I plan to travel to the future one minute at a time.
At least until they invent a time machine that can transport something bigger than a subatomic particle, and only milliseconds into the future at that.
PROMPT: Future Travel
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Category Archives: Philosophy
PROMPT: Modern Society
In short, I think we need to foster emotional intelligence and not just academic intelligence, and we need to rebuild social interaction in a super-tribal world (i.e. a world too big for everyone to know everyone else.) [But do the latter without the xenophobia.]
To elaborate:
First, I think we need some true coming-of-age experience that facilitates a sense of self-empowerment. This would not just be collecting envelopes of cash and dancing a dance or reciting a prayer, but something more akin to being dropped in the woods for a week. Of course, this would require engaged parenting and skill acquisition and not just leaving kids with video games and social media. It seems like a lot of our present problems result from people with no sense of empowerment or the emotional intelligence that comes therefrom. Such people may have passed all the tests but still have “imposter syndrome” and the like.
Second, we need some sort of way to build tribal-scale groups in which people interact with a small group of others repeatedly — in person and face-to-face. The challenge is that this needs to be done without increasing xenophobia, which is already trending the wrong way. I think there is a problematic tendency to be virtually engaged but not personally engaged with others in humanity. Even in I, who am intensely introverted, the social impulse remains, but we live in a world where people can successfully dropout.
Some people get one or both of these experiences in any number of ways, but it seems like an ever-increasing segment of the population lacks confidence (even if they had a 4.0 gpa the whole way through their formal education,) and lacks human interaction (even if they have 2000 social media “friends.”)
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BOOK: “Ma” ed. by Ken Rodgers & John Einarsen
Ma: The Japanese Secret to Contemplation and Calm: An Invitation to Awareness by Ken RodgersMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Tuttle
Release date: October 27, 2025
My introduction to the concept of ma came as a young martial arts student, where it was thought of as distancing, but not distancing in a static sense — rather in a way that incorporated timing as well [so, more of an interval in space-time.] I would later hear the term applied to domains such as joke telling in which perfection of pause could be as critical to a laugh as the words that comprised the joke. This book expanded my understanding to numerous realms I’d never much considered before such as architecture, photography, and gardening. (Incidentally, this book does contain a chapter addressing the martial arts aspect of ma, though not the comedic ramifications of the concept.)
I haven’t seen any other books that focus entirely on this concept. Ma is often mentioned in books on Japanese philosophy and aesthetics but rarely with such depth and singular attention. If there are other books that drill down into the concept in this way, I doubt they are as readable as this one (that is, I suspect such a book would be intensely philosophic and scholarly.) So, this book seems to have a solid niche.
There were a couple chapters that took my thinking on the subject to entirely new places. One was on ma in the domain of virtual reality. This raised interesting metaphysical considerations. Another was about the Heart Sutra and how the translations used have led to longstanding misunderstandings of that work.
If you are interested in art and or philosophy, I’d highly recommend this book.
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PROMPT: Comfort Food
It depends on where I am. I recently discovered that my Busan comfort food is “Hotteok with seeds.” In Central Asia, it’s tandoor bread — by whatever name it’s called in the local tongue. In Tblisi, it’s khinkali. In Peru, a lomo saltado is a beautiful thing. Chicago is the only place I’ll eat a hotdog, but I do love one there.
As a traveler, I find it’s important to not get attached to any one thing. If you crave a bagel, you’re great if you’re in New York or Tel Aviv, but if you insist on one in Hyderabad, it will be a sad experience. But, by the same token, if you order Chicken Biryani in Des Moines, expect to be underwhelmed (or — if not — to pay an exorbitant amount, either way it’s depressing.)
Probably the single most widespread comfort food would be whatever the local dumpling is, be it called mo-mo, khinkali, pierogi, dim sum, etc. All quite unique, but with an underlying familiarity.
So, in the immortal words of (the apparently quite slutty) Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, “If you can’t be with the one you love… love the one you’re with.”
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White Space [Free Verse]
I read the space
Around the poem.
It has no meaning,
But says so much.
It betrays a little secret
That no reader ever learned
Who was too concerned
With what was written,
While wholly inattentive
To
What
Was
Not.
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Immortal’s Limerick
There once was a wise Daoist Immortal,
Asked the secret to long life, he'd chortle:
"If you can stand masses
Who behave like asses
You're enlightened --
but better off mortal."
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“Limits” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]
Who knows this or that?
Hark in the wall to the rat:
Since the world was, he has gnawed;
Of his wisdom, of his fraud
What dost thou know?
In the wretched little beast
Is life and heart,
Child and parent,
Not without relation
To fruitful field and sun and moon.
What art thou? His wicked eye
Is cruel to thy cruelty.
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PROMPT: 10 Things
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1.) Nothing is permanent.
2.) The world is not what it seems.
3.) One’s subjective experience is not determined by the state of the world.
4.) Nobody grasps enough truth to be intolerant.
5.) Uncertainty is the root of all fear.
6.) Fear is the root of all hatred.
7.) Hatred is a subjective experience (See #3.) Also, uncertainty is the root of all hatred (by the transitive property,) hence the benefit of travel.
8.) Any who: a.) has suffered a string of hardships; b.) allows themselves to believe that some “other” is wholly responsible for said hardships; and c.) who lacks a sufficient sense of self-empowerment to avoid surrendering entirely to a group identity can (and likely will) become a Nazi (or the equivalent of their day.)
9.) No one can predict the future. [Regardless of how much we all love to try. (See #5.)]
10.) Entropy increases (ultimately, in a closed system.)
NOTE: I remain ready to abandon any certainty in the face of better information.
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PROMPT: Security or Adventure
Not sure what to do with this one. It reads to me much as would, “Would you prefer air or water?”
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PROMPT: Better with Age
Equanimity and emotional resilience — i.e. the ability to give fewer f___ks.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 