Everything Under the Sun

November | Politics  |   Week 43 | 10/29/2023   Globalism vs Nationalism: The State of Modern Politics If one were asked how to summarize the current political landscape globally, one could point towards perpetual staples of political division: totalitarianism vs democracy, theocracy vs secularism, liberalism vs conservatism. Perhaps they could point towards the novelties of modernity: masculinity vs femininity, technological progress vs technological skepticism, galactic expansion vs terra isolation. In this month exploring politics, I'll touch on many of these dualities, but I want to start the month by speaking on the most relevant binary which I believe underscores the current philosophical and political struggle most accurately: Globalism vs Nationalism.  One might say that the world has been globalized for many centuries now, since the colonies of the early 1700's. I'd argue that definitionally, globalism implies a certain reciprocity, not occupation, and there...

October | Music and Art  |   Week 42 | 10/22/2023   Talk about the place that beauty and expression have in your life When I was 14 I stood at the gates of Buckingham Palace, flipped coins into the Trevi Fountain, and strolled through the Italian countryside among thousand year old grape vines. At 16 I walked the halls of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, stood atop the great Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland and walked in silent observation at Dachau. I was naïve, unappreciative and mostly emotionless, somewhat to be expected from a child but inexcusable by my modern standards. I didn't have a conception of beauty because I didn't have a conception of life. I didn't understand, truly, deeply understand, the nature of the human experience, the long arc of history, or the struggle and strife of an individual or of our species. I'd memorized facts, aced tests, read books and recited great speeches. But I had no knowledge that was informed by experience. And I had no s...

October | Music and Art  |   Week 41 | 10/15/2023 Literature and Cinema as artistic expressions  As I sit captivated yet again by the detail of Goodfellas, the thought provocation of Interstellar, or the emotional depth of The Dark Knight, I'm reminded of the various virtues represented in literature and cinema: temperance, prudence, justice, fortitude, faith, charity, patience, kindness, humility. I'm reminded of the archetypes: the tainted hero, the misunderstood villain, the damsel in distress, Icarus, Judas, Midas, Jezebel. The running joke today is about the alter ego or persona shift that arises after finishing a great movie, show or book. But it's not so much a joke as a statement of reality. We humans are mimetic and we look to archetypal characters for modules of behavior to integrate. I authored the content of my character starting early with the adventurous spirit of the kids from Magic Treehouse and the courage of the orphans of the Series of Unfortunate Event...

October | Music and Art  |   Week 40 | 10/8/2023 Describe your music affinities  As I have evolved as an individual so to has my propensity to seek out and enjoy music. Propensity lead to discovery. Discovery lead to affinity. Affinity lead to diversity; the archiving of a plethora of music, stratified by the various moods they induce and compliment. Diversity lead to particularity; emergent as music became connected to emotion. Like any artistic appreciation, generality gets wider and specificity gets deeper. I'll make mention to six specific genres/artists/moods and the context with which I appreciate them.  [1] Lifting -> Dopamine+ -> $uicide Boy$ Entrenched in the vigor and intensity of weightlifting, nothing feeds my aggression and fuels my drive like $uicide Boy$. I discovered this band and the genre which has formed around them about a year after I left college, as my focus on weightlifting became an obsession. Regular rap was too boisterous. Metal was ...

October | Music and Art  |   Week 39 | 10/1/2023 Describe your artistic style In the summer of 2021 I finally had the opportunity to obtain a permanent place of my own. I was 25 years old and everywhere I'd lived had been a shared residence or a temporary one. The walls of our college apartment were populated with Game of Thrones posters and my room filled with pictures of my girlfriend - I'd never taken a domicile, empty and available, and furnished it to suit my unique style. So this was the first time I had to introspect on and assess my artistic style. More than just the color scheme of my comforter and pillows, I had to decide what type of furniture I liked, what paintings and posters I wanted on the wall, and what items made my home feel like mine .  I'd always been minimalist and color avoidant. Fond of the 70's vibe which I'd seen in Mad men, I lacked the confidence to commit to it. In the same way with my wardrobe, I always enjoyed and even somewhat envied ...

September | Family and Career  |   Week 38 | 9/24/2023 What are your career goals? It's been a very poignant time recently, as I contemplate the next stage of my career journey and of my life. Where do I want to live, what kind of work do I want to do, how much of it do I want to do, and for whom? For all the unanswered questions, one thing is obvious; the time of a vast landscape of potential is over. I'm not choosing my college major anymore, not choosing between a grad degree or an internship, not even choosing the field where I'll work, I'm choosing from a much smaller set of possibilities, constrained by my own choices and decisions up to this point. But at the same time, paradoxically, I've never felt so much agency and freedom in my future. I have good experience, good degrees, good compensation, good references and good options.  I could contemplate how I arrived here, dwell on or praise my decisions, decry or celebrate my options, and simply live in the pas...

