The good life

Ecological sustainability, self-sufficiency, community building, everyday wisdom

How I created a novel meme
Last night, under the influence of the free blended spirits in the backpackers hostel I stay, I told a young traveler named Joey the outline of my satire novel. Joey was interested so with but few leaps and bounds I told him the entire story. He told me he liked it, but what really touched ...
,
The good life
Meditation on friendship
Close your eyes. Breathe calmly. You sit here alone, master of your own thoughts. Imagine I am talking to you. I want to know what friendship means. Quickly, construct a differentiation. Which opposite op 'friend' have you found? Mere acquaintance? Or: enemy? But what can we say about a thing of which we cannot determine the ...
,
Essays, The good life
But how can art keep us alive when it cannot kill us?
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: All of them make me laugh.” — W.H. Auden
From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends. - Hilaire Belloc
“It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.” Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence
Without further ado, let's assume the AI has all information available and imagine a debate with the world's foremost human intellectual. The AI will have a flawless argument that takes into account all the information in a superhuman fashion a human intellectual can never attain. Its rational reasoning is far superior. Recall the 2016 victory ...
Philosophy, The good life
Simple focus exercise
Type one thing and say something else. For example, type the word 'blue' while you say 'red'. You can almost feel how your brain is creating new neuronal connections when you do this.
A Meditation on power
Find a comfortable place to sit. Be aware of your posture. Is your back straight, are your knees below your waist? Breathe in calmly and deeply. Focus on the phenomenon of power. When have you experienced power over another living being or another living being exercising power over you? How did it feel? Is the ...
Philosophy, The good life
An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian [whose] role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are - James Baldwin
"Religions are big slow poems, while most poems are short, fast religions." - Les Murray
"Poetry for me is not work but pleasure, not a career but a second life—a play within a play."- Peter Davison
Math
Dear Miru, Your calculating is improving and you actually like it. We play with numbers together. Two times ten is twenty. Six plus five is eleven. Ten minus 2 equals eight. It is all very playful. You learn how to figure out calculations by making drawings of dots, lines, squares on the whiteboard. You don't ...
, ,
Laughs, Miru, The good life
The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself. - Derek Walcott