The gentle art of sanity amidst civilization
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Time for another experiment. This one I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. The idea behind it has made the rounds for a few years now and I’m not the first to do it, but I think the concept is fascinating and brimming with potential.
One day Will Bowen, a mild-mannered Missouri Reverend, challenged his congregation [...]
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I forged my own blade yesterday, from an unassuming piece of plain steel. With some expert instruction, I pounded it on an anvil, ground the blade down, fitted it with a brass hilt, polished and sharpened it. The handle is made out of native timber that was salvaged from a dismantled insane asylum.
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The first week of January is a natural time to look back. Just as the earth begins another whirl around the Sun, we can’t avoid confronting the reality that yet another sizable chunk of lifetime has been sealed and locked away in the archives. We don’t get many of those chunks, seventy or eighty if [...]
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When the mind is not crowded
By imaginary things,
It is the best season of your life.
-Kabir
I just chopped twelve hundred needless words from this article, which is fitting, because the point of all that blathering was to warn against getting lost in abstractions.
I think too much. Virtually all of us do, it’s no secret. Anyone who [...]
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There is an interesting discussion brewing in the blogosphere at the moment. My friend and fellow blogger Lisis Blackston of Quest for Balance wrote a controversial article last week about the feasibility of dropping your day job to pursue your passion.
We’ve all witnessed a growing culture of people who are quitting their lukewarm office careers [...]
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There was a moment last week when I found myself standing on a beach I never could have imagined. Bookended by two cliffs was a great, smooth expanse of the most otherworldly sand. It was like a Neapolitan ice cream of fine golden sand, exotic black obsidian grains, and clear, saltlike crystals.
In the distance, perhaps [...]
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“I hate the person who invented Mondays.”
I saw that phrase on someone’s Facebook status a week or two ago, and it made me smile. It’s definitely an understandable sentiment. I remember miserable grade-school mornings, being dragged out of bed by my mom. All I could do was grumble bitterly, “I hate the person who invented [...]
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Just before flying to Thailand, I spent five days at a retreat community called Hollyhock. It’s a humble, rootsy little hamlet on the relatively remote Cortes Island. I knew very little about the program I’d signed up for, only that it was about Buddhism.
It turns out that it was a rather intense regimen of meditation. [...]
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Since I left on my trip, I’ve had quite a few deadlines to hit. Bus at 07:50. Ferry at 15:45. Plane at 14:30. Pick up the key after 5:00 and before 6:00. Meet so-and-so here at 7:30.
I’m also constantly checking to see if I still have my crucial items: passport, laptop, wallet and tickets. Occasionally [...]
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In the 1980s, New York City’s crime rate was soaring. Total crime had more than doubled over the previous two decades; violent crimes tripled. It peaked in 1990 and then began a sudden, nationwide decline as the dismal economy began to show new life.
But New York’s economy did not follow the national trend. It remained [...]
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Follow David on his year-long solo trip to Thailand and New Zealand, on the new blog David Goes Kiwi. Many stories, photos and adventures await.
