Once, a few, few weeks ago there were two old man. One served in World War II, losing many friends to the Japanese. The other old man was drafted just as World War II ended, and he fought not against the Japanese soldiers. The man who lost friends, Clyde shall his name be, had walked…
Tag: self improvement
Understanding Culture Blindness
A fish doesn’t notice water. You can’t see the forest for the trees. Whenever I visit Amish country, as we call the areas where the Amish live, I’m struck by how a group I’m familiar with can seem foreign to others. If you don’t know, the Amish is a religious group that eschews owning technology…
What I’ve Learned from (Killing) Bonsai Trees
For the past few years, I’ve dabbled in growing bonsai. Well, I’m better at killing them than growing them so far. I have a soft heart for Walmart and Lowes clearance rack orphans, but they tend not to have the best survival chances. Bonsai is a Japanese method of miniaturizing trees and shaping them into…
You Are What You Watch. The Effect of Anime on the Mind
You’ve likely heard the saying “you are what you eat.” Well, the stories you consume influence who you are as well. Your body uses the nutrients you put into it to rebuild itself. If you eat poorly, your body will build with poor materials. We build our character in the same way. The messages we…
Violet Evergarden and the Lost Art of Letter Writing
I’ve never received a letter. Most likely, you haven’t either. Our digital age killed letter writing with email and social media. Is it odd that I feel nostalgic toward letters? I spent a good bit of my teen years hanging out with WWII veterans. They told me of their excitement when they received letters from…
Living a Wabi Sabi Life
Wabi-sabi doesn’t have an equivalent English word. The phrase itself is rather fun to say: wabi-sabi. The phrase describes an aesthetic, a feeling, that underlies our experiences of art and landscapes. The phrase contains two words that, though similar, work together to describe what we in the West would call nostalgic tragedy. Wabi can mean…