The contemplative practice: the unified act of a small group of students closing their eyes to reflect on the hard subjects of the Anthropocene. These practices are supposed to be meditative, accessing different wavelengths of the brain. For the most part, all my early experiences with them have been lackluster in terms of how they affected me inwardly. I saw them more as a respite from my long commute and my active, sometimes anxious mind. The subject matters of this class never really hit me emotionally, that is, I don’t think I was ever shaken to the core. Even the hard subjects, like from the film Albatross, were simply emotions for me to experience. I would acknowledge them, my emotions, but I would move past them, so to speak. I wouldn’t let them bring me down. I’m an optimistic person, always have been. I think it’s just in my personality. I live by the moment. I can’t think of the what-ifs like a terrorist getting ahold of nuclear weapons from a destabilized Pakistan or a disruption from Saudi Arabia’s oil supply causing “a social earthquake,” as Thomas Homer-Dixon put it. 

My view of life is sort of a flexible one. Often, my days look pretty much the same, but given the chance, I will change with the wind. I, for example, never thought I would see myself maintaining my relative sanity commuting so many hours each day. I managed it by living in the moment, and eventually, about halfway through the quarter, I took that philosophy of living in the moment to the contemplative practice. I finally allowed myself to relax, instead of rest. My posture was usually sluggish, slouching slightly. During one of the practices, I decided to sit up straight, and strangely more important, I kept my feet flat on the ground. I don’t know why, maybe it makes me closer to the Earth, but there is something about keeping my feet flat on the ground that allowed me to be more in a meditative state. Through this contemplative practice and others, I began to realize that living in the moment is one thing, but striving to live further and deeper into the moment is another. I am living in the Anthropocene—and I am learning to die in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is a moment in time that I am learning to live in, every second of it.

https://movementmonthly.com/2015/05/01/keep-your-feet-on-the-ground-the-key-to-staying-vertical/