My rule for posting has been not to miss a day. In the words of my friend who started me writing If you miss one day, you can miss two. If you miss two, it’s all over. Words to live by. Our habits define a big part of who we are. I hope people don’t mind my back-posting today. Downtown Manhattan is without power, water, internet, etc. The hallways and[…] Keep reading →

A hurricane or tropical storm is hovering in the Atlantic soon to hit the east coast, including my home in New York City. I keep seeing predictions of the size of the damages from however the storm affects us. You see similar predictions of the size of how many things affect us — people estimate, say, how much money in productivity traffic delays cause us and things like that. I[…] 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 was inspired to write the past couple days of food-related posts by an article about the food store I grew up with in Philadelphia called Weaver’s Way, which my family called just “the co-op.” The store is a cooperative, meaning you have to be a co-owner to shop and you have to work a certain number of hours per year. When I was younger and lived in Philadelphia I[…] 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 →