Every interface is an argument about how you should feel. - Phantom Obligation | Terry Godier
This is my view of writing and note-making apps, but we can change them, to feel how we want, not how someone else wants us to.
A channel of the Katsura River at Arashiyama, Kyoto.
Reviewing my photographs really makes me wish I was back in Japan.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
#Japan #Kyoto #ShuHaRi #JapaneseCulture #JapaneseAesthetics #Photography
The Toe of the Year and the Curious Case of John Donne's Missing Commonplace Book
Last month, while my sister was moving house, she discovered a box of papers she’d never seen before. Inside was a collection of documents, decades old, that our parents must have gathered and kept from our childhood. There in a carefully wrapped pile was a sheaf of my sister’s old school reports. And next to them was a set of poems I must have written way back when I was a primary school student.
Perhaps you’ve had the experience of venturing into the attic or the basement and finding long-forgotten documents like these. But this chance rediscovery got me thinking about just how much has been lost to time.
Mostly we don’t bother archiving, and even when we do, there are later moments when we decide to spring-clean, rationalise, declutter, or tidy up.
These are all euphemisms for destroying the evidence.
Why your note-making tools don’t quite work the way you want them to - and what to do about it
Every so often I stumble upon a really clear articulation of a concept that makes sense of something I’ve been feeling but didn’t previously have a word for. I knew there was something there but I didn’t have the language to express it.
One of the most interesting articles I’ve come across recently is Artificial memory and orienting infinity by Kei Kreutler.
In this particular case the concept illuminated is the subtle, niggling tension between what I want to use my digital writing tools for and what they actually do. My writing tools, and possibly yours too, nearly do what I want, but not quite. What’s that about? Well, on reading this article, the tension became a whole lot clearer.
The Spiral of Mastery: Why the Greatest Experts Are Serial Beginners
The greatest experts aren’t afraid of starting again
Apparently, my tennis is rusty
Here in Australia the Christmas holidays take place in mid-summer, and my family spent a few days at a house with a tennis court. It was an amazing opportunity, for which we were hardly prepared. I hadn’t played in years. One family member had barely held a racquet before. But we all shared the same problem: our serves were terrible. The ball hit the net, or it veered wildly off court. The serve seemed like some monolithic, unreachable skill you either had or you didn’t.
The view from the court — that was amazing, but the tennis, to say the least, wasn’t flowing.
That was until someone suggested we break it down: grip, swing, ball toss, contact. We stopped trying to play and started drilling. Within a short while, the court was alive with movement and we were laughing instead of frowning with effort. Our natural talent hadn’t changed; it was just that our willingness to break the seemingly impossible into achievable parts made it somehow seem doable. And after a short while, it actually was doable. We were delivering serves that made it over the net, that you could also imagine returning.
This experience was a reminder that expertise is hardly ever about making a single massive effort to achieve something that seems impossible. You don’t get good at tennis all at once. Playing the game well is really a whole portfolio of tiny pieces of expertise you have to master one by one and piece together smoothly before you can reach actual proficiency. And even when you get there, that’s not the end. There’s always something, some element of your play, you can improve. Is mastery a destination to reach and then enjoy forever? No. It’s more like a spiral that requires us to return to the beginning again and again of a long series of micro-skills.
2025 marked 250 years since the birth of author Jane Austen. In 2026 she still has something important to teach us: “Feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes”.
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I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now in paperback and ebook.
Looking back at 2025: a year of writing slowly but thinking with curiosity. 🖋️
From the note-making of Roland Barthes and Leibniz to reflections on AI and Japanese learning methods, here is a full archive of last year’s posts: Link
#Writing #Zettelkasten #PKM #AI #Learning #Blog #2025 #Shuhari
The posts of 2025
I’m much better at writing new stuff than consolidating the old, but it’s time to review what’s been posted here during 2025. Short posts excluded, it’s quite a lot, considering I’m Writing Slowly.
There’s also a list of the posts of 2024 and the posts of 2023 too.
And don’t forget to check out my book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters.
To get the latest posts straight to your in-box, subscribe to the weekly Writing Slowly email newsletter.
Fact checking the good news
I expect 2026 to be a better year than 2025, not through some kind of magic but because millions of people like you and me are working hard to make it so. Since I posted a link to a round-up of the under-reported good news from 2025 someone said ‘some of this was definitely written with ai, so might be worth fact checking 😂’.
I was a bit disappointed, since I wanted the good news to be true, and since I have to admit this could easily make me susceptible to getting taken in by unreliable slop. Well, life’s too short to check all the facts, even if someone is wrong on the Internet (obligatory xkcd link), and that famous cartoon of the guy trying to fix it is actually an accurate drawing of me. But I thought I should at least do a quick audit. And what did this reveal?
The right kind of optimism in 2026
Happy New Year! May the next 12 months bring you peace and joy and blessing.
Here are a handful of hopeful articles to get your 2026 started on a positive note. I especially recommend the first one which I found deeply inspiring.
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All the news the media missed in 2025 fixthenews.com (via Miraz Jordan.)
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“The right kind of optimism is disciplined. It begins with the premise that action changes outcomes, then organizes institutions, incentives, and narratives to make that premise true.” mongabay.com.
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The Sydney I know isn’t like what they’re showing on the news writingslowly.com.
“Bun without bu means authority withers, while bu without bun means the people remain in fear and distant.” —Fujiwara Shigenori, 1254.
Medieval Japan understood that true mastery requires balance. My latest article explores bunbu ichi and why “artists and fighters” belong together.
Read more: The unity of pen and sword: understanding bunbu ichi
#Bunbu #JapanesePhilosophy #Shuhari #SamuraiCulture #MedievalJapan #ArtAndWar #LifelongLearning #CulturalHistory #Mastery
The Unity of Pen and Sword: Understanding Bunbu Ichi
My recent book is subtitled “The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters”. But why artists and fighters, and why mention them together?
In medieval Japan, warriors weren’t really expected to choose between intellectual pursuits and martial prowess. Instead they were required to master both. This philosophy is captured in the concept of bunbu ichi (文武一), which literally means “the civil and the martial are one.”
I've written a book and here are the details!
Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters
Master the art of true learning in any field
The journey from novice to expert follows a timeless path, known in Japan as Shu Ha Ri. Inspired by the wisdom of Japan’s martial and artistic disciplines, this book will help you to:
- Understand how learning works in any skill or subject
- Find confidence and direction in your own learning journey
- Transform the way you think about gaining and sharing expertise
In an era dominated by digital learning and AI, we’ve lost sight of a fundamental truth: true learning is a deeply human and social act. Technology offers resources, but it can never replace the nuanced transmission of knowledge between a committed teacher and a keen student.
Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning highlights the dynamic partnership between student and teacher. It demonstrates that true expertise is a continuous cycle of learning, adapting, and passing on wisdom. To learn is to connect with past generations and bravely guide the next.
Whether you’re learning a craft, sport, or skill, or teaching one, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning will help you move beyond mere competence to achieve true excellence. If you’re ready for a more effective, human-centered path to mastering any skill, “Shu Ha Ri” is your essential guide.
守 破 離
Shu Ha Ri, the powerful concept from the traditional Japanese arts, provides an enduring framework for understanding the distinctly human journey of learning. Although it originated in Japan, it’s a set of ideas that go beyond cultural boundaries. This deceptively simple phrase, of just three short syllables, is key to passing on knowledge from one generation to the next, yet without stifling innovation and change.
Shu Ha Ri can be translated, quite simply, as ‘hold-break-leave’, a phrase which captures the evolving stages of learning:
守
Shu (Hold): At first the students meticulously imitate their teacher, grasping the fundamentals through close observation and practice. The teacher provides essential guidance in a protective environment, ensuring that students build a solid foundation right from the start of their learning journey.
破
Ha (Break): The students begin to experiment and develop their own style. Meanwhile, the teacher encourages exploration and independent thinking, helping students move beyond their frustrations to refine their skills and discover their unique flair.
離
Ri (Leave): The students transcend the teacher’s teachings, ultimately to emerge as experts themselves. The focus shifts from copying to creating. Students are now capable of not only applying their knowledge but also contributing to the field themselves, potentially even becoming teachers to future generations.
But proficiency isn’t the end of this journey. The path of learning is far from linear. It’s a cycle. True experts return again and again to their ‘beginner’s mind,’ the root of their quest for excellence.
その道に入らんと思う心こそ我身ながらの師匠なりけれ
(Sono michi ni iran to omou kokoro koso waga mi nagara no shishō narikere)To have the mind to enter this path
is, indeed, to have an inherent teacher.
— Rikyū, Hundred Verses, 1
To read Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning for Artists and Fighters, simply order the book (ebook or paperback) on Amazon, wherever you live.
Here are a few links to get you started:
- United States
- Australia
- UK
- Canada
- Japan (English language edition)
There’s a growing library of articles and practical discussion about Shu Ha Ri and how to implement it in both learning and teaching.
You can also subscribe to the weekly email digest.
💬 “I’m not posting memes and ‘hot takes’. No goats were surprised by amateur divers in the making of this article. I’m trying to provide thoughtful, eccentric observations for thoughtful (not at all eccentric) readers, so context is everything.”
The Sydney I know isn’t like what they’re showing on the news
Tragically my home city has been in the international news for all the wrong reasons and we’re all feeling traumatised and shocked and heartbroken.
What about you?
You only know what you see in the media, like the photo below. So beyond the Harbour and the Opera House, perhaps you don’t know what Sydney is actually like.
I thought I’d show you a snapshot of what it’s really like where I live, on Bidjigal land, the unceded territory of the Eora Nation.
12 days of Winter Wonder Photo Challenge by Micro.blog: Dec 15 - Frost 📷
We don’t have frost here so this is the best I could do. Also, it’s not Winter in Australia. Just saying.
💬"The term “breaking the mold” is common, but without having learned anything from others, one cannot depart from or break away from anything.” - Prof. Shigeru Ushida.
#shuhari #education #lifelonglearning
Shu Ha Ri and the philosophy of interior design
The late interior designer Professor Shigeru Uchida discusses the importance of Shu Ha Ri for design:
💬 “The current education system lacks “Shu.” There’s a total absence of the attitude to observe, study, and learn from others. The term “breaking the mold” is common, but without having learned anything from others, one cannot depart from or break away from anything.”
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now in paperback and ebook.
Trying to write slowly in 2025
Before I really got going with the Zettelkasten approach to making notes (and with micro.blog) I was publishing only a handful of posts here each year.
But then my productivity exploded.
In 2023 I published 202 posts here, and this post equals that count for 2025, even though the year isn’t done yet.
In 2025 I also edited a collection of essays and published my own book.
So I’m quite happy with the year’s output. And thank you for reading along with me, I really appreciate it.
But don’t worry, in 2026 I’ll still be trying to write slowly.
This little book would make a great present for the artist, fighter, learner, teacher, or straight-up Japan-lover in your life. Just saying.
Towards sunset, beneath Fushimi Inari Taisha, the city of Kyoto is laid out like a silver plate.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
#Kyoto #FushimiInariTaisha #Japan #SunsetView #JapanTravel #JapanPhotography #VisitJapan #ShuHaRi #JapaneseCulture