Here are my blog posts. I previously posted them on Obsidian but I’m moving them (slowly) to this website. It will take time. I’m also going to be publishing new pages as often as they come to mind.
Number of posts: 99
How much do I need to meditate to be mindful?
This question lies at a modern fallacy: How little can I do something to enjoy it’s benefits? We have become used to getting things for free and as a commodity.
Alas, mindfulness and meditation are inseparable. You have to meditate to be mindful. And, its not a superpower that comes with a purchase, in an app, or available without practice.
Read more...As a youngster, I used to enjoy stomping down on mushrooms growing in our yard. Sometimes, when I jumped on them particularly ferociously, I could see some sort of powder fly out.
Years later, I learned that the flying powder was spores. Spores are one way that nature keeps things alive. It’s like Nature’s filing system. When I stomped on those mushrooms, the powder from under the mushroom’s head and gills generated those puff-clouds, which were then carried off by the breeze into the world. Those spores ensured that my pre-stomped mushroom endured.
Read more...Guru (noun) 1: a personal religious teacher and spiritual guide in Hinduis 2a: a teacher and especially intellectual guide in matters of fundamental concern has been a guru to many young writers b: one who is an acknowledged leader or chief proponent became the guru of the movement c: a person with knowledge or expertise : expert a computer guru
This is a continuing riff on gurus and specialness. Today, I wanted to write about the personal specialness we sometimes attribute to ourselves.
Read more...I’ve been using Claude.ai (an AI by Anthropic) as a thinking partner for a couple of years now. I’m transparent about this collaboration in my work, partly because arthritis makes extended typing difficult, but more importantly because something genuinely interesting emerges in our conversations that I couldn’t access alone.
Yesterday, we were discussing Schrödinger’s cat, and Claude offered an insight that stopped me in my tracks.
You probably know the physics thought experiment: a cat in a sealed box exists in quantum superposition—simultaneously alive and dead—until someone opens the box and observes. The observation itself collapses the wave function, forcing reality to choose one outcome.
Read more...Just Fly
by Mike Davis
Padding along the trail,
We ambled toward the car,
Dog’s nose pressed to ground,
Human noses pressed forward,
Next stop, the car.
My mind focused on that next thing.
Then, the screech of a red-tailed hawk,
My eyes peered around me.
Where does that clear,
Piercing, cry come from?
And there, off to the right
Riding the air currents
Along the length of the creekbed
