Category Archives: Life

I must miss Japan. Tonight for dinner I found myself in a Japanese restaurant here in Kunming, China which offered everything China is not: tranquility, impeccable service, quiet voices. What a nice reprise from the grime of China daily life! While gorging myself on lots of sushi and hot sake, I came across this excellent quote in James Clavell’s colossal novel Shogun, which is about the Shogun era (1600) in the Asian Saga (set in Japan — yes, I must really miss that wonderful country):

Always remember, child, that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing un-happiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is about. So train your mind to dwell on sweet perfumes, the touch of this silk, tender raindrops against the shoji, the curve of this flower arrangement, the tranquility of dawn. Then, at length, you won’t have to make such a great effort and you will be of value to yourself, a value to our profession — and bring honor to our world…

Do you have a stash of "good thoughts" you turn to when the going gets rough? One image I have in my head is a white swan swimming gracefully across a pristine, blue lake. I have no idea how why that has stuck but I turn to it when I need a quiet mind.

Optimism is a habit. Practice it!

Related Posts:
• Do You Believe Tomorrow Has the Potential to be Better Than Today?
• Cultural Pessimism Remains Flip
• Quote of the Day About Optimism

Or so said Emile Zola, among many other fabulous quotes in this Tom Peters PowerPoint. Another gem:

"The object of life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, ‘Holy Shit, What a Ride!!!’ —Mavis Leyrer

Professor Linus Yamane at Pitzer College posts his philosophy of life. I like it. I believe we have one shot at life, that we can seize only one day at a time, and tomorrow is no guarantee. My impending mortality looms…

A writer can have, ultimately, one of two styles: he can write in a manner that implies that death is inevitable, or he can write in a manner that implies that death is not inevitable. Every style ever employed by a writer has been influenced by one or another of these attitudes toward death.

If you write as if you believe that ultimately you and everyone else alive will be dead, there is a chance that you will write in a pretty earnest style. Otherwise you are apt to be either pompous or soft. On the other hand, in order not to be a fool, you must believe that as much as death is inevitable life is inevitable. That is, the earth is inevitable, and people and other living things on it are inevitable, but that no man can remain on the earth very long. You do not have to be melodramatically tragic about this. As a matter of fact, you can be as amusing as you like about it. It is really one of the basically humorous things, and it has all sorts of possibilities for laughter. If you will remember that living people are as good as dead, you will be able to perceive much that is very funny in their conduct that you perhaps might never have thought of perceiving if you did not believe that they were as good as dead.

The most solid advice, though, for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, 1934 (Preface to the First Edition).

Yelp contributors say, "You Know You live in San Francisco When":

When you go on vacation to Mexico, and still carry your sweater.  Everywhere. Cause, you know.  It could get cold."

I knew I had officially landed in SF when driving through the city after driving 2,000 miles from Wisconsin, one of the *very* first people I saw was a very beautiful woman.  I mean a man.  I mean a woman… crossing the street.

I knew I was in SF the first weekend I moved here…it was Bay to Breakers.  I was at the park, I had my blanket, we were bbq’ing.  I had laid down to catch some sun, and felt someone literally tripping over my body.  I looked up to see a pair of skinny legs and striped tube socks.  My eyes followed the length of these legs to find a set of shriveled franks and beans staring back at me.  A man (definitely pushing 75) looked down at me to apologize.  His rainbow head band matched his rainbow tube socks.  Naked, running in the park, and color coordinated.  Welcome to San Francisco.  From that moment on, I knew I’d never leave.

Your neighbors in your complex are a senior citizen, a tranny, a twink, a D.J. frat boy, a hippie couple, and Guatemalan family living above, below and next to you.

It’s been weeks and weeks since you met a Republican.

Jeans, t-shirt, and Converse are considered "business casual"

The number of hybrids out number the amount of SUV’s

When you know what the next great revolution is in human consciousness is and it’s something like push technology or info security or social networking.

You’re walking down Market and pass a man dressed as Flash Gordon, a transvestite with a boa around her neck, and a guy clucking like a chicken…and you don’t even look twice.

You comment to yourself on how much everyone has gotten into the spirit of Halloween this year, then realize that it is July.

When you start a new company that sells useless software services to people who don’t want it and when people ask you what you want to achieve in life you say, simply, world domination.

(Hat tip: my friend Tyler Willis)

On Auren Hoffman’s post on San Francisco vs. New York, one commenter says:

In New York, "Hi, I’m Larry." will get you into most conversations pretty well, but here it seems you need to say, "Hi, I’m Larry and I’m Gay Vegan Tibetan Unitaririan Member of the Green Party who has been to Burning Man every year since 1651."

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to get into conversations at bars, over games of pool, only to be shut out because I’m not a bike messenger, or I’ve never been to India, or I like a good burger. Sorry, folks, I’m just Joe. That seems to be good enough for most people, just not you San Franciscans.

At around 4 PM on September 11, 2001 I was working at my computer with the radio on listening to news updates.

My brother came into my room and asked if I wanted to see a card trick. In those days he was an amateur magician.

I said sure. He fanned out the deck. "Pick a card, any card." I picked a Four of Diamonds. Then he said, "Label it as yours…Write your name on it, or date it, something to identify it." He handed me a pen. First I wrote the name "Comcate" on the card (I had just incorporated my software company). For the date, I went to my computer, flipped open the calendar, and saw it was September 11th.  For a second I thought, "This is weird, I just looked up a date that’s probably going down in history." I wrote 9/11/01 on the card under Comcate.

Then my brother shuffled the deck and, surprising me, threw it up in the air so the whole deck hit the ceiling. The cards hit the ceiling of my bedroom and then fell and hit the ground. Except one card. The one I signed. That was the trick — my card stuck to the ceiling.

Five years later, the card — signed "9/11/01" is still stuck to the ceiling of my room, right above my bed. Each morning I wake up, open my eyes, and see that card.