Blenders. They’re loud, annoying sounding, and we have both liquid and solid foods — there is no cause for liquifying solid foods.
Plus, I’m fond of all ten fingers.
PROMPT: Technology
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Category Archives: Philosophy
PROMPT: Hardest Decision
Whether or not to watch Sophie’s Choice. Because it might diminish the difficulty of all future choices.
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PROMPT: Didn’t Need Sleep
Daily writing prompt
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
I assume just a little more of all the things I already do, with a substantial amount of that time being spent in rest.
The thought, “If I didn’t have to rest I could do so much more” is one of modern life’s most cancerous modes of thinking.
Didn’t we all learn during the pandemic that when commutes and other travel / in-person time obligations go away, life fluidly swells to fill the void. Like having to learn Zoom, etc.
Life gives no free lunches, learn to live with it.
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PROMPT: Favorite Animals
Never elevate your opinion of a particular animal above the rest. I used to think quite highly of monkeys, and then one — of the kleptomaniac variety — stole my sunglasses and mocked me from a high tree like a cowardly school bully.
Isn’t it enough to know that all animals are better than people.
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PROMPT: Beach or Mountains
To me, that is much like asking whether I prefer a hammer or a Phillips head screwdriver. They are different tools for different purposes. Good luck if you love your ballpeen hammer so much that it’s the only tool for you but your problem of the moment is a deeply embedded wood screw.
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Surrender [Lyric Poem]
Let the flood sweep
one away — out
of the shallows,
into the deeps.
Don’t ever cry;
Don’t ever weep;
Just feel the speed
Carry one on.
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PROMPT: Historical Figure
Daily writing prompt
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
If babel fish existed or I could have access to a fluid translator, then perhaps Drukpa Kunley, (or, alternatively, Hanshan or Ikkyu,) because I would like to know how that level of freedom is achieved (and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be.)
If I was on my own for language, maybe Thoreau or Whitman. (For largely the same reason.)
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BOOK: “Understanding Eastern Philosophy” by Ray Billington
Understanding Eastern Philosophy by Ray BillingtonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Taylor & Francis
This book does a solid job for one that bites off so much in a single go. Eastern Philosophy is a large subject, and to try to outline the major premises of its varied systems and also compare them to Western / Abrahamic notions (when Western schools are sometimes no more different from Eastern schools than each side is within,) and to do so in under two-hundred pages is a daunting undertaking.
For the most part, I felt the book did a fine job of meeting its objective. A fair amount of selection and simplification is required. I will say the part describing karmic doctrine didn’t seem consistent with what I was taught and seems more in line with the early Western scholars who started writing about Eastern Philosophy but could not help but couch the subject in a Western / Abrahamic frame because it was what they knew and was invisible to them. I say this as one who is no big fan of Karmic philosophy, though for another reason (one which is also mentioned in this book.) I’ve always been told that the central idea is to do selfless acts in order to escape the karmic cycle. Billington, like others before him, states it as do “good deeds” and then he puts forth the critique that this won’t help because doing good for one’s own benefit is fraught with peril. My understanding from Sanskrit scholars is: first, Hindu philosophers were aware of this paradox from the beginning and that’s why the emphasis has always been on “selfless” acts; second, the Abrahamic bifurcation of all actions into good and evil is not so much a thing in Hindu thinking (most actions are inherently neither.) I should point out that there is a lot of internal conflict within these philosophies (e.g. differences between Buddhist and Hindu thoughts on Karma) and that Billington does elsewhere reflect on the differences between Eastern and Western thinking about good and evil.
The first two-thirds of the book is organized by schools of thought (beginning with the Indian ones and working toward Chinese / East Asian schools) and the last third deals with a series of fundamental philosophical questions.
If you want a quick outline of Eastern philosophical ideas, this book gives a good look at them, particularly if one is interested in a comparison to Western ideas. The book also spends a fair amount of time in discussion of what a religion is and how one differs from a philosophy.
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PROMPT: Favorite Month
Northern or Southern hemisphere? Landlocked or coastal? Temperate or Equatorial? I need more information.
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BOOKS: “The Activist” by Daniel Fried
The Activist: A Daoist Protest Manual by Daniel FriedMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Page — Prometheus Books/
Release date: March 3, 2026
Taoist philosophy has been applied to many a subject over the centuries, from war to business to governance to relationships, but this is the first time I’ve seen it applied to activism in a substantive way. The book caught my eye because I’ve long recognized the central truth behind Fried’s work, which is that the tactics and mindsets of protesters often does them no favors and may even ensure failure (if one presumes the objective to be to change behavior and attitudes on a given topic into line with the protesters’ stance.) The problem is that protesters are often angry and combative, characteristics which may keep the choir (preaching to itself) warm and feeling self-righteous, but which seldom brings in new converts from among the undecided [let alone from the opposing side.] And if you didn’t need converts to your side, you wouldn’t have to protest in the first place. Given this tendency, Taoism could be argued to be an ideal source of strategy. Taoism proposes going with the grain, not leading with a fight, and avoiding useless activity.
This book provides interesting food-for-thought about how protesters might have more impact by adopting fewer belligerent and self-serving tactics. Unfortunately, the book also has stretches of stream-of-consciousness writing that — while perhaps consistent with the Taoist love of spontaneity — can be a bit of a strain on the reader’s ability to follow. This mostly takes place in the latter chapters.
I found this book to be intriguing. I can’t say that I came away from it having answered the question of whether Taoist philosophy is reconcilable with activism on a practical level. Taoism asks one to let the natural unfold, while protest movements want to guide a society in a particular direction (notably one by definition at odds which that which has fallen into place organically.) It’s not for lack of discussion that I haven’t reached a conclusion, but rather that questions remain for me on the pragmatic level (rather than the level of theory.) That said, I found the book well worth reading, despite a few points of low readability.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 