Following the storm, one of my social circles circulated a series of emails starting with one person saying they hoped everyone was safe, evolving to one talking about their hardships. I responded with No power, no internet, no phone, no water… no problem. They’re supposed to restore those things in a week or two. In the meantime I can walk to midtown, like now. I hope you’ve come to expect[…] Keep reading →

I watched the news about the hurricane approaching. They had me scared. During the storm I went for a walk. People were out in shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops. They were walking their dogs, no problem. I’m sure the storm was worse in some places. I just logged on and haven’t had the chance to read much news and I hear there was a lot of damage. But I know the[…] Keep reading →

I think it helps to look at the world from a different point of view sometimes. You see things differently. When I did yoga, sometimes my teacher would have us cross our arms left over right instead of right over left (or vice versa, depending on how you did it normally). If you’ve never done it, try it. I doubt it will make you suddenly enlightened, but it feels weird[…] Keep reading →

Speaking about commuting, as I did yesterday, I decided to record my Shanghai morning commute. It’s normally about eight minutes. I could probably do it in six-and-a-half without running if I had to. So I brought my camera and took pictures every dozen yards or so sometimes looking forward, other times to the side. What can I say? I consider community more important all the time. I live in a[…] Keep reading →

Today’s post isn’t on one of my major themes. Trained in physics, I like looking at nature and understanding patterns. I noticed something remarkable yesterday when a couple friends talking about visiting Hong Kong and Beijing talked about how polluted those cities’ air is. As we all know,  many (all major? most major?) cities are polluted to where living in them is like smoking packs of cigarettes a day. People[…] Keep reading →

I got this exercise from a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who writes on self-awareness, mindfulness, and meditation. I find it helped me understand a lot about how I perceive my world and how I can influence how I perceive it. I don’t know if he made it up or got it from somewhere. Anyway, all you need is three raisins and some free time. The Three Raisins exercise Preparation: get[…] Keep reading →

I don’t know if I have to explain how shopping for, preparing, and eating food qualifies as fundamental to self-awareness and therefore leadership. A few years ago I would have considered food shopping irrelevant to self-awareness. I’ve changed. I’ll start with an aside on how big an effect just gardening can have with Victory Gardens. During the World Wars, when mainstream food production dropped, governments promoted their citizens planting so-called[…] Keep reading →