September | Family and Career  |   Week 37 | 9/17/2023 Where does your career fit into your life? Work to live or live to work? The poetic juxtaposition, pontificated and professed towards the attitude of one's career. Steel-manning both sides, on one hand there are those with identarian careers like lawyers, doctors, professors, who work because their livelihood is their identity and their identity is their work. This runs contrary to those with white collar or blue collar jobs whom work to live, seeing that their job is part of an assembly line of manual or intellectual output. It makes sense, spend an exorbitant amount of time apprenticing, either academically (PhD) or physically (blacksmith), and one's identity will codevelop in conjunction with the duration allocated to said craft. Also, because of the specific and somewhat self-evident nature of the work, it is far easier to attach an identity to those careers. Doctors know medicine. Lawyers know the law. Professors know...

September | Family and Career  |   Week 36 | 9/10/2023 Why create your own family? Many compelling arguments have been made for why one should have a family; duty, biology, genealogy, history, morality, mortality. All these arguments have merit, we are the product of families going back hundreds of thousands of years, the product of a biologic imperative, the product of legacy, the product of a sense of duty to ancestry, to history and to religious imposition. Each of those arguments appeal to me at different times depending on the emotional state I find myself in - when I'm feeling nostalgic, when I'm feeling dutiful, when I'm feeling mortal - but one argument not listed here appeals to me regardless of emotions, one made from logic.  There are only so many things to do in life, [1] make friends, [2] travel, [3] push the body, [4] experience awe, [5] gain wisdom, [6] purchase material goods, [7] fall in love, [8] raise kids, [9] grow old, and [10] give back. The counter ...

September | Family and Career  |   Week 35 | 9/3/2023 What does family mean to you and how do you honor it?  In the grand narrative of one's life, there are characters and context which one does not choose - where we're born, who our parents are, how many siblings we have, what languages we're taught, what information we're given, how we're treated or loved - a list so long it's impossible to delineate the varying degrees of impact for each. The exposition of one's life is granted to us not crafted by us . It's up for debate, how much of the proceeding narrative is out of our control due to the annals of ancestry, but we know undeniably that there is agency prerequisite for the rising actions, climax and falling actions of one's own narrative. The stoics have a famous aphorism, Amor Fati , lover of fate. We colloquially equate fate to the final destination of our life - the resolution - where we end up, our "eventual fate". But fate stipul...

August | Travel and Experience  |   Week 34 | 8/27/2023 Experiencing life  I have vivid memories as a child, getting battered by the waves at the beach, one after another as I attempted to body surf with my older brother and my Dad. In reality, they were catching the waves and I was surviving, but nothing was more exciting than being out there with the men, facing nature. I felt alive. That feeling was reliably present with any activity even slightly infused with adrenaline as I continued to grow up: rollercoasters, cars, snowboarding. And as I became an adult I found myself craving that feeling more and more. First it was hiking, like Angels Landing in Arizona, then it was skydiving on my 21st birthday and twice more after that, and it hasn't slowed down since. 14,000 foot mountains, 1000 cc motorcycles, black diamonds in the peak of winter, partying in LA; I have a craving for life, for experience, for the fruits of my labor.  When I look back to the days of youth,...

August | Travel and Experience  |   Week 33 | 8/20/2023 California Like every kid born in America, I too am drawn to the grand cities of potential and promise - New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles. Vanity and wonder draw one in, and visiting for the first time, we can all appreciate the superposition of that moment. The first time I was in California I was in middle school on a family trip to San Francisco. At that time, in the mid 2000's, California was still the supercenter for dot com and not yet a relic of a once past boom. That meant the surrounding environment was still inviting and not yet hostile. Much changed in the following two decades, particularly during COVID. My first time back to California was January 2020 on the precipice of the death spiral of California. Given my particular political predisposition I was expecting the dichotomy I would soon observe but expecting only one side of the dichotomous emotional spectrum. I expected to witness the haves and the h...

August | Travel and Experience  |   Week 32 | 8/13/2023 Traveling alone Unlike the rigor of accompanied travel there is something about traveling alone which is often marked by serendipity - fortuitous, if one is Taoist in their approach. It is the duty of psychological individuation to spend time with oneself alone, in the quiet contemplation of introspection. This is accomplished most effectively in the lonely, regular, mundane nights, where duty to one's schedule is priority 1 of 1. It is also accomplished in the challenging moments spent alone, voluntary or otherwise: pushing oneself to run 10 miles with no extrinsic motivation, dealing with illness or loss alone, or simply getting through a week of letdowns, failures and setbacks, alone. There is a third way, one can truly individuate and it is context dependent - traveling alone.  My first solo travel was immediately after I graduated; a trip out West that I needed to take to reset my mind after years' long battles ...

August | Travel and Experience  |   Week 31 | 8/6/2023 Traveling with friends The sources of pure elation in this life are truly scarce, but with proper due diligence, genuine connection and adequate resources, there is one which can be reoccurring and reliable - travel with friends. The due diligence; picking great friends. The genuine connection; deep friendships not reliant on substances or situations. The adequate resources; enough capital to fund a plane ticket, a rental car and a hotel, if necessary.  I've been extraordinarily fortunate to meet and cultivate the right friendships that have allowed me to experience the joy of travel, both domestic and foreign, on more than one occasion. The three of us, Zach, Daniel and I had a first glimpse of travel together back in college when we took a day trip to Cedar Key to watch the sunset on Earth Day. We snuck onto an abandoned air strip to get as close as we could do the water and finished the night at a wooden bar that s...

