Quiet meditation, soft music, deep breathing, calm blue ocean – MY FLAT ASS! If any of this crap worked people wouldn’t overeat, get drunk, or peel out of the driveway.

Let’s call meditation by it’s real-world moniker – stewing. Soft music (and to a greater degree cheery pop) does not soothe, but rather irritates the crap out of me when I’m angry. The sound makes me want to ram my minivan into the nearest peacenik Vanigan. Deep breathing only helps in that it allows one to yell louder, longer.

Food, booze, and speed go much further to quell the beast inside.

* This post was originally published September 16, 2007. While I stand by the overall sentiment and still find meditation as pushed on the masses abhorrent, I wouldn’t be so glib about replacing it with destructive behaviors these days. Instead, I would laud the benefits of “just sitting.” I would write a tutorial about how to just sit, but the incongruity of people reading it on their phones would also make me have intrusive thoughts about operating said minivan. RB 7/11/24