Since days of old, prayer without ceasing has been a theme of
   the mystical elements of world religions, especially its
   monastic parts. Sans religious context, nothing has changed.
   Substitute awareness, still works. It's a thing that goes beyond
   the thing into a realm that only those who understand,
   understand. It's available to everybody - and really isn't that
   difficult to get a taste of. Everybody's had a taste of it at
   some point - at least I hope so - but like piano, it takes
   practice. But perfection is of a different sort. It's more a
   relieving than a precising... a widening rather than a honing
   in. Yet it goes both directions and neither. It's a realm that
   words are really awful at conveying. I blame Plato but really,
   he didn't know. = Well said. I find the most powerful tool to
   comprehend in this regard (language) is metaphor. I can find
   little else that's "atomic" in the same way that a note might be
   for music. (or rather, I'd say that it is the gaps between notes
   that is atomic ... and even then, the gaps between wave peaks
   and troughs but this is the point I wish I could draw animations
   rather than use words). Metaphors are for sensemaking and the
   more metaphors you can notice, the more understanding comes your
   way. You can take a single word within a context, find a
   physical metaphor that it comes from and just there, you get a
   deeper meaning. Or if you know some of the etymology of your own
   language (in my case English), you can go even deeper. It
   creates a fascinating structure like marionettes hanging down
   from cascading surrounding fibrous structures that connect them
   all together as meaning is negotiated culturally, historically,
   socially, internally - all to get past a very strange issue
   humanity suffers from: Private minds. How do you know what I'm
   thinking? How do you know what I'm feeling? How can you convey
   what you're thinking? How do you convey what you're feeling?
   What about those things beyond thinking and feeling? SO much
   human trouble over something that should be so simple. ==