, close your eyes, and simply <em>be</em>. Then a moment or two later, open your eyes and simply observe the world around you, as well as the sensations within your own body. You don\u2019t need to overthink it (in fact please don\u2019t!), and you don\u2019t need to start trying to figure out what it all means. The key to successful meditation is to become <em>nonjudgmental</em>. If you feel happy, you\u2019re happy. If you feel sad, you\u2019re sad. If you feel confused, you\u2019re confused. If you feel elated, you\u2019re elated.</p>\n\n<p>That\u2019s it. And that\u2019s all it needs to be. After all, are you a human doing? Or a human being?</p>\n\n<p>(Sorry, that was corny. Too corny? Too corny. Whoops, now who\u2019s being judgmental?! \ud83d\ude2c\ud83d\ude05)</p>\n\n\n\n <br /><p>\n \n <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/tag/mindfulness\">#mindfulness</a>\n \n <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/tag/spirituality\">#spirituality</a>\n \n </p>",
"text": "I have often wished people who aren't familiar with mindfulness or who have written it off as just more hokum could gain a better idea of what it actually is, and how it is actually beneficial. And nowhere have I seen this better depicted on-screen than in the 2023 film Barbie.\n\nIt has been quite the while since I last wrote about my experiences with mindfulness meditation. I touched on it in What Synchronicity Means to Me in Everyday Life, saying:\n\n\n Learning the skill of mindful observation and how it can transform the neural wiring of our brains truly changed my life. It\u2019s a skill you can apply at any time to gain deeper access to your inner life.\n\n\nBut to the uninitiated, what does this really look like? What does it feel like? Well, that\u2019s where Barbie comes in.\n\nMoving Past the \u201cHippie\u201d Stereotype\n\nIt\u2019s long bothered me that anything \u201chippie\u201d or \u201cnew age\u201d is often the butt of jokes in popular culture (namely movies and TV). Now listen: I\u2019m totally willing to concede there\u2019s a volume of snake oil and grifting and obvious nonsense being peddled out there. For whatever reason, anything related to the \u201cspiritual\u201d or \u201csupernatural\u201d seems to attract bad actors preying upon the weak-minded and looking to make a fast buck. (Probably because these are areas of subjective truth, not objective, so it\u2019s nearly impossible to prove anyone \u201cwrong\u201d. You have to be a skeptic already in order to remain skeptical.)\n\nBut just as cynical jerks (or fanatics) who pervert religion don\u2019t make religion inherently bad (skeptics, please don\u2019t email me), jerks who pervert meditation don\u2019t make meditation inherently bad either. If you think the lengthy silent retreats and the candles and the pillows and the Buddha statues and all that is \u201cweird\u201d, I\u2019m not here to argue with you.\n\nBut I will happily state with confidence that meditation has changed my life. And in particular, the category labeled mindfulness meditation which the Mayo Clinic describes thusly:\n\n\n Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you\u2019re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.\n\n\nI have often wished people who aren\u2019t familiar with mindfulness or who have written it off as just more hokum could gain a better idea of what it actually is, and how it is actually beneficial.\n\nAnd nowhere have I seen this better depicted on-screen than in the 2023 film Barbie, as played by Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig.\n\nWarning: minor spoilers ahead! If you haven\u2019t yet seen Barbie, you may want to come back to this!\n\nThe Bench Scene\n\nFor reference, here\u2019s a YouTube video of the scene I\u2019m about to describe. I apologize the clip is very dim (not sure why, the picture is supposed to be much brighter).\n\nShortly after arriving in The Real World, Barbie is quick to notice things here aren\u2019t quite as she had imagined it. After a series of fish-out-of-water mishaps, she finally sends Ken packing for a few minutes, sits down on a park bench, closes her eyes, and tried to connect with the \u201cowner\u201d of the doll which has been adversely affecting her.\n\nBefore long, Barbie is successful in reaching out with her mind and gets to witness a series of flashbacks of the owner\u2019s life and experiences around childhood and play. It\u2019s a poignant moment, especially as further scenes of growth and very human struggles show a less-than-idylic scenario.\n\nBarbie slowly opens her eyes, only to realize she is shedding a tear. What is this strange sensation? \u201cThat felt achy\u2026but good.\u201d\n\nIf the scene had simply ended here, it would have been a good one. We get to see Barbie start to grapple with real human emotion and the vast expanse of human experience both good and bad. A helpful stepping stone on her journey through the course the film.\n\nBut wait, there\u2019s more!\n\nNow with eyes open, Barbie starts to look around. She sees families playing in a park. Children with bicycles. There\u2019s a couple arguing, not connecting. Confused. Then she starts to glance up at the trees overlooking the park. She sees the slight movement of the branches, hears the wind blowing through them. Birdsong. Then she notices a couple of men bonding over something amusing. And then another man, alone, appearing like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.\n\nBarbie is reacting a bit in the moment to each of these real-life dioramas, but mostly she is simply witnessing. Observing. Feeling but not judging.\n\nYou\u2019re So Beautiful\n\nThis scene\u2014already an outlier in the mile-a-minute sensory overload that is modern cinema\u2014culminates in Margot Robbie\u2019s character glancing over to the other end of the bench where an old woman calmly sits. The newly-enlightened Barbie closely observes the woman, and after a long pause of them exchanging soft glances, remarks with quiet amazement \u201cYou\u2019re so beautiful.