For about a week, my meditations were not helpful. I could not quiet my mind. I have invented a remedy, at least for the specific problem I’ve been having.

I’ve started “justifying not thinking about something”–say, something I need to do or write or remember. I keep a clipboard and pen next to me, and write things down (so they “exist in reality,” to say it the Landmark way) and then dismiss the thoughts when they come up, because I no longer need to think about them.

Lots of thoughts are simply unnecessary: the processing of dreams I had last night; imagining scenarios that are extremely unlikely; what I’d like to tell certain people; what I’ll do when I’m finally rich and famout… I can tell myself I don’t need to think about these things–justify letting them go–and then get back to nothing.

Is this view useful to anyone else?