Making social media long and casual again
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Some Thoughts on Meditation
This morning I went (by bike) to do a hike near Moab, in Grandstaff Canyon. At the soaring natural sandstone bridge that marked the end of the hike, I found myself alone for a short while, and sat on a flat rock to meditate. It makes for an idyllic picture, but the truth is that…
Stop Asking if It Scales
Point: “Big, global problems need big, global solutions. Big solutions spread fast, to lots of people: that is scalability. So scalability is a requirement for any solution that seeks to solve big problems.” Counterpoint: “Big, global solutions proposed are often ineffective, unfeasible, or counterproductive, because people and places are different. Any long-term solution is adapted…
Boston to Utah by Train and Bike
Storytime! As some of you know, I recently (mid February) quit my job in battery engineering (which I had worked since I graduated college, for 1.75 years) to do natural building related work as both a profession and passion. As I keep on saying to everybody, I’ll be sharing more about this in writing soon.…
Year Two of No Flying
Emily here, reporting on my second straight calendar year of