\u201d\n\nNow at this point, your instinct as the audience member is to assume the response will be \u201cwhy, thank you dear!\u201d or \u201cgosh, you\u2019re beautiful too.\u201d But instead our expectations are subverted, and we are given something far more profound and meaningful to the entire story of the film. The old woman proudly states:\n\n\u201cI know it!\u201d\n\nAnd then they laugh.\n\nYou see, the old woman already understands her beauty. Her worth. She has accepted her unique contribution to the world, as well as her role as interconnected within this world. Life itself is beautiful, yet fleeting, and this woman\u2014who is indeed nearing the end of her life\u2014is already at peace, having pierced the veil of individual ego and experienced a glimpse of the oneness of all things.\n\nIf there\u2019s any other scene in modern cinema which so captures the journey of mindfulness meditation and its role in helping us attain some semblance of what might be deemed \u201cenlightenment\u201d, I\u2019m not aware of it. This pivotal moment in the film when Barbie is able to gaze upon an old woman who is by no conventional beauty standards \u201cbeautiful\u201d and call her beautiful could only have happened after Barbie is able to raise her experiential awareness through mindfulness meditation. The meditation on the bench and the exchange with the old woman aren\u2019t two separate events. They\u2019re the same event. Barbie tunes out the noise in her head, moves past her fears, moves past even her immediate goals (find the girl, figure out what\u2019s wrong with me), and simply begins to observe.\n\nShe observes her own emotional state.\n\nShe observes people in her environment having experiences of their own.\n\nShe observes the natural order around her: the trees rustling in the breeze, and the birds for whom the trees are a home.\n\nShe observes how everyone at first seems like their stories are differentiated and unique, but upon further observation the natural world and the experiences of humans everywhere are in a certain sense universal. We are all connected. We are all part of something bigger. We are all one.\n\nThis is the enlightenment of mindfulness meditation. Barbie was able to move beyond the rigid artificiality of her plastic world\u2014though it had once seemed to be the epitome of joy and perfection\u2014and furthermore she was even able to move beyond the temporary pressures of her own anxiety and inner turmoil and the immediate \u201cwhy\u201d she was there. Suddenly she wasn\u2019t sitting on that park bench merely to \u201cdo something\u201d (find a girl, figure out what\u2019s wrong with Barbie, fix the situation, and go back to how things were). She was there because she was there. And that\u2019s good enough. It is always good enough.\n\nI am beautiful. You are beautiful. Life is beautiful.\n\nI know it. You know it.\n\nFurther Analysis\n\nAs incredible as this scene is (I\u2019ve cried literally every single time I\u2019ve watched it. I\u2019m wiping back a tear even as I type this!), I do want to acknowledge that Barbie as a film overall exhibits some problems around intersectional social justice and concerns beyond the simplistic dichotomy of men vs. women and their ongoing power struggle. The irony of Barbie being angrily labeled \u201cwoke\u201d by the anti-woke establishment is that it actually isn\u2019t woke enough in many respects. For an incredible deep dive analysis on the topic, check out this video essay by Jessie Gender (currently Patreon-only, but perhaps there will be a version up on Jessie\u2019s YouTube channel soon). Jessie\u2019s comparison of the structure and resolution of Barbie vs. The Matrix films was particularly clever and insightful. (And I\u2019m always a sucker for any mention of my favorite movie of all time\u2026)\n\nDespite all that, I enjoyed Barbie tremendously\u2014in no small part due to the mindfulness meditation scene alone. It\u2019s wild to discover after the fact that this scene was almost cut short. As Greta Gerwig so aptly put it: \u201cIf I cut the scene, I don\u2019t know what this movie is about.\u201d Truly, this scene made the movie.\n\nMy daughter enjoyed the movie as well, but much to my chagrin she thinks all this mindfulness stuff I always talk about is loopy. (Maybe some kids just aren\u2019t ready for it yet\u2026) She definitely enjoyed telling me about all the old Barbie references peppered throughout the movie that somehow she knows about even though she herself never played with Barbies much and doesn\u2019t really like them anyway! (Yay for the YouTube algorithm, I guess?)\n\nAt any rate, I hope you yourself are intrigued by this amazing onscreen depiction of what mindfulness meditation can be like in The Real World, and that you\u2019re motivated to dig a little deeper if you don\u2019t yet practice mindfulness regularly. I know there is plenty of annoying mumbo jumbo out there surrounding meditation, and you may feel like you\u2019re not even sure where to begin.\n\nMaybe take a page from Barbie! Sit on a park bench, close your eyes, and simply be. Then a moment or two later, open your eyes and simply observe the world around you, as well as the sensations within your own body. You don\u2019t need to overthink it (in fact please don\u2019t!), and you don\u2019t need to start trying to figure out what it all means. The key to successful meditation is to become nonjudgmental. If you feel happy, you\u2019re happy. If you feel sad, you\u2019re sad. If you feel confused, you\u2019re confused. If you feel elated, you\u2019re elated.\n\nThat\u2019s it. And that\u2019s all it needs to be. After all, are you a human doing? Or a human being?\n\n(Sorry, that was corny. Too corny? Too corny. Whoops, now who\u2019s being judgmental?! \ud83d\ude2c\ud83d\ude05)\n\n\n\n \n\n \n #mindfulness\n \n #spirituality"
},
"name": "Mindfulness Meditation and The Enlightenment of Barbie",
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "39557439",
"_source": "2783"
}
