I’m delighted to be featured in Hyde’s intriguing series Under/Over, where bloggers are asked for their thoughts on what they find under-rated and over-rated. I have opinions on Zettelkasten, POSSE, solitude, journalling, pavlova(!) and more. Read on at lazybea.rs.
#indieweb
Currently reading: Wise. Finding Purpose, Meaning and Wisdom Beyond the Midpoint of Life by Frank Tallis 📚
One reason I write:
“We remember only a tiny fraction of existence. We have forgotten most of what it is like to be alive, long before we die. Oblivion starts seeping into our heads as soon as we are self-aware.” (p.44)
I made the twenty photographs that accompany the text of Shu Ha Ri as part of a personal learning process, inspired by David Ulrich’s Zen Camera. I was influenced by Empire of Signs by Roland Bathes. As the author said of that work, “The text does not ‘gloss’ the images, which do not ‘illustrate’ the text.” During the COVID pandemic it was impossible to travel far, but several Japanese-style gardens were within reach. The images included here are of three in particular: Himeji Garden in Adelaide, Edogawa Commemorative Garden in East Gosford, and Auburn Botanic Garden in Sydney.
📷 A pair of cockatoos, feeding each other while scavenging.
#BirdsOfAustralia #WildlifePhotography #FeatheredFriends
The Atlantic suggests that the end of reading is here. It used to be easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But now its easier to imagine the end of literacy than the end of YouTube.
At the End of the World (1921) with Betty Compson and Milton Sills. Public domain.
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Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk’s flight
On the empty sky. – Ursula K. LeGuin
You might care to check out the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction.
Cockatoos? Five sulphur-crested cockatoos, foraging beneath the Norfolk Island pines of Botany Bay? Well, all right, if you insist.
#BirdsOfAustralia #WildlifePhotography #FeatheredFriends
Learning to tell a bright cow from a dull one
You might be wondering how anyone can grow from being an advanced learner to becoming an expert. It might seem like an impossible step to climb.
According to the traditional Japanese approach of Shu Ha Ri, a vital step in the learning process is to so absorb the rules that the student transcends them. The rules and conventions become second nature. But what does that look like in practice?
Here’s a great example from the world of veterinary medicine, where veterinary students were trained to identify whether an animal is bright (i.e healthy) or dull (i.e. sickening):
“Eventually, the students get good enough at evaluating bright vs. dull. What’s interesting is that, by then, they’ve lost the rules. What was once effortful and algorithmic is now perceptual and automatic. They can see things you and I do not.” – Oddly-Influenced
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
And if you found this article interesting you might like to sign up to the Writing Slowly weekly email digest. You’ll receive all the week’s posts in a handy email format which you might prefer. But this site does of course have an RSS feed.
News just in from 2009:
“It’s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter.” – Techcrunch.
Well that didn’t exactly age well. And now there’s an RSS resurgence in the air – from Dave Winer, of course, who made RSS immortal by giving it an audio payload and thereby inventing podcasting.
We’ve been having our regular family disagreement about thinning our bookshelves, which made this article timely: How and why to cull your book collection [via Kottke.org].
On reflection, our bookshelves are very much a working library, more about flow than about stock. Most books pass through.