Hi! My name is Peter Sherman. I have been a software engineer for 20+ years. I have also engaged in regular meditation for 20+ years. I would suggest that what you're going to experience in the future may turn out to be a blessing, rather than a curse, as daunting as the idea of future blindness seems.
Now, before I am tarred and feathered alive by pretty much everyone here in the HN community, please give me a moment to explain!
You see, most people spend their lives, their entire lives, searching for something which is outside of themselves, something which they believe will make them happy.
If they find it, it very well might, but unfortunately, it's only for relatively short periods of time, and then desire kicks in, and then there's a new set of goals, a new set of priorities. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing that grants happiness, even for many years -- will continue to do that for many more. Everything changes. (This is Buddhist philosophy incidentally).
What you're searching for, might very well be within -- rather than in the external world.
So how do you find this thing within?
Well, the first step is that you have to close down the external world.
You do this by closing your eyes (note that this is no different than blindness -- but it is less permanent), and relaxing, observing the mind and its flow of images.
If you see nothing but black... don't worry, I promise you, there's a ton of stuff in there -- more than you could ever imagine, more than 80 Zillion Internets' worth of data.
You'll see black for a fairly long time, maybe it will be months, maybe it will even be years, but eventually (with continued regular meditation) is that you'll start to see pinpricks of light, bits of sound, and you'll start to get intuitions and ideas from the higher mind, and you might see flashes of images. You might also drift off into lucid or semi-lucid dreams.
The trick is, don't try to use any force whatsoever to try do any of that, or those things will disappear. The harder you try, the less success you'll have (it's paradoxic in this respect), so a relaxed gentle focus is the key.
Becoming blind, at least the knowledge that that's going to happen to you -- could be compared to knowing that one day in the future you're going to be pushed into the ocean -- and you don't know how to swim.
Meditation, closing the eyes for at least 20 minutes a day, at a regular time every day, and relaxing, letting go, but maintaining a teensy bit of relaxed, gentle focus, gentle presence ("be here, now"), is not unlike learning to swim.
By the time you are pushed into the ocean... you want to be a champion swimmer, not someone who doesn't know how to swim.
Meditation then, is like learning how to swim, if the knowledge of future blindness is like being forced into an ocean...
Anyway, if you'd like, we can talk more about this. Shoot me an email at peter.d.sherman@gmail.com, and let's chat!
Now, before I am tarred and feathered alive by pretty much everyone here in the HN community, please give me a moment to explain!
You see, most people spend their lives, their entire lives, searching for something which is outside of themselves, something which they believe will make them happy.
If they find it, it very well might, but unfortunately, it's only for relatively short periods of time, and then desire kicks in, and then there's a new set of goals, a new set of priorities. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing that grants happiness, even for many years -- will continue to do that for many more. Everything changes. (This is Buddhist philosophy incidentally).
What you're searching for, might very well be within -- rather than in the external world.
So how do you find this thing within?
Well, the first step is that you have to close down the external world.
You do this by closing your eyes (note that this is no different than blindness -- but it is less permanent), and relaxing, observing the mind and its flow of images.
If you see nothing but black... don't worry, I promise you, there's a ton of stuff in there -- more than you could ever imagine, more than 80 Zillion Internets' worth of data.
You'll see black for a fairly long time, maybe it will be months, maybe it will even be years, but eventually (with continued regular meditation) is that you'll start to see pinpricks of light, bits of sound, and you'll start to get intuitions and ideas from the higher mind, and you might see flashes of images. You might also drift off into lucid or semi-lucid dreams.
The trick is, don't try to use any force whatsoever to try do any of that, or those things will disappear. The harder you try, the less success you'll have (it's paradoxic in this respect), so a relaxed gentle focus is the key.
Becoming blind, at least the knowledge that that's going to happen to you -- could be compared to knowing that one day in the future you're going to be pushed into the ocean -- and you don't know how to swim.
Meditation, closing the eyes for at least 20 minutes a day, at a regular time every day, and relaxing, letting go, but maintaining a teensy bit of relaxed, gentle focus, gentle presence ("be here, now"), is not unlike learning to swim.
By the time you are pushed into the ocean... you want to be a champion swimmer, not someone who doesn't know how to swim.
Meditation then, is like learning how to swim, if the knowledge of future blindness is like being forced into an ocean...
Anyway, if you'd like, we can talk more about this. Shoot me an email at peter.d.sherman@gmail.com, and let's chat!
Oh, and here's a great song, by the way:
Billy Joel - In The Middle Of The Night (The River of Dreams) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9HFYNITCSs
OK, NOW the HN Community -- can tar (-xvf) and feather me! :-)