Practice | Presence, I-You, Tao

I’ve been writing a journal with a sense of trying to focus on practice like Marcus Aurelius does in the Meditations but with a more open-ended inspiration which pulls at being present from both Buddhist and Stoic points of departure. I haven’t written that regularly, but I had a very flowing moment of expression at the end of a session yesterday that I thought worth sharing.


Rain pittering
Pattering pangs on panes
Wet flow
Just outside the window

It's truly wet in this moment, really coming down steadily outside as I sit at the restaurant just below the office. I'm realizing how much of the basics of the world escape our notice as we go through our lives.

We go through, focused on this thing or that. It's very centered on achieving, doing, or pleasure/avoidance of pain, usually.

Meanwhile, it pours, the wind blows, myriad other worldings world themselves into being. The moment is one of golden radiance, even our narrow reaction that misses most of it.

However, there's also the opportunity to open the heartmind to more. It's there in every moment. We can pause, breathe, open, and truly notice. Body and mind can fall away. In such a way, we can truly exist as I-You, sitting deeply in the everabiding emergent sway that is the cosmic force of love: Love Loving Itself - TAO.

Philosophy Riffing | I-You, Ethics as first philosophy, pursuing the Good, and Stoicism

Recent reinvigoration of my interest in Stoicism inspired this somewhat meandering discussion of a meaningful, value-driven life with riffs on Buber, Wittgenstein, Buddhism, and most definitely Stoicism. May this inspire others despite its lack of clear organization.

Here’s the key book I mentioned late in the recording: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson .

Philosophy Riffing | Liebe wird aus Mut gemacht – Love is made out of courage

Here is the second birthday creative gift post for myself. I’ve gotten responses from multiple people that they liked my posts of audio clips and wished I would do something more intentional or even more like a podcast. I attempted that last night with a general theme of “Liebe wird aus Mut gemacht” – “Love is made out of courage”. This almost hour-long first attempt at this kind of post is very much philosophy riffing and shared experience. I hope that people enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

NOTE: One detail I got wrong multiple times early in the recording – the dialogue I mention is Plato’s Phaedrus, not Phaedo. I tend to get those two dialogues’ titles mixed up in my mind, and it’s been years since I’ve read either.

Please give me any feedback on whether you enjoy this post or have themes you’d like me to explore in the future. Furthermore, let me know if you like the riffing style or would prefer something more structured! I’d love any feedback to consider whether to do more of this in the future and how best to go about it.

Previous post on Love and Language

Post from my other blog with some related analysis regarding experiences of love and language in relation to post-rock