If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be?
Don’t be an ass!
PROMPT: Your Younger Self
Reply
Category Archives: learning
PROMPT: Online Course
What’s the best online course you’ve ever taken?
View all responses
I’m doing a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course presently that is well done. However, I wouldn’t say that I’ve had sufficient experience to make any comparative statements. Most of my education was in the days when you went to the same room the person teaching you was and at the same time they were there. But I knew when self-checkouts came along that we were weaning ourselves away from the last vestiges of non-optional human contact.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Know
What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?
View all responses
I believe the distinction between knowledge and wisdom is that one merely needs to be able to understand knowledge, but one must be able to live wisdom. For example, one can teach a five-year-old Jesus’ lesson about turning the other cheek, and they may understand every word but still be struggling to live it sixty years later.
My point is that I’m doubtful that knowing anything would have saved me pain because I would have had to live it, and that takes time, experience, and struggle.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Lifelong Learner
I aspire to be, but in the immortal words of Monty Python, “I am not dead yet!”
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
FIVE WISE LINES [July 2026]
Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.
Sufi Saying
[S]ome day you will be old enough to
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe
start reading fairy tales again.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel proust
Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Mahatma gandhi
Learn as if you were to live forever.
It took me four years to paint like Raphael,
Pablo Picasso
but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Instantly
Daily writing prompt
If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?
What would be the fun in that? It’s the journey that makes skill development enjoyable and interesting. I’m not interested in downloadable skills. (I’ll leave them to the robots.)
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK: “Shuhari” by Nobuo Suzuki
Shuhari: The Three-Step Japanese Path to Lifelong Growth and Success by Nobuo SuzukiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Release date: August 11, 2026
I was introduced to the concept of “shuhari” as a student of Japanese martial arts, and over time I discovered it to be one of the most useful concepts for personal growth and development. Shuhari is by no means exclusive to martial arts and is applied to arts in the broadest sense — really to endeavors of any type (as is true in this book which references not only martial arts, but literary arts, graphic arts, cinematic art, and even sciences.) The idea is this: one begins by repetitively practicing what one is taught in as close to an exemplary fashion as possible (shu,) then one starts adapting the principles one has cultivated to changing and unpredictable circumstances (ha,) and finally one abandons the forms and embraces the spontaneous (ri.) In short, we follow the rules (shu,) break the rules (ha,) and abandon the rules (ri.)
Recent years have seen a flood of books on cultural life philosophies, starting and continuing with those of the Japanese culture, but venturing out into Scandinavian (Sisu and Lagom,) Goan (Susegad,) and many others. One could easily fill a shelf each with the popular books on “ikigai” or “ganbatte.” It’s kind of a surprise to see that it’s taken this long to venture into the invaluable concept of “Shuhari.” It is an idea whose time has come to go global.
In a broad sense, this is a book on learning and creativity, and I’d highly recommend it for anyone looking to reevaluate their approach to learning and / or creating.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Won’t Live to Witness
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?
I would love to see an era in which AI and robotics frees up humans to work on the project of being better humans physically, mentally, creatively, emotionally, artistically, etc.
However, I suspect that on the way to that point there will be periods of dystopia, chaos, and quasi-Armageddon. As near as I can tell, it will involve the invention of a new form of economy (and possibly governance,) which I haven’t seen anyone discussing in the merited depths.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
FIVE WISE LINES [June 2026]
When I was younger I could remember anything,
Mark twain
whether it had happened or not;
but my faculties are decaying now and soon
I shall be able to remember only the things
that never happened.
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
Plutarch [paraphrased]
but a fire to be kindled.”
Judge a man by his questions
Voltaire
rather than his answers.
Resist much, obey little.
Walt whitman; “To the states“
People don’t take trips —
John steinbeck
trips take people.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Profound Piece of Advice
Daily writing prompt
What’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it?
“Shut the hell up!” Sadly, more often than not, no.
