Dial it in; You control the dial

I was talking to my good buddy WW over the weekend.  In a far ranging conversation in which he shared the many interesting projects he has undertaken lately and some insights he has had about life, he turned to me and asked me what I've been up to.  After an awkward pause in which I mentally scrambled to come up with anything half as interesting as his endeavors, I finally lamely said "Lately I've had the realization that I oscillate between feelings of 'impending  doom' and a kind of internal 'unwarranted bliss'.  The interesting thing is that I think I can control the dial on that myself.  It seems like this is where so many self-help gurus, religions, meditative practices, etc. are trying to say in their own way and so I want to work on that myself to get better at controlling that internal dial."

His answer: "Yes, absolutely."

Ever since, I've had this image of an old analog meter with a single needle and dial that reads "Feelings of Impending Doom" on one side and "Unwarranted Internal Bliss" on the other.  I fed this sketch into an art AI and got this:

my rough sketch

AI generated art from the sketch above

Not exactly what my mind's eye sees, but I can just adjust my mental analog control knob and be happy about it...