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Two Weeks in Korea

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been in Korea (yes, the South one). I thought I’d reflect back on my trip, and offer a few pieces of advice for anyone who happens to read this and is thinking of heading over. Life in Korea I lived in Korea back in 2017/2018. Returning now, as a holiday and after a few years away, allowed me to see it in a slightly different light to when I jumped straight into living and working there.

  • Korea
  • Travel
Wednesday, November 1, 2023 | 7 minutes Read
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Six Months in a New City

This week marks six months since I’ve moved back to London. I last lived here in 2015, so it’s been a solid few years away! Half a year on, I thought I’d reflect on what’s gone well, what’s gone less well, what I’ve learnt, and what I hope my future time in England’s capital. House and Home For the first three months I was lodging with a couple. Without going into too much detail, this did not go particularly well - but I learnt from the experience. For example, while I want to live in a clean and tidy place, I’m not the type to vacuum the entire house multiple times a day. I also prefer a relatively social house, one where housemates speak with each other, guests are allowed, one without unspoken curfews. Also, I first-hand experienced the disadvantages of live-in landlords not requiring to hold a lodger’s deposit with a third party, but instead having total control over what they feel requires deductions. I also learnt about small claims court procedures.

  • Living
  • London
  • Housing
  • Work
  • Hobbies
  • Relationships
  • Communities
  • Networking
Wednesday, October 11, 2023 | 7 minutes Read
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What were you “born into”?

One of my acquaintances has a private jet and generously offers “a lift” to those in need. He provided lifts to a family whose young son needed specialist medical attention in the US on several occasions. This boy had never travelled by plane before. In a way, he was “born into” an elite worldview of transport. Thankfully, months later, he recovered, but an amusing phenomenon unravelled. When he embarked on his first-ever family holiday abroad, he went to the airport as before, but to a different departure gate. He waited this time longer than usual, he thought to himself. And then he boarded the plane. Oh dear, it wasn’t pretty!

  • Mindset
  • Attitude
  • Biases
  • Mental Blindspots
Wednesday, August 2, 2023 | 5 minutes Read
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Vinay Gupta on Meditation

What enlightenment is Welcoming the cat We’re not going to actively catch the cat. It is not going to be caught. It is eventually going to come and sit on your lap because you show up in the same place at the same time every day and wait for it. That is a comfortable lap, I will come and sit on it. Emptying the sink The sink is now empty of dishes - how wonderful. It is still a sink. Yes, you are still an ape - you’re just an ape with an empty sink. Is an empty sink better than a full sink? They are both sinks. Yes, but I think you’ll find the empty one is better. But it’s still a sink.

  • Meditation
  • Thoughts
  • Emotions
  • Fears
  • Trauma
  • Happiness
Wednesday, March 22, 2023 | 8 minutes Read
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Your Head is a Houseboat - Campbell Walker

Wonderful book, 5/5. And short - you could read it in an evening. Of course the journalling will take longer - “Cleaning isn’t a one-time act, and neither is exploring and unravelling your head.” Before: At the end of a hard day, you probably feel more exhausted than a fly who doesn’t quite understand the mechanics of a window. You know the fly. They can’t see the open crack in the window and, much to your vicarious frustration, they keep flying at the window pane over and over again. They deplete their energy while going nowhere. On a day where you feel like your head lost the battle, and all the stuff going in won, the fly becomes very relatable.

  • Books
  • Book Summary
  • Personal Development
  • Mental Health
  • Meditation
  • Journalling
  • Contemplation
  • Memories
  • Motivation
  • Fears
  • Biases
  • Human Nature
  • Compassion
Wednesday, March 1, 2023 | 7 minutes Read
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The Fourth Turning - the High is coming!

Introduction “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Time goes through cycles. There is the economic cycle, one which everyone is all too aware of. There are Milankovitch cycles, when the climate changes due to variances in the eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the planet (which is separate to man-made climate change). There is Saṃsāra, the Buddhist concept of eternal life, death, and rebirth. Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning Model, written in the late 1990s, proposes a generational cycle that can be used to help explain the rises and falls of human history. According to this theory, we’re currently in the Crisis (who’d have thought?)

  • Society
  • Humanity
  • Cycles
  • Samsara
  • Economic Cycles
  • Crisis
  • War
  • Opportunity
  • Future
  • Personalities
  • Theories
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 | 5 minutes Read
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The Three Cs: Consumption, Creation, and Contemplation

Summaries ChatGPT The writer is considering how they should spend their free time, and divides actions into three categories: consumption, creation, and contemplation. Consumption is about taking in media for entertainment or education, creation is about putting something out, like creating art or building something, and contemplation is deep thinking. The writer argues that many people spend most of their time on consumption, and that true value comes from the other two categories. They suggest that consumption is appealing because it can present itself as accomplishment, because the education system focuses on regurgitating facts rather than creativity, and because it is easier than actively creating or contemplating. They also argue that the constant availability of media to consume denies people the opportunity to have “dead time” for creative thoughts to arise, and that true education requires creativity and contemplation in addition to consumption.

  • Productivity
  • Time Management
  • Creativity
  • Contemplations
  • Education
  • Learning
Sunday, January 1, 2023 | 7 minutes Read
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