trying out Bear Blog......
Sit outside. No reason. Just sit outside. Listen to the bugs. Are they beetles? Cicadas? Are cicadas beetles? What even is a cicada? Don’t worry about it. Notice these thoughts if you can. Watch the sky. The clouds are moving. Everything is moving... even if you can’t see it. Maybe an idea comes. Or a fragment of one. Let it percolate. Inhale. What happens in the space of a breath? A plane flies…
Just read some Rumi from Gafori’s Gold collection. Why should I be afraid? I’m the one who gives form to formless fear. I write its every rant. Once I lived in a prison of circumspection. I thought I was being prudent and wise. A prison. Why? What had I stolen? ...and... Your naked freedom is your shield. Thank God for wise ancestors. Words from Viktor Frankl ( Man’s Search for Meaning ) also keep…
I just finished watching the finale of Alone Season 11. It was striking how almost every contestant went through a similar arc: confidence doubt rationalizing tap out Whether that arc happened over the course of a few days or a few months, the basic shape was similar. The clear take-away is that this is simply how the human psyche works. Everyone starts out confident they’ll never tap. They can’t…
Inside the cover of my Mush overnight oats container this morning I saw this: “You are what you repeat” . Obviously a play on “you are what you eat” and I enjoy it. I think we all often struggle with the space between aspiration and reality, and “you are what you repeat” is a gentle reminder of some important facts: things take time to develop “the past” or “your life” is an accumulation of…
I fired up an old laptop today and did a clean install of Linux Mint. I used Mint back in college days when I didn't want to spend the money for Windows, and certainly couldn't afford a MacBook, so I know it a little. But I've been deep in the Apple ecosystem for quite some time. The idea spark came after reading this post and then a few others on the same blog. Also tumbling around in the back of…
It can be surprisingly difficult to see clearly, even in the simplest and most mundane circumstances. Here’s an example. I have built a collection of pens. It includes a bunch of fountain pens, gel pens, fineliners, ballpoint pens, highlighters, and markers. I’m always experimenting with new pens. I’ll see one that has an interesting design or claims a fancy new feature and want to try it out.…
Here are some things I think I know about Buddhism: There is no one Buddhism. Buddhism is both astonishingly simple and overwhelmingly complex; this is just one of Buddhism’s many contradictions. Buddhism’s defining characteristic is its intrinsic approach. The answers (and motivation) are within oneself, not without. Buddhism plays nicely with other spiritual and religious traditions. That said,…
I’ve had a travel blog for over 10 years. During those years I’ve mostly ignored it, especially after an initial burst of activity at the beginning of our trip to Asia in 2014-2015. At one point along the way I decided to move it from a self-hosted setup to a managed platform to simplify things ( sounds familiar ). I did the migration with inexplicably little care, though, and ended up breaking a…
I got an email informing me that my account for an iPad sketching app that I had previously used was going to be deleted. The account is only used for sync between devices, not drawings, so the potential for data loss was pretty minimal. The account was due for deletion because I had not used it in over a year . I don’t even own an iPad at the moment. But I still hesitated. I—get this—even thought…
I was initially drawn to Obsidian because it used simple, locally-stored, plain text files and facilitated linking notes together. That’s all I wanted. It was a refreshing take on notes in a space with beautiful, but bloated, tools like Notion and Craft. Then I found myself falling down the rabbit hole. I created “optimized” custom setups with workspace layouts and tons of plugins. I dutifully…