xavoy

Suzuki Roshi on Being Time (1966)

2010-08-05T02:22:53Z

“Time is originally one with being. Twelve hours is the duration from sunrise to sunset. The sun needs twelve hours for its rising from the east and setting in the west. When your mind follows your breathing, it means your mind drives your breathing as water follows waves. Your breathing and mind are one. Here we have absolute freedom. We become one independent being. We should not say firewood becomes ash. Ash is ash, firewood is firewood. But ash includes firewood with everything and firewood includes ash with everything. So one breath after another you attain absolute freedom when you practice, when you are concentrated on each exhale and inhale.”

How to write a thriller, By Ian Fleming (1962)

2010-06-23T04:39:19Z

“People often ask me, “How do you manage to think of that? What an extraordinary (or sometimes extraordinarily dirty) mind you must have.” I certainly have got vivid powers of imagination, but I don’t think there is anything very odd about that.”

“We are all fed fairy stories and adventure stories and ghost stories for the first 20 years of our lives, and the only difference between me and perhaps you is that my imagination earns me money.”

How to write software

2010-05-29T08:03:36Z

“I have created a planning and organization process for developing software. The process works for me. I need to organize my work ahead of time or I get stuck working on unimportant details.”

“I have bulit minimalism into the process. I tend to work alone. Solo programming imposes very real limitations on the scope and completeness of software. One man can only do so much.”

Also: “Clean it up. As a solo programmer, you are never going to come back to this code and clean it up. You won’t have time.” So true.

Settled in Time

2010-04-22T01:13:08Z

“One remarkable example of Suzuki Roshi’s life was that he never seemed to be in a hurry. No matter how much pressure he was under, I don’t remember ever seeing him in a hurry. … [H]e had a way of not wasting time. He seemed to be settled in time almost casually, never ahead or behind. In his quiet way, fully filling each moment, he appeared to be tapped into some fundamental rhythm which was independent of circumstances, yet totally one with them.”

In the shadow of modernity

2010-03-29T08:33:31Z

“Gradually it became plain to them that ancestor figures had lured Spider into the backlands and taken him away. But where to and for what reason? Was this death, or transition, and on what plane of being was Spider situated? The picture clarified, and precise details emerged, when three members of the Balbal family, all desert born, all strongly endowed with maparn, or magic, powers, had a shared dream in which Spider’s circumstances were spelled out, and this account soon became the standard version of the story, at least in the indigenous domain.”

Raiding Eternity

2010-03-24T01:29:53Z

“The second of June, a couple of years back. A 27-year-old man is biking in downtown Eugene, Oregon. David’s a clumsy, funny man. Easy to love. Lived here his whole life. He’s unsure of what he’s going to do with his Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies—maybe become an activist?—but for now he’s managing this restaurant that also does live music and maybe it’s not what he wants to do forever, but it’s pretty great right now.”

* * *

“One mistake, a broken condom or just a drunken infelicity…who knows? There could have been a kid. Not a copy. Better than a copy. A mix. The only thing that, before we invented culture, we ever passed on. Our stupid, maniacal genes. Us but not us. Our bodies and brains, but not our thoughts. Not our art, but our brush.”

Children by the Millions Wait for Alex Chilton

2010-03-22T01:38:21Z

“In a monoculture, it’s impossible to create any subculture that stands in opposition to the mainstream … because the mainstream simply appropriates it. I’m not talking about appropriation in the corporate/capitalist sense, where the signifiers of alternative culture are used to sell everything from German cars to Tom’s of Maine toothpaste. That’s nothing new. What’s weird about the monoculture is that it actually embraces subcultures and makes them part of the global mainstream at a far greater speed than has ever been achieved before. Even anti-consumerism is acceptable; check out the circulation of Adbusters in any given month.”

The Power of Paradox

2010-03-11T02:59:45Z

More than a decade ago, Jerry Porras and Jim Collins cited research from which they concluded that leaders who last and make a lasting difference have the exceptional ability to deal with paradoxes and seeming contradictions rather than yielding to the “tyranny of the ‘or.’” This is the tyranny that pushes people to believe that things must be either A or B, but not both.”

“While it may sound too good to be true, it is often possible to embrace both extremes of many apparent contradictions simultaneously. If we are willing to do some hard cognitive work and lay aside pure selfishness, we can find ways to have the best of both worlds.”

An Interesting Home / Studio

2010-03-11T02:56:41Z

I’ve got a few friends with all kinds of interesting trinkets lying around their home, but nothing quite as interesting as this!