Having done all manner of bodyweight exercises for the past eight years, I wanted to try something new. My gains had tapered off, and doing more of the same wouldn’t help. I decided to sign up for a gym and try weightlifting. My plan was to run StrongLifts 5×5 and see where it took me. […]
My Winding Road To PulpRev
I wasn’t always a science fiction and fantasy reader. Despite what my bibliography says, in some ways I still am not. At least, not the kind of reader most SFF is aimed at. As a child I read voraciously, but I was always drawn to world myths, folklore and fairy tales. One day I would […]
Anime Analysis: GATE – Thus the JSDF Fought There!
GATE – Thus the JSDF Fought There had all the ingredients for awesomeness: modern military technology, high fantasy setting, magic, politics, war. And squandered everything. The anime started promisingly enough. A mysterious gateway opens in Ginza. An army of legionnaires, orcs and dragons pours out. The Japanese Self Defense Force responds decisively, defeating the invasion. […]
The Art of Preventing Procrastination
I’ve been told procrastination is a major hurdle people have to overcome. I wouldn’t know about that: I never had a problem with procrastination. I’m not going to discuss how to overcome procrastination. There are plenty of articles out there that teach you how to do that. What I am going to articulate here is […]
Notes On Navigating An Overwhelming World
Terrorism Cannot be Stopped by Banning Hardware
Yesterday I was at the Downtown Core, the financial, commercial and cultural heart of Singapore. This was home to banks, shopping centres, hotels, areas of cultural interest. Five minutes from a major train station, I entered a convenience store and found a box cutter on sale for $2.50. A distant relative of the same box […]
Stand Tall, Speak the Truth, Never Let Your Enemies Drag You Down
To endure is to win. To endure is to be patient. To endure is to shelter. To endure is to cultivate. That which endures, survive. The inner spirit is untouchable and unbreakable. -Ivan Throne, The Nine Laws Last week my fiancee wanted to write a post about her struggles with eczema. But she was afraid. […]
An Amateur’s Notes on Cryptocurrency
Like most people I know I heard of Bitcoin only when it was too late to profit spectacularly from it. Even so, cryptocurrency rarely popped up in my local newspapers, except in highly technical articles buried in the business or finance pages, or whenever someone made a killing off crypto — or when crypto is […]
Anime Analysis: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Party wipe in the first five minutes. If the anime adaptation of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash were set in a realistic and unforgiving world, the main cast would have been slaughtered in the first fight scene. Fortunately for them, they somehow blunder their way out and live to fight another die. Unfortunately, the sequence […]
The Way of Non-Attachment
In my last post I discussed how hedonism leads to emptiness and suffering. Hedonism is a self-destructive mindset born from attachment to sensory pleasure. The antidote is the cultivation of non-attachment. In Buddhist thought, craving (tanha) creates attachment (upadana) whose fruit is suffering (dukkha). If you fail to achieve what you desire, you experience suffering. […]