Daily practice of feeling gratitude. (As opposed to being grateful that one November day a year and wallowing in how horrible everything is the other three-sixty-four.)
PROMPT: Positive Change
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Tag Archives: Philosophy
PROMPT: Job
To pick nits, I think the defining characteristic of a job is that one earns money for one’s time and effort. Otherwise, it’s volunteering or a hobby — both of which are fine activities in which I’ve participated over the years — but they’re not “jobs.” In the case of a hobby, one should do it because one loves it and / or gains from it. In the case of volunteering, if you’re doing the work only because you love the activity, you’ve probably missed the point of the undertaking.
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PROMPT: Community
That’s a tough one because while I see value in communities, I’m also concerned that there is a rising trend toward tribalism and nationalism that will not be good for anyone — not to mention a shift toward virtual communities where anonymity and disconnect lead to people to act as though they were raised by hyenas. (I do know that, in reality, that’s an insult to the marvelous hyena, but I think it makes a sort of point for the non-hyena expert.)
I’ve been amazed at how India manages to have an intense sense of community in such a vastly super-tribal environment. (I’m using “supertribe” in Desmond Morris’s sense — i.e. a community which is too big for everyone to know everyone else, and which has a group dynamic that reflects that fact.) But it’s not as though there isn’t a dark side to this intensity of community — patriarchy, sectarian conflict, disempowered societal segments, etc.
America, by comparison seems to be experiencing a dearth of true community, which is driving people toward virtual “communities,” and in virtual communities people seem to fall into the shittiest versions of themselves. Not to mention the lack of community’s contribution to what I’ve heard called a “mental health crisis.”
I guess my preferences would be that community be: 1.) real and not virtual. 2.) that it exploit the advantages of diverse membership instead of wallowing in homogeneity and group think. 3.) that it doesn’t create overclasses and underclasses. And that, 4.) Community norms minimally negate individual freedoms.
That said, I’m not at all sure that the above criteria can be reconciled. Maybe the tradeoffs are too strong. Maybe – in our super-tribal world – the closest-knit society will always be the most xenophobic [fearful / disliking of outsiders,] and maybe tolerance and egalitarianism will always be accompanied by societal degradation. I have observed a strong inclination for people to think of compassion as a zero-sum game.
As I said, a tough one.
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Five Wise Lines from George Carlin [April 2025]
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot,
and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Isn’t making a smoking section in a restaurant
like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
I don’t believe there’s any problem in this country,
no matter how tough it is,
that Americans,
when they roll up their sleeves,
can’t completely ignore.
Here’s all you have to know about men and women;
women are crazy,
men are stupid.
And the main reason that women are crazy
is that men are stupid.
I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete.
It’s so fuckin’ heroic.
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BOOKS: “Be Funny or Die” by Joel Morris
Be Funny or Die: How Comedy Works and Why It Matters by Joel MorrisMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Author Site
Release date: Sept 4, 2025 [paperback, hardcover is already out]
This is a comedy writer’s guide to how humor is crafted. It’s a bit popular psychology and a bit of a how-to guide. If one is expecting, because it’s on comedy and humor, a book that is a laugh riot on every page, this isn’t the book for you. That’s not so say Morris doesn’t pepper the book with witty commentary and humorous examples, but it’s ultimately a book about how the sausage gets made and is, thus, somewhat analytic — if in a readable style.
At the core of Morris’s theory of comedy is a three-component structure: construct, confirm, and confound. Other major ideas are the fundamental tribalism of comedy and the connections between comedy and music. It wouldn’t be a present-day book on comedy if there wasn’t some discussion of the idea of offense and the “limits” of what can be said.
I can’t say all of Morris’s ideas found immediate resonance with me, but even when I didn’t fully buy the argument, I did find the presentation thought-provoking. For example, I don’t know that I buy Morris’s argument about the importance of tribality to comedy. I do agree that one needs a common language and some overlap of experience, but all of humanity has a domain of overlap of experience. Yes, one may have an easier time the more extensive that overlap is, but ease doesn’t necessarily mean one can’t get big laughs from an audience whose worldviews and experience are radically different from one’s own. [Of course, I may just be being overly sensitive as a traveler in a tribal world.]
