Writing and Clarity
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from On Writing Well: Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly can write clearly, about anything at all.William Zinsser Whenever I get stuck on a writing project, it's because I have lost clarity of thought. Think...
Writing, Mountain Climbing, and Risk
Writing is very similar to mountain climbing in one way. You can read books about it, watch documentaries on it, and study its masters, but this is no substitute for actually putting yourself out there—at some risk to yourself, whether it's physical or emotional—and...
My Holidays Twitter-Sleep: An Update
I am just over one-third of the way through my Holidays Twitter-Sleep, which I've scheduled from Thanksgiving through Christmas. It's going surprisingly well. For the first few days, I did have a desire to check my Twitter feed; I told myself it was to make sure I...
Ikigai, Words, and Memes
Although I believe the word ikigai—in the Japan of prior generations—is a nuanced concept encompassing life's purpose and value, for better or worse, it has been transformed into a visual meme: a four-part, colorful Venn diagram. It's now a "world-word," similar to...
Habits, Memory, and New Book Smell
I have an odd habit. Whenever I buy a new book—such as Folk-Tales of the Coast Salish, shown above, which I am using for research in my RAVEN books—the first thing I do is open them up wide, take a deep sniff, and smell the fresh print on paper. But why? Well, we all...
Venn Diagrams, Ikigai, And Engineering
One benefit of studying physics and engineering is that it gives me some insight into the difference between the theoretical and the practical. For example, although quantum physics and general relativity give a better theoretical description of the universe than...
Writing And My Kit-Cat Klock
One place I enjoy writing, especially in the early morning, is at my kitchen counter. And one reason I enjoy writing here is that a few feet away, facing me, is my classic Kit-Cat Klock, with its rhythmic eye movement and tail wagging, coupled with a gently mechanical...
Ikigai is not Happiness
Ikigai is not equivalent to happiness. (There is an excellent Ancient Greek word for happiness: εὐδαιμονία [eudaimonia], which has a complicated relationship with its cousin ἀρετή [arete, or excellence].) Nor do I think ikigai is essential to happiness. There are...
Excellence and Equilibrium
I don’t think the pursuit of excellence is linear, like this: beginner’s mind → journeyman → mastery Rather, I think it is a continuous, cyclic, equilibrium: beginner’s mind ⇄ journeyman ⇄ mastery ⇄ beginner’s mind
Ikigai and Cultural Appropriation
Is studying the concept of ikigai, and then trying to apply it to one’s own life, a form of cultural appropriation? To answer this question, let’s first take a look at a few definitions of cultural appropriation. Here is a very small sampling of some of the various...