no hurry, no pause
Observe the inner stillness of Yehudi Menuhin, one of the great violinists of the 20th century. Notice the majestic steadiness of his posture and his simple, gentle movements, each gesture commanding an exquisite wave of sound. Cultivate your own presence. Bring more of your inner strength and conviction. Practice this and cultivate presence. Bruser & Menuhin (1999, pp. 44–45). REFERENCES Bruser,…
Listening to Julian Lage's video on his YouTube channel, I came to realize a subtle quality: He and his quartet are in a meditative state. It doesn't look like they are performing, nor are they working. Thus, listening to them draws you into that restorative state in which you strip off the day's tension. In contrast, when you participate in a rock and roll song the same way you participate in…
Ikigai, a concept from Okinawa, is believed to support the longevity and well-being of its people, who have one of the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world. A common modern interpretation of ikigai includes four areas: what you love (activities that genuinely bring joy and energy), what you are good at (your abilities, strengths, and expertise), what the world needs (making a…
I have set up a ThinkPad T540p laptop with MX Linux and am getting comfortable with my OS triad: macOS as my primary personal OS, MX Linux functional, and Windows on the ThinkPad T14 for office at work. It’s been nearly two decades since I last did anything on Linux, and I was delighted to find out about the current iteration of Mepis, a Linux distribution that I used to use pre-2007. Sadly,…
Hakuro Nishiki is a variegated willow. Even someone who sees it without reading its label could guess it is a Japanese tree. With its soft and delicate form and the colour that can represent the sakura season, the tree in its pot caught our attention immediately. Now we wonder how it looks in its fully grown state rooted in a garden. Reading about this tree, we find out its origin is not solely…
Life is messy, the work we do, the personal projects we undertake, hobbies, simply put, a day from dawn to dusk is messy. No undo button to easily clean up the tracks and straighten it up going forward. Then even the clearest paths will branch out and no matter how clean a path, something will mess it up again. Clear your mind and embrace messiness, there’s no pristine state of perfection, the…
Parkinson’s law asserts that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. It also applies to how much space is allowed in one’s life for work; it is a gas that expands to occupy all the space it is given. Thus compress work and do not allow it to compress you by setting your boundaries for it. Darwin, for instance, worked about 4 hours a day and accomplished so much (Darwin, 2003).…
I can’t help but notice a pattern: I seem to end up writing circular or recursive ideas. I think it’s a thinking habit, for better or worse. Recursive thinking is good at finding the hidden assumptions inside an idea, because it naturally follows a thought back to its own foundations. The risk is getting stuck in the loop, rather than using it as a launch point.
What smoking is to the lungs, anxiety is to the soul; thus, chronic anxiety is a form of cancer, a slow death. Control anxiety induced by external factors, and you have tackled one of the challenges of modern life. Anxiety that your mind evokes is the most challenging, though. Only the disciplined mind will overcome it by deliberate struggle with self-induced anxiety. John Nash, the mathematician,…
When I seek guidance, I turn to books. Classical philosophy and strategy teach leadership and discipline, especially during workplace challenges. The Stoics highlight life’s fragility. Modern thought provides clarity through mindfulness practices, philosophical inquiry, science revealing hidden patterns, understanding probability and risk, and treating problem-solving as daily practice. Literature…