For writers, the end of the book has a few chapters that are more about story than comedy – per se, and – while these chapters compare and contrast comedy and drama writing – they provide information useful to any writer engaged in storytelling.
I’d highly recommend this book for any readers interested in comedy writing, be it of standup material, scripts, or other content.
View all my reviews
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PROMPT: Influential Teacher
I’d say my first full-time martial arts teacher, because I was young enough to have considerable open domain in which said teacher could be influential and because the lessons were so diverse — from kinesthetics to ethics to culture to psychology.
By “most influential” I think one means having had either the broadest or most profound influence. (I favor the importance of the latter, the lessons that stick with one and which inform one’s philosophy of life.) This definition favors earlier teachers, but as I don’t remember any specific lesson taught by a specific elementary school teacher, they’re out (though I learned useful things from them and they ranged from competent to quite skilled as teachers go.) The earliest profound lesson I received through scholastic education, one that became a core tenet in my philosophy of life rather than just a skill, was in high school — and in my junior or senior year at that.
As with books, if I can take away one profound lesson from a teacher, I consider my experience well worth the time and energy. And most influential isn’t necessarily the prime criterion for a teacher — and certainly doesn’t necessarily mean best or most skilled or most in command of a diverse array of knowledge.
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PROMPT: More Every Day
Have epiphanies. They are quite hard come by.
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PROMPT: Negative Feelings
Feel them, but don’t feed them. By that I mean take time to be aware of the feelings, but do not let the mind go into its default mode of fixation upon the object informing these sensations and worst-case scenario building. Give the feelings your attention but recognize that you influence your experience of the world and don’t give the mind free reign to build an illusory scenario that it accepts as its reality. (i.e. Remember what Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”)
The biggest problem with negative feelings is that the go-to modern strategy is attempted distraction (by vice, by entertainment, by activity, etc.) this leads the body to turn up the heat. If you give the sensations your attention without adding value judgements, it becomes impossible to obsess. For yoga practitioners who’ve done Yoga Nidra (Yogic sleep) the experience will be familiar. One often begins by being attentive to sounds, by giving the sounds attention without judgement, your mind starts to lose interest and it becomes harder for those sounds to distract you throughout the practice. This approach to negative feelings is much the same.
Also, breathwork that extends the exhalation component of breath will shift the balance toward rest and digest activity.
Ultimately, realize that these feelings are just sensations your body and brain use to turn your attention in certain directions. They have no more power than that, other than what one grants them. They are not identical to — or inextricably linked with — the events of the world that triggered them, and — therefore — you get to be the master of, and not the slave to, your feelings.
The next time you find yourself getting bogged down by a negative feeling, give the feeling a minute or two of pure undivided attention, and then think, “This is a wonderful opportunity to learn how my body and mind work.” See what happens.
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Wen Fu 1: “Poetic Experience” [文賦一] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/ Audio]
The poet stands in the Center
And stares into deep mysteries.
He's nourished by reading Classics
And tombs of the men in Histories.
He sighs as four seasons pass by
And thinks upon ten-thousand things.
He's saddened by Autumn's leaf drop
And gladdened by the tender Spring.
He feels Winter's frost on his heart,
Though his mind may be up in a cloud.
And when he sings of ancestors'
Heroic deeds, he belts the song aloud.
He combs through great literature
Just as he roams the forest wild,
But in search of a "natural" --
Shown in elegant phrase and style.
And it's just such thoughts and feelings
That set my brush and mind wheeling.
The Original Chinese:
佇中區以玄覽，頤情志於典墳。
遵四時以嘆逝，瞻萬物而思紛。
悲落葉於勁秋，喜柔條於芳春，
心懍懍以懷霜，志眇眇而臨雲。
詠世德之駿烈，誦先人之清芬。
游文章之林府，嘉麗藻之彬彬。
慨投篇而援筆，聊宣之乎斯文。
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PROMPT: Superstitious
No. I’ve trained myself to recognize factors, such as selection bias, that contribute to superstitions. And I try to hold all beliefs only so tightly as they can be shaken away by better understanding, particularly beliefs that aren’t strongly supported by experience and reason.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 