document-level meta-warning:

[meta-meta note: I want to acknowledge that this document is sort of accumulating warning after warning, which are sort of epicycles on epicycles on epicycles at this point. They’re responding to a twist in the document. And that twist needs to be eventually be untwisted. There’s like (a) an absence or a "not" that needs to be rotated around into (b) a "presence"--from "not this" to "yes that." From FUD to concretes.]

Some things are "totalizing memetic objects." (I may be using that quoted phrase in an idiosyncratic way!) A totalizing memetic object sort of purports to legitimately be about, or say things about "everything." "Everything" could be "reality," or "all of reality," or "everything that exists," "how the future will go," "the world," and stuff like that. There's also things that are "relatively more totalizing" than other things, because they say things about real or illusory "things that touch a lot of other things" or "things that have a lot of implications for other things." Examples in this category could be "minds," "truth," "goodness," "personhood," and things like that.

Here's a couple ways a (relatively) totalizing memetic object works: It might say compact, explicit things like this: "X is A, or X is B, or X is C, and nothing else." In that example, in so many words, it says that X could be three things and those three things are exhaustive. The "and nothing else" does a lot of work. "And nothing else" can be stated explicitly, as above, or it can implied or hinted at, intentionally or unintentionally, reflectively or unreflectively. Another thing about the above is that the mutual exclusivity of A, B, and C (and nothing else) make the assertion "tidy," and/or "explanatorily elegant." Elegant things can be sticky or attractive; they can kind "sink in," sometimes at least a little bit, whether a person wants them to or not, whether a person realizes it or not, at least at first. (This last sentence is possibly an example of "FUD," which will be described below.)

Another way a totalizing memetic object can work is just by being very long and (at least seemingly) comprehensive. This has some of the effects like the above; a long document can lead to an experience of elegance "on the far side of complexity," and a long document, because it's so long, can lull someone into an experience of "this is everything."

The end result is that something might be (at least temporarily) more salient, or mentally or behaviorally, effecting in a person's life than they would retrospectively choose.

There's sometimes a second component to totalizing memetic objects, which is "Fear Uncertainty Doubt" (sometimes abbreviated or initialized as FUD). FUD is sometimes a non-specific warning about possible bad outcomes, or vague information that vaguely might imply possible bad outcomes. The nonspecificity and vagueness here are non-accidental because then a person is affected in broader ways. Someone who has been subjected to FUD sometimes experience a chilling effect on experimentation, play, joy, and so on, because, reflectively or unreflectively, they're are a bit more inclined towards vigilance and caution, for better or worse, justifiedly or unjustifiedly.

Further, FUD doesn't even have to have language like "you might not realize it" or "you might not be able to tell," but language like that can be particularly (self-)undermining, cf. "uncertainty" and "doubt." A person might question themselves more in unproductive ways or be more receptive to authoritative claims, helpful or not. As above, it can cause a person to reduce their behavioral repetoire, including in the space of assertiveness, self-care, and self-regulation.

An alternative to FUD, is supplying mechanistic models, as precisely as possible, of how some things can sometimes lead to specific possibly bad outcomes, for some people, some of the time, as well as an explicit weighing of risks versus benefits, ways in which one might address risks and uncertainties, e.g. how someone might be "better able to tell," and possibly a list of graded alternatives that carry less risk.

Now, currently, as a work-in-progress, this document is long, sometimes elegant, sometimes comprehensive, and arguably has lots of information that shades into FUD. I currently think, especially now "called out," the arguable FUD may be pretty easy to spot, in the large and in the small. (And the charitable angle is what could be taken as FUD are comprehensive and even-handed cautions and highly pragmatic nuance! And this was ever always generally the intent! But I still don't do a good enough job at being specific and mechanistic, and more.)

The other totalizing aspects might be a little harder to spot. For example, I say it's ok to put down the document and come back to it later, that it's part of the practice, sometimes, to not be doing the practice and to not think about the practice. Now, this is intended, in part, to encourage someone to have "nonjudgmental spaciousness" and patience around the practice. But, for some people, this could be experienced as totalizing: There's practicing and not practicing--nothing's logically left out! And even not practicing is practicing! There's no escape! Or it can be uncomfortably felt that way, for some people, after engaging with the document. That's one example. There's a lesser thing, which is suggesting options: "this or not this or even this other thing, are all ok." Again, this is intended to encourage someone to hold everything loosely, provisionally, experimentally. But, sometimes, it could feel claustrophobic.

Generally, when someone or something linguistically/verbally refers to you, to your attributes, your affordances, your choices, it's sort of "nonnatively packaging you and handing yourself back to you," and this can be subtly, loopily problematic, depending on the person in question, word choice, content, and so on. This is a possible side effect, any time language is used.

