The unsurprising truth is that there are plenty of people talking about meditation, but not a lot of people doing it. The gym has less of this problem; most people who are out of shape don’t talk about their gym habits, unless they’re making clear progress toward their goals. But with meditation, there isn’t a credibility check for it’s advocates. It’s pretty easy to just speak authoritatively without putting in any time or deriving any benefits from it.
The end result is that those who aren’t very familiar with meditation find it’s proponents to be pretentious, and don’t really dive in on the topic. But it does have a ton of benefits, is backed up by science, and encouraged (even mandated) in virtually every religious text ever written.