July | Philosophy and Religion |   Week 30 | 7/30/2023 What are the modern Philosophic and Theological doctrines today? Philosophy and Religion have long marked the centuries and millennium as summative vectors behind eras. It was the Abrahamic religions which underpinned the Crusades. It was Confucius who brought China to bear. It was Plato, Socrates and Aristotle who likely began the Golden Thread. We know of the Enlightenment, Classical Antiquity, the Hundred Schools of Thought, the Renaissance, and Contemporary History. Each period can be quickly and easily matched with the prevailing Philosophic and Theological doctrines of the time. The perennial metamorphoses of philosophy and theology is the apheresis and coagulation of our species. It is what pushes and pulls humanity's journey. Taking contemporary history as ours to examine - what are the modern philosophic-theological camps that prevail today? Where do they come from and what do they represent? I can think of 8, which cr...

July | Philosophy and Religion |   Week 29 | 7/23/2023 Deep dive on Buddhism What I know of Buddhism is essentially nothing other than a feeling. I cannot articulate or intellectualize the Dharmas. I am unable to contribute additional depth to the millennias of thought dedicated to the Buddha. I cannot offer alternative translations to the Sanskrit, Chinese or English versions of the Lotus Sutra . But I can tell you what it is like to have been to a Buddhist nation, from the perspective of someone who grew up with no knowledge of such tradition. I can tell you what I observed, what I felt, and what conclusions I was able to draw. I can take my limited knowledge of Western Thought, from the Delphic Maxims to the New Testament, and tell you what I've learned of the East.  As one strolls through the concrete side streets of Japanese suburbia, there is an indelible solace which resonates through each block, inspired by the minimalist design and abundant tranquility. Stepping into ...

I arrive at these words with great grief and particular elation,  Aware of how I oscillate between tremor and satiation. Profoundly struck by the universality of this sensation,  It's a sense of duty to reality which salvages my salvation. I wonder what God might say to this product of his creation? Might he extend the hand of wisdom out as an invitation? Would he think this rambling of self awareness an appreciation?  Or a diatribe of ignorance and rejection of divine revelation? Despite uncertainty, I can say one thing with some authority,  That the pangs of my conscience have driven in me uniformity. A clarity in the same part of me which is tired of all the partying.  I've watched myself recoil from the ego I have been embodying. In the attainment of such wisdom, I have discovered my purpose. For reasons still unclear to me it beckons with distinct fervor. Like the 4 Cardinal Virtues: wisdom, prudence, justice, and courage.  The meaning of life I find i...

July | Philosophy and Religion |   Week 28 | 7/16/2023 Deep dive on Stoicism Looking to annals of history, it's abundantly clear that the most common motif of conscious experience is suffering (to be continued in the Buddhism deep dive). Many great novels, documentaries and cinematic representations have highlighted the brutality of life on Earth, be it animal, insect, or man. However, the consciousness with which we've been gifted confers in us the ability to recognize the suffering of brutal reality, and in many cases, paradoxically, create it ourselves. So it is no surprise that religions and philosophies alike have sought to address this fundamental element of conscious experience. The Nihilists attempt to pad themselves by proclaiming zero meaning in reality, whereby they can take solace in the passage of time until their final hour, relieving them of the burden of life. The Confucians use the collective diligence and work ethic of establishing social order as the antidote...

July | Philosophy and Religion |   Week 27 | 7/9/2023 Deep dive on Christianity  I am a novice of Christianity. Yes, I know the narrative arc, I know the rising actions, the climax and the conclusion. I even know some of the main characters, but admittedly, I lack a critical layer of depth such that my articulation and analysis of the narrative is elementary. Think about when you hear someone intelligent speak on a podcast, on stage or through an article; it becomes immediately clear that your own knowledge of the English language, the language of your native tongue, the only tool you have in your toolbelt to communicate, is severely incomplete. The diction with which you have access to is a fraction compared to an impressive individual and therefore your capacity for expression of complex, nuanced ideas is lacking also. In the same way, despite growing up in the Catholic church, attending Sunday school and being confirmed into the faith, I have come to understand that my reli...

July | Philosophy and Religion |   Week 26 | 7/2/2023 Talk about the synergies between Eastern Thought and Western Thought Theologians and philosophers alike develop silos of ego, compartmentalized into self-containing rationalization, all born of competitiveness. It is a natural inclination to prove and disprove. It is counterintuitive to subject matter expertise to find similarity rather than identify difference. I grew up Catholic and rarely did I consider the larger philosophical and religious landscape of the world, until I learned of the world. Upon reading the texts of the stoics, who predated Christ, I saw parallel conclusions about fundamental features of the human nature. In deep diving the Old Testament, I discovered archetypes which could be found in ancient Egypt and ancient China. And in Japan, visiting the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, I learned of the connection between observation, self-regulation, nature, and enlightenment, a central theme in both Stoicism ...