For the first couple days, I was still getting used to it and wondering how things would go. Later, it became a ritual, like my morning and evening calisthenics, giving structure to my life. Also, have you noticed how when movies have monks, they often show a scene of them mopping the floor, or some repetitive task that for a monk becomes mindful? Like that. Lately I’ve been thinking, “Why[…] Keep reading →

A friend told me he thought of me and my sustainability leadership work with concern while reading the book The Mating Mind. He described it as describing the implications and effects of sexual selection in evolution. He started with the example of peacocks having elaborate tails. Sexual selection suggests that the tails that make them easy targets for predators indicate all its other genes are fit, so a potential mate[…] Keep reading →

In its August 22 issue, the New Yorker published a piece, Africa’s Cold Rush and the Promise of Refrigeration: For the developing world, refrigeration is growth. In Rwanda, it could spark an economic transformation. August 22 happened to start my fourth month of my experiment disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid, which is to say 3.93 months longer than I expected to make it. The article was about bringing[…] Keep reading →

Longtime readers know one of the highlights of my summer is visiting the farm providing my summer and fall CSA vegetables, Stoneledge Farm. Since the pandemic, they haven’t chartered a bus for us in the city without cars. I’ve been biking more, including two overnight rides to Philadelphia, each 125 miles over two days. They were fundraisers and, since my group raised the most funds, I ended up getting free[…] Keep reading →

The bigger an achievement, the more it’s just the start of another stage in your life. Maybe swimming across the Hudson was my start of learning that you don’t have to fly to create life experiences, that we don’t have to accept what others consider impossible, and that we aren’t risking our lives to do things people have done for thousands of years. I’ve used the picture of my swimming[…] Keep reading →

I’m proud to have given blood Tuesday. If you haven’t listened to yesterday’s podcast episode with Sebastian Junger, listen to hear his story of receiving ten emergency transmissions leading to his giving blood regularly. Why ashamed too? Because when the nurse checked me in, filling in my address from my driver’s license, she asked if I’d changed my address. The address in the system showed my freshman year dorm address.[…] Keep reading →

Different people define middle age differently, but having just turned 51 I think I’m in it by all definitions. Physical My first sense of my body physically declining came in my early thirties, when my potential to compete in ultimate began to decline. Before then, I always felt motivation to practice since I knew the next year my potential would be higher. After then, no matter how much I practiced,[…] Keep reading →