In some ways, this whole document is actually about mitigating or skillfully handling, over time, the effects of linguistic packaging and (totalizing or non-totalizing) memetic objects. Suffice it to say, here, something that might be helpful on the front-end is inclining towards noticing when something might be "sinking in" in a problematic way, and then pausing and patiently keeping that company, then and there, perhaps neither pushing the experience away nor... [sic]

Even though this section itself could serve as yet more "totalizing-ness" and especially "FUD fodder," after all, a collaborator noted the title of the section includes the word "warning," and it didn't necessarily have to, and here I am being stubborn and keeping it, at least in this draft, I hope this section serves to give a bit of a "reflectively constructive" frame for engaging with this document. A better, future thing may be hunt for vagueness or lack of qualifying/hedging in key places the document. Additionally, it may be possible reframe whole sections "positively" or "optimistically" in way that sacrifices no underlying content, intent, or nuance whatsoever.

Also, not mentioned above, the "vibe" of a document will be reflective of "the whole state of the author" when they were writing (which can change over the course of along writing project). And that vibe can definitely be a little contagious to readers, for some people some of the time. As you might imagine, as you engage with some sections below, I did do some writing--well, you'll see. It's a work in progress. In some places more than others, especially in the meditation instruction proper, I've done my best-so-far, to use precise, general, language that is "uncontaminated" with my vibe--but of course that'll have it's own particular vibe, for better and worse! In any case, as you'll see throughout many sections below, after the philosopher Eugene Gendlin, among many other things, the document, as a living work in progress, is offered in a "multischematic and interschematizable" spirit.

*

a collaborator comments:

"I actually had a conversation recently with a friend as we re-read a year-old doc of his that had a warning at the start, about how the tone of a warning can have a kind of infantilizing effect, and we talked about your protocol as one example of that
[...]
ummm and I would say the new meta-warning sort of helps with that but it’s also sort of still committing the same thing, which it tries noting, but ugh ugh ugh"

a collaborator comments:

"I think the stuff you added [the "document-level meta-warning"] helps me understand a little bit more about what you are getting at with the later warnings. It almost gives off the impression that you are second-guessing yourself whether you would be reckless to put such information into just any old person’s hands, somehow you give off the impression that these methods are incredibly powerful, but also maybe no big deal all at once. It’s an interesting sort of ambivalence, like, "here is this stuff that might really affect you and I want to warn you somehow so that I feel less responsibility for this and get it off my chest." I admit I didn’t really get what the big fuss was about in the FUD sections you mention, which we talked about once. I get them a little better now after reading [...]. The bureaucratic language that [...] mentions about "don’t do if you reside with anyone under age 18..." etc. did also seem a both boilerplate-y and overwrought to me, but keep in mind I have very little experience, so my reaction to that is only interesting insofar as understanding how it might read to an uninitiated person, not to be taken as informed opinion."

an out-of-context, somewhat revised and extended reply of mine:

"[...] The meta-warning (and other warnings) are here to sort of speak to a very large spectrum of readers. One person did mention to me that the document was having a bit of the "totalizing" effect on them (which is not to say that adding the meta-warning necessarily, successfully cancels that effect!). And, a couple people have mentioned some similar effects the first time they encountered some of the practices below. Additionally, the unqualified warnings further down are a too-general way of protecting me from too many people (and protecting them, too!!) who are at least just slightly over on the side of 'shouldn't be engaging in the practices without support,' from reaching out and overwhelming my available time. Long-run, the warnings and risk discussions should be more nuanced, qualified, and backed up by data or representative anecdotes. (Though, there will be design decisions there, too, around thoroughness versus people skipping them because of length!) It’s almost like in a world where/when there is a very, very large community of practice and support one might soften these warnings. Right now, it's not necessarily the right tradeoffs, or the right evolution of tradeoffs in the right order, in how I present the material, but they are my best attempt at each update to the document. Some people skim the warnings and kind of get that that's what they're for, and/or they feel robust and well-resourced, with prior experience, and they proceed anyway. And some people have told me that they've read the warnings and, for better and worse, stopped reading. And, some people have read the warnings and then proceeded cautiously in both good ways and maybe not-so-good ways. And, some people have read the warnings and have reached out with really good questions about their personal situation. This mix of responses may not be god's-eye-view ideal, or in the right ratios, but it feels kind of ok, first pass. I do revisit concerns about both false positives and false negatives, a lot, though, as we learn more and more and as people supply critique and feedback!"

a collaborator comments:

"something something clicking for me about ways my actions within [public facing organization] became much more sane-seeming to collaborators once I was like '[hey], I am doing this because my personal reputation is on the line' or 'because if we don’t do this before [publication], people will storm/swamp me personally about this [...] and empathizing with you-as-document-author in these tradeoffs much better now'"

another note by me:

The verbose nuance, and many qualifiers, and qualifiers on qualifiers, and long introductions in the document can potentially impact readability. But the goal is sort of not to just obviate myself as an in-person teacher, but to err on the side of too much nuance, and too much information, to thoroughly obviate myself. I'd like there to be a big, thriving, supportive community across time, but I'd also like isolated people, where it catches their eye, and they're really willing to dig in and to digest (as a bunch of people have, so far!), to be able to pick this up and de novo use it to train and to even form a community and become a teacher/mentor/etc. without ever having interacted with me personally, if they would like, on their own terms. And that could be contemporaneously or one thousand years in the future, and so on. (Of course, many things will be different, in the future!) Note: All this being said about obviating myself, at this stage of the game, do please reach out, if you have questions!