High Existence is a site on self-improvement, consciousness, and philosophy, which also hosts essays, comics, and short fiction.
HN links it mostly for Asimov's short story 'The Last Answer', which commenters call a favorite, and for its Amusing Ourselves to Death comic.
The Last Answer - Isaac Asimov
https://highexistence.com/the-last-answer-short-story/
Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough.
The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily. He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him.
There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain. Murray felt an almost giddy lightness as though he were lifting in the air and hovering.
He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated. He had been in the laboratory when the pain had struck, quite without warning, and when he had staggered, he had heard surprised outcries from the others before everything vanished into overwhelming agony.
Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body –– Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on.
He was down there, sprawled, face contorted. He was up here, at peace and watching.
He thought: Miracle of miracles! The life-after-life nuts were right.
And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed.
He thought: There should be some angel – or something – coming for…
I strongly recommend "Buddhism Plain & Simple" by Steve Hagen. It's much more meditation / awareness than Buddhist practice, so don't worry much about the title. I also really enjoyed "10% Happier" which was way more of a practical story vs. instruction manual. In general, meditation is NOT about "not thinking" - a major misconception about the practice. It's always helped me to view it less as a "mental getaway" and more as "training my mind like a muscle."
The practice, btw, is the whole point, it's not a means to getting to "the real part." That's a difficult point for some to grasp. Every time you sit and your mind wanders, that's the practice right there. This might be the most accurate image of what meditation is: http://www.highexistence.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/meditation1.jpg
A few links that might help:
http://buyalex.com/2015/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/breatheAware_gif-01_buyalex.gif
http://i.imgur.com/75wn1o9.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze6t34_p-84
>If you succeed in achieving your nightmare Orwellian scenario, I promise you this: I'll emigrate to an extradition-free country.
It appears as if we have already succeeded at creating this Orwellian scenario and seems as if Huxley was correct and we are currently amusing ourselves to death. The truth is being drowned out by and infinite amounts of triviality and the masses are begging for more. This Orwellian world has no boundaries and there is no escape to some Utopian country. For better or worse this is the world we have created and we need to realize that is not a situation that will be solved by leaving the country. Crypto is going to be a Forever War. Perhaps it will be more effective if we take the long view.
Huxley vs Orwell
http://highexistence.com/amusing-ourselves-to-death-huxley-vs-orwell/
From someone who had to google that:
http://highexistence.com/culture-is-not-your-friend-terence-mckennas-radical-perspective/
>McKenna saw modern culture as a sort of engine detached from the interests of the individual and serving the manipulative, power-focused agendas of various institutions and wealthy individuals.
That said there are quite a variety of cultures out there that you can choose to be part of. I'm currently in a yoga culture area and maybe as a counterpoint to "demanding never ending work weeks and 24/7 attention to work" I've hung a bit with landlord types who have bought a house, do it up buy another etc. If anything they tend to suffer from the opposite problem of not being very occupied much of the time. Plus awkward tenants - nothing's perfect.
In general I think it's a bad idea to take advice from successful people. There's a thing that goes around, a piece by Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes[1], talking about how great it was to quit his safe job and become a cartoonist. Except... how many famous cartoonists are there?
How many other people quit their advertising job and just failed? If each of their stories were circulated as much, would we see this swamped by a thousand heartbreaking memes instead?
Doing what Warren Buffett does works very well for Warren Buffett. The odds are good that it won't work for you. "Choose the right things" is pretty vacuous advice.
[1] https://highexistence.com/images/view/illustrated-advice-from-bill-watterson-creator-of-calvin-and-hobbes/
> But you said that if we knew why it worked, it would have become science.
No, I said if we explained it, that would be science. For God's sake, read the words. Explaining something like gravity doesn't try to justify why it is that way, it only shows that we understand it in depth.
> General relativity may describe gravity, but it doesn't explain it.
FALSE! GENERAL RELATIVITY IS THE PRESENT EXPLANATION FOR GRAVITY.
http://www.highexistence.com/einsteins-theory-of-relativity/
Title: "Einstein’s Theory of Relativity: Explained"
Circle the word you don't understand, and raise your hand.
> Consider this a final response ...
Unfortunately, you are among the science-illiterate.