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
Imitating the greats?
Imitation can be a very effective form of learning, but it’s worth considering who to imitate, and how.
Writers often seek to imitate the greats, but it interesting how far the star of some supposedly timeless writers can fade. Here’s William Zinsser, the well-read author of ‘Writing to learn’, on how he did it.
“Writing is learned by imitation. I learned to write mainly by reading writers who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and by trying to figure out how they did it. S. J. Perelman told me that when he was starting out he could have been arrested for imitating Ring Lardner. Woody Allen could have been arrested for imitating S. J. Perelman. And who hasn’t tried to imitate Woody Allen? Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else’s writing. They think it’s unethical—which is commendable. Or they’re afraid they’ll lose their own identity. The point, however, is that we eventually move beyond our models; we take what we need and then we shed those skins and become who we are supposed to become.”
So who are these people I’ve never heard of, I wondered, who could all have been arrested for imitating one another? I mean, they couldn’t, could they? It’s not actually illegal, is it? Or did Zinsser mean plagiarism?
It turns out that Ring Lardner was an American sports journalist and satirist whose work was greatly admired by many of the major authors who were his contemporaries. In his high school newspaper Ernest Hemingway used the pen name, ‘Ring Lardner Jr’. Lardner became a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald and he inspired the writing of John O’Hara (another great writer whose name is seldom heard these days). In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger gave Lardner a backhanded compliment by having his protagonist, Holden Caulfield, name Lardner as his second favourite author. So for Hemingway at least the juvenile imitation seems to have extended to impersonation.
Clearly I need to read some Ring Lardner.
S.J.Perelman was a humourist, writing especially for the New Yorker. He was admired by T.S. Eliot, Somerset Maugham, Garrison Keillor, Frank Muir, and Woody Allen. Another writer I’ve never heard of, who seems to have been inspirational. But then…
“Who hasn’t tried to imitate Woody Allen?” Is a question I’ll leave hanging in the wind.
Author and academic Adam Roberts has an interesting post about Jonathan Buckley’s novel, One Boat (2025), which appears to use Laurence Durrell’s adjectives as a model for how one of his own characters might over-write their diary. Durrell is an author whose star has certainly faded, even though he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. And his style is certainly not admired these days. As Roberts says,
“giving his narrator these Durrellisms: the point of this adjectival affectation, or addiction, is to characterize her as someone groping, somewhat desperately, for expression, or the impossibility thereof”
Well, whether this is a deliberate imitation in order to show a diarist whose purple prose, like Durrell’s gallops away from them, or whether, as Adam’s seems to suspect, it isn’t, whether Buckley was doing something very clever and ‘meta’ with his character’s imitation, or whether he was just getting away with it, all the same, the novel was long listed for the Booker Prize.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
💬 "When they email or text me about a post it feels like applause from a dark corner of a large, empty theater where I rehearse."
https://daniel.industries/2025/11/22/why-write-online/
/cc @writingslowly
Daniel kindly replied to my meandering questions about writing online, which circled the theme of ‘what’s the point?’
His blog is a commonplace book, written first for himself. He says blogs got hit hard by social media. I called it the Rapture. There’s only us left!
But not quite. You’re here too.
💬 “You cannot transcend a craft you have not yet learned.”
#shuhari #LifelongLearning
🎬 Paper Films! In the 1930s, Japanese films were made on fragile paper rolls. Nearly lost forever, researchers have digitized and preserved this unique history! Learn more: Japanese Paper Films.
#PaperFilm #FilmHistory #JapaneseFilm #LostMedia #JapaneseFilmFestival #JapaneseHistory
Japanese paper films
Japanese paper films! What?
Yes, in the 1930s the Japanese made a whole bunch of short movies using rolls of paper instead of celluloid.
With the aid of a bright light and some clever mirrors this actually worked. But the technology never really took off and these paper movie reels, originally made for showing at home, were basically forgotten. Worse, the paper was fragile and highly susceptible to disintegration.
Game over for paper films?
Not quite.
Researchers eventually realised what a treasure trove this is, if only it could be rescued. They worked out a way of restoring, or rather preserving, and digitising the remaining movies and now, amazingly, it’s possible to view them in all their preserved (not restored) quirkiness.
I was lucky enough to be able to experience these paper films in a presentation to a packed house at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. There was live music too, which was exquisite, and really complemented the films that didn’t have an original ‘78 record soundtrack, which was the majority.
The presenter was Professor Eric Faden, who has devoted an impressive amount of time and effort to ensure these unique cultural artifacts weren’t lost to decay. They’re now a showpiece of the 2025 Japanese Film Festival and a valuable element of Japanese and international film history.
Now, through the magic of the Internet, you can see many of the recovered paper films for yourself, on the project’s Bluesky account.
And here’s a news story from Japanese TV (English language).
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.