A bit over six years ago I learned that flying New York-L.A. round trip coach warmed the globe about a year’s worth of driving. The next trip I took by plane, I lost sleep about my personal contribution. I challenged myself to try a year without flying. My TEDx talks describe my struggle with the challenge, since I thought family, work, adventure, and so on depended on it. But I[…] Keep reading →

About ten months in to meditating 20 minutes two days out of my five-day exercise cycle, a few updates. I last updated in November on my full lotus pose. Practice is making it more comfortable. Here’s my post with the video of me in the pose. You may have noticed my sitting on a folded towel on a folded sheet. Here’s me, about to sit on the folded towel on[…] Keep reading →

All the “experts” have some study for how long it takes for a habit to stick. Here are a bunch of articles from searching “how long to start a habit” not worth reading that give the common answers: How Long Does It Take for a New Behavior to Become Automatic? begins: “According to a 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 18 to 254 days[…] Keep reading →

Maybe from the podcasting, maybe from writing, maybe from my general interest in self-awareness and preferring to do things deliberately, not thoughtlessly. We all know about filler words and sounds like “umm,” “like,” “so,” and “and.” I’m not sure why we use them. Lately I’ve started trying to reduce them, which takes concentration, so therefore distracts from speaking and listening. I’ve been asking myself lately why we end sentence with[…] Keep reading →

This episode started talking about sidchas and the episode one of the hosts did on my podcast, involving biking in minus 40 degree weather, but the meat of it was what traps us online and to devices, which also traps us polluting: people design everything to make us want more. First they promote craving, then ways to mollify the craving but that recreate the craving. They try to addict us.[…] Keep reading →

After writing a dozen or so blog posts starting from 2008, on January 23, 2011 I wrote a post, Why I avoid proprietary software. I hadn’t posted the day before, but the next day I wrote Crowding out beats letting go. And I kept posting without missing a day until today, ten years later. As my friend who set up my WordPress blog said, “If you miss one day you[…] Keep reading →

For those keeping track, I unplugged my fridge on November 22—not to save power, though it did. Listen to my podcast episode Why Unplug? to learn my motivation, but briefly, it’s to practice resilience and reduce my entitlement and dependence. I’m reporting after receiving my latest electric bill. My results Here’s my power use over the past year. Last winter I unplugged my fridge in late December, so this winter[…] Keep reading →