Listen to your body and eat whatever you want.
Technology makes life easy, but the human body rewards hard work. The more technology you use every day, the less satisfied you feel. Furthermore, the technology you use alters your brain; the more you use it, the more your brain changes. Use technology mindfully, fully aware that it’s a mind-altering substance.
Coffee smells good. The smell is enough to wake me up.
You can relax anywhere, anytime.
If you play someone else’s game, you’ve already lost.
A vast field of yellowing grain is an immensely satisfying view.
There is nothing wrong with possessions. The error is not in possessing, it is becoming attached to things, either by not being able to let go of any of them, or wanting to get rid of all of them. Souvenir objects at important moments in your life and use them as props to tell a story. The emotional utility of objects lies in their function as stage props, and only secondarily in their physical characteristics. For example, an antique chair passed down in a family for 200 years is more valuable than a chair made from a 200-year-old block of wood because it can tell a better story. A home should be full of objects with interesting stories; it should be an emotional ecology of objects and customs that anchor you in the shared personal history of those who live there.
The trouble with living in affluence is that it is easy to fill your home with beautiful things, but the ease of acquisition often reduces the interest of the story you can tell, draining them of most of their emotional value. “We got it at the hippie shop”, or “We picked it up at Ikea”. This doesn’t mean objects have to be hard to find, unique, hand-made, or expensive; a million dollars of furnishings can be as dull as ditchwater, a roomful of exotic trophies can be completely lifeless, and hand-made can be a euphemism for poorly crafted. It just means being more selective about the objects you acquire, choosing them based on the story you can tell about them. For example, around my wrist is a rusty, mass-produced spring I found on the side of the road. It’s a perfect prop. And since it’s just a prop, it doesn’t matter if I lose it. I can just replace it with something else which serves the same function of telling a story about walking Japan. Personal belongings are the props of my personal narrative. Acquire objects which tell your current story; dispense of objects which no longer tell your story; be attached to none. [A few days after writing this, I lost the spring. I had to laugh at my irritation.]
Walking boosts intelligence.
Budgets are useful.
LIfe is uncertain.
I think you mean ‘string’, not ‘spring’!
“Souvenir objects at important moments in your life and use them as props to tell a story. The emotional utility of objects lies in their function as stage props, and only secondarily in their physical characteristics…A home should be full of objects with interesting stories; it should be an emotional ecology of objects and customs that anchor you in the shared personal history of those who live there.”
Exactly! Wait’ll I give you the tour of the Mountaingoat Museum of Aimlessness. Every item has a story – but you gotta be drunk.