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Can highly recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow and Why Buddhism is True (listened to both as audio books).

I have not read the others, but the 5+ books I read by Bill Bryson have been awesome, putting The Body on my year's list - thanks ;)

To get started. Absolutely. Headspace has been instrumental in dealing with a very hard time in my life. For a secular, scientific look at mindfulness meditation read the book “Why Buddhism is true.”

The Body - Bill Bryson

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Rovelli, Carlo

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment - Robert Wright

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

"Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion"
by Sam Harris: http://a.co/d/bpQ6OlS

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins: http://a.co/d/2aP5Tvo

"Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment" by Robert Wright: http://a.co/d/8IawuEo

Sam Harris discusses these topics (amongst others you may find interesting) in conversations on his podcast: https://samharris.org/podcast/

As a science oriented person I reach spirituality only through secularism. I can recommend this book: "Why Buddhism is True - The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment"
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlighte...

In essence this book tells why secular Buddhism (secular, western meditation) is actually a very reasonable way of spirituality.

Yes, absolutely. I linked this elsewhere in this thread, a Fresh Air interview [0] with the author of Why Buddhism is True [1] explains better than I can why having happiness be a permanent condition would not make any sense from an evolutionary perspective:

> I mean, natural selection built us to do some things - a series of things that help us get genes into the next generation. Those include eating food so we stay alive, having sex, things like that.

> And if it were the case that any of these things brought permanent gratification, then we would quit doing them, right? I mean, if you - you would eat. You'd feel blissed out. You'd never eat again. You'd have sex. You'd lie there, basking in the afterglow, never have sex again. Well, obviously, that's not a prescription for getting genes into the next generation. So natural selection seems to have built animals in general to be recurringly dissatisfied. And this is - seems to be a central feature of life, and it's central to the Buddhist diagnosis of what the problem is.

A key Buddhist teaching is that dukkha (often translated as "suffering" but I believe "dissatisfaction" is more accurate) is caused not just by pushing away negative feelings, but by trying to not let go of positive feelings.

Going out for a beer with my friends brings me happiness. If I chase that positive feeling, I might end up with a vicious hangover the next day, or long-term with a dependence on alcohol.

As an oversimplification, you can view any addiction through the lens of taking an ephemeral positive feeling, wishing for it to be permanent, and pursuing it over and over again, rather than accepting the nature of its impermanence.

0: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

1: https://amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenmen...

Really recommend the book, "Why Buddhism is true" by Robert Wright. He discusses the "atheist" take on buddhism, and how it predates an awful lot of what we now understand through modern psychology.

It's not really a tutorial on meditation, but I've learned more than enough to get started, and it's really interesting to see where I've gotten since starting.

A lot of people here are offering up books with life advice (though I saw a recommendation for Sapiens which I can also highly recommend) which may or may not help depending on what your problem is. Why not just practice introspection daily through meditation instead? For some motivation and evidence on what it can do for you, I'd recommend "Why Buddhism is True". In spite of its title, the book aims to give some logic behind mindfulness meditation. If specifically you have been dealing with chronic low mood as a result of your life shattering crisis, I'd also recommend "The Mindful Way Through Depression". If that isn't an issue for you, I personally enjoy Jon Kabat Zinn's writing in general so I'd research and pick up one of his books. Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield are some others in this field who have a lot of experience teaching mindfulness meditation in a Western context and have a lot of very useful advice when it comes to practicing mindfulness meditation. There is another popular "how to meditate" book out there called The Mind Illuminated which I see recommended on HN every now and then, though I personally feel it is a bit overkill (it is more of a textbook). With regard to Alan Watts, I've only read "The Wisdom of Insecurity" and personally found it to be a waste of time and money, though I guess you can read it online for free so that saves you the money at least :).

It definitely has had that effect for some, and I think that the promise of vaccines is probably exacerbating things since there's now the feeling of "I _could_ be out of this if only…".

What's helped me to stay in a positive space and productive during lockdown:

1. Daily exercise. I never worked out with weights before covid, but I bought a kettlebell and the book Simple & Sinister and started doing that routine along with cardio. Makes a huge difference.

2. Any kind of mindfulness. I've read a bunch of books on happiness during lockdown. Most all of them say the same things and suggest the same sorts of mindful practices, so I chose to do some practices based on stoicism and cognitive behavioral therapy. (Recommended reading: Why Buddhism is True, Everything is F*cked [starts good, gets bad], How to be a Stoic, A Handbook for New Stoics, Full Catastrophe Living. Choose any/all and see what you like.)

3. Not reading the news or doom scrolling. I get a covid newsletter each day (https://paulbart.substack.com) and don't read any other covid news. I also got off social media and don't read much about politics/the general shitshow. Basically, things that are beyond my control I pay limited attention to. When I violated this, obsessively seeking out streams & tweets from the storming of the capitol, I wound up having to take the next day off because I was so out of sorts.

4. Connecting directly with friends. I deleted my social media accts this year and started reaching out to old friends directly. First with a bulk email then zooms/phone calls with folks who wrote back. It's been great to reconnect and everyone is happy to chat!

5. Putting strict limits on work. I don't touch it outside of what I've determined to be "work hours". Period.

Good luck. Things can get better.

> I barely take this into account.

> I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication.

I appreciate your comment, but my point is that there's no way to actually do this, even if your goal is to. It may seem that you're being objective, but the objective facts can only influence the subjective opinion that's ultimately responsible for the decision, not the reverse as we like to think.

For example, if an interviewer likes the interviewee, they would actually think that the person did quite well in the technical question, and not if they don't. We first form an opinion about someone or something and then look for "objective" facts to justify it, not the other way round.

The only way to really be objective here is to use a point system and hard thresholds which completely removes the human in the loop, like SAT.

I recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Why Buddhism is True" which go into this idea in detail, and in general about how poor we are at being unbiased and rational. You'd be surprised at how deep our irrationality goes even if you already have some idea.