PROMPT: Physical Exercise

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

I’m a big fan of them all. I like to move it, move it.

Each in its time.

Though the less special equipment I need access to, the better. I’m a firm believer that one needs only the body and mind to keep a fit body. It’s all a matter of how, how often, how intensely, and how safely one moves one’s body. Gadgety fitness can become too fetishist, and not build integration of the body as much as is ideal.

FIVE WISE LINES [October 2025]

Gwalior Fort on Gopachal Hill in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India

I had better never see a book
than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit,
and made a satellite instead of a system.

ralph waldo emerson; The american scholar

Free should the scholar be, — free and brave.

Ralph waldo emerson; The American Scholar

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.

Paulo coelho

What you’re supposed to do when you
don’t like a thing is change it.
If you can’t change it,
change the way you think about it.
Don’t complain.

Maya angelou

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it’s not the same river
and he’s not the same man.

Heraclitus

PROMPT: Hobby or pastime

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

Swimming, at the moment.

PROMPT: Lost All Possessions

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

I’d like to think that I’d keep on keeping on, and I try to cultivate the mindset to do so, but –having never experienced it — I can’t honestly say.

PROMPT: Changed Mind

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

Oh so many things over the years. The biggest / most fundamental being the likeliness of the existence of a god or gods. The smallest being the relative appeal of toast.

PROMPT: Pay More Attention

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

Mental states and somatic & emotional sensations. Sakshi Bhava is good stuff.

PROMPT: Lesson

Daily writing prompt
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Few things in life matter as much as they feel they do. Almost nothing is perilous, while many things feel as though they are. Don’t let illusory feelings keep one from living boldly.

Or, as the Epicureans liked to say, “What is painful is easy to endure.”

PROMPT: Grudge

Daily writing prompt
Are you holding a grudge? About?

No, but it sounds like fun — starts with a “GRR” and rhymes with “fudge.”

PROMPT: Traveled from Home

Daily writing prompt
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

”Home” and “away” lost all meaning long ago, becoming a false dichotomy. “Furthest” is likely presumed to mean the most distant in space, but that is not always the greatest mental distance. Sometimes a place changes while you were away, and that shift through time becomes the most jarring distance.

BOOK: “The Mind Electric” by Pria Anand

The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our BrainsThe Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria Anand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Simon & Schuster

There are A LOT of pop neuroscience books out there that reflect upon what we know about the brain from what goes wrong with it. I thought I was done reading such books because, while the first few are fascinating, they tend to retell the same stories.

That said, I’m glad I read this one, and what made it worth reading was that the science was explored in a very personal way, and I don’t just mean that the author recited her own personal experiences or those of her patients (though she does both,) but rather that the whole book is imbued with her worldview. She relates maladies of the mind to works of literature, of Greek and Hindu mythology, and to other aspects of culture in a relatable manner.

Another factor that sets this book apart is that its author shows a passion for language. In that sense, it reminded me of the works of Oliver Sacks (who she references a number of times,) rather than your average — articulate but linguistically conservative — neuroscientist.

I’d recommend this book for any readers interested in neuroscience, particularly anyone looking for a book that sets itself apart from the crowd. (I don’t recall it even mentioning Phineas Gage, which I thought was a requirement of all such books.)

View all my reviews