Mobile phones can take you down rabbit holes, you can pop out in lands of wonder.
You can also, if you so choose, pop up in some very negative places.
I do not engage with or have accounts in social media.
No Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc, etc, etc.
My mobile phone is used to focus on and access things that bring me bliss and a sense of rapture.
I love philosophy, research, learning.
So, this tool, my mobile internet access/occasional phone, that is connected to seemingly endless banks of knowledge, is my “Bliss Station”.
Tech to me has always been about creating or accessing knowledge.
Whether, in the past that meant collating hours of recorded lectures on a desktop computer and editing video, or now in 2023, curating a very carefully selected list of Podcasts, Youtube channels, and reading lists on my mobile.
My mobile phone has become my “Bliss Station”.
Rather than a room, a desk, a physical space.
My phone has become that place where I can listen to the music I love, read, listen to and watch texts about things that bring me joy.
At breakfast this morning for example, I drank my coffee and ate my porridge and apple and pulled up a stream of consciousness, that helped me try to get a grasp on the relationship of Solomon ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, and Thomas Aquinas and the influence earlier Islamic scholars and Neoplatonism had upon them, something that interests and intrigues me at the moment.
I also pondered this morning upon, Everton’s 1-4 loss to Brighton last night, which I also accessed through my mobile “Bliss Station”.
Joseph Campbell in the video I have chosen today explains about sacrifice and bliss and a certain ball game with dire consequences.
It will be seen later today if heads will roll after last night’s debacle.
I am thumbing this post to my website, from an app on my phone, after doing my morning exercises.
This is my sketch pad, I text my thoughts to my journal with my thumb.
Do not expect to find these entries perfect and redacted. They are text messages, with all the problems of typos, etc, etc.
Enjoying my “Bliss Station”, my virtual, portable, desk and study, this space is my sketchpad, where I thumb in links and patterns of what I am currently interested in.
The Joseph Campbell video I have chosen here, sprang to mind after watching Vervaeke and recalling Dreyfus in the two previous posts.
Joseph Campbell, another great teacher who touches upon the notions of being, consciousness and rapture.
Themes running through the two previous posts.
Oneness and non-duality.
Interestingly, he also cites a story of the Camel, Lion and the Dragon.
This was interesting in the context of Vervaeke’s explanation of the Human, Lion and the Monster.
Interesting to compare those and their sources.
This Joseph Campbell interview is one of a series with Bill Moyers that I have in my archives and that I am drawn back to, from time to time.
Campbell is a true hero of mine, my Obi-Wan Kenobi.