The good life

Ecological sustainability, self-sufficiency, community building, everyday wisdom

Online Poem Generator
As someone who loves the belief that poetry is a form of communication, I am inclined to see its authenticity threatened by the emergence of automated poem generators. I am aware that strong AI will be among us within a few decades from now, if we believe the predictions of researchers in the field, but ...
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Meditation on Thinking
We sit and breathe calmly. We observe that we are thinking and in a first, gentle, move, admit that it is a concept that will always evade our definition. We just think. The ability to distinguish it from not-thinking requires a precise definition, hence in other words we are always-already caught in the realm of ...
Evolutionary consolation
[Mommy puts son to bed] Mommy, I'm so afraid. - Why, darling? Do you think I have bad genes? - Why do you think that? Girls don't want to talk with me. - But you got your genes from mommy and daddy. So? - Mommy and daddy talked to each other. Did you? - Yes. ...
Advice for people having a conversation -Speak as if you are laughing and thinking at the same time
Smile encounter
I ride the Seoul subway, line six. A small young woman in a colorful dress gets in and takes a seat. She is not Korean and she wears a scarf. As relative outsider in this monocultural megalopolis, I instinctively feel solidarity with the timid girl, whose face was ridden with acne. I smile at her. ...
Meditation on nature
Close your eyes and breathe in. How do we meditate about nature? Let us think of some cliché scenes of nature: magnificent Alpine peaks, unspoilt blue lakes, endless tundra, rain forest. The concept of nature seems to be defined as those objects left alone by men. The fewer humans have set foot somewhere, the more ...
Meditation on love
Can we imagine a love that is without lack, hence without desire? We sit for a brief meditation on love. Erotic love, parental love, the love for truth, beauty and the good. Imagination that our love is indeed without lack, that the constellation lover - beloved has a value as it is and does not ...