Richard Ludlow
@richardludlow
Meditation & emotional fluidity. Data scientist. Give anonymous feedback: https://www.admonymous.co/richardludlow.
Every spiritual thing I’ve experienced is simple clear seeing of what’s been true all along and every spiritual thing I haven’t is hopelessly mystical woo pushed by grifters high on their own supply of piti.
In general, you will have a much better time in life if you assume that it is your responsibility to prompt the interactions you would like to have
seems basically right
A lot of people swing from corporate (yang) to spiritual seeker (yin) bc they’re burnt out. They then try to fix all their problems with the “yin toolkit”: • Presence • Love • Flow Which is good (at first). But eventually they need to realise: “I still need yang to have a…
the thing with “feel your feelings” as advice is, it literally won’t help unless your inner or outer life circumstances are sufficiently different from when the feeling was originally repressed. it was unfelt for a reason. allowing it to feel-so-it-resolves is a whole art
Things I find easy to share here: 1. What's helped me. 2. My slight variants on activities or attainments I've heard about from many. Things that have been harder: 1. Very personal growth that was important to me but may not apply to many. 2. Things I'm still struggling with.
“If we can’t know, it doesn’t matter.” ~Individual who thinks he isn’t doing philosophy.
One time, a physicist I know dismissed the entire field of philosophy with one simple declaration, and I still love him for it. “If we can’t know, it doesn’t matter.”
Michael's retreats are special.
New retreat just dropped! Friday, December 12 – Friday December 19, 2025 Join us for eight days and seven nights at Mount Madonna Center in the hills outside Santa Cruz, California, meditating, learning, and practicing with me and the Deconstructing Yourself sangha. We will…
nah it's more subtle than that. if you anticipate your problem being solved, you move towards solving it (psycho-cybernetics). having a context that draws you into such an anticipation and helps you participate in it and clarify what you want, is a real resource
My experience of life: You kind of enter a tunnel at ~15 & it shoots you out at ~35 & the rest of your life is largely determined by the choices you made & the luck you had in the tunnel.
I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better
A natural side effect of so many seemingly outlandish aspects of Bay Area culture turning out to be literally true.
I always forget that you can't write anything even slightly tongue-in-cheek about San Francisco or the tech bubble without a bunch of people interpreting it 100% literally and getting mad.
not to sound like one of those gifted kid burnout hacks, but it really is incredible that i used to manage two competitive sports and a full AP course load in high school and now i require stimulants to respond to texts
If you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. I wish spiritual/meditation/yoga teachers were more comfortable going “no actually this isn’t fixing your issues, fire me and eat lots of broccoli“ and send you off to do experiments beyond their field of expertise
I am starting to strongly suspect that a good meditation system ultimately turns you into a horny extrovert with a lot of optionality around “need for cognition.” If your meditation system does not turn you into a horny extrovert possibly return it to the store and get a new one.