Charles Bukowski. You will probably get sick of me talking about him; fine with me. There is a raw beauty to his work—a brutal honesty. There are too many favourites. Get your hands on two of his collected works, The Last Night on Earth Poems and Love is a Dog From Hell. …
Category: the grind
The healthy Unhealthy
The social media algorithm believes I need to see body transformations. I am bombarded with images of men losing weight and getting shredded. These miraculous diets and training programs not only build muscle and drop weight but also provide a tan, strip body hair, and allow for a manly beard. Impressive program. When…
Socialising
“Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice–now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! […] Decide to be extraordinary and do what…
Routines
I food prep for each day. Sunday. For the week ahead. Control. I have always struggled with weight. Food is a coping mechanism. I was at my heaviest in the late 1990s. 148 kg. I went heavier. I just refused to get on the scales after 148. I might…
Cigars
“Tobacco is the plant that converts thoughts into dreams.” – Victor Hugo Stoicism tells us pleasure is fine, providing it is virtuous. One of the stoic virtues is temperance. Self-control. Discipline. Buddhism tells us not to crave material pleasures. Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches that all material desires bring no pleasure, only sadness….
Gym
“it is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that if you are careless, for it will not come of its own accord.’ – Socrates Lifting is a thing I…
John Williams
You need to travel light when you move about as we do. The book rule ‘unless you read it more than once, you don’t buy it’. I thought Stoner was a book about weed. It sat on my Kindle for a month or so. I don’t recall how it got there. I was in no…
Caffeine
I have not had a coffee for two months. A regular coffee. Maybe two. It was a conscious decision to stop. It didn’t seem to be an issue. Perhaps I was not dependent. There is a café nearby. It is called Lot 369. It makes a good piccolo. Uni assignments are due. It is an…
Wet season
Our balcony looks South. You can see forever. There is no haze here. A view to the horizon. The days start clear and blue. In the afternoon, the clouds build. It is like this every day. Wet season. We cook dinner and watch the storms roll in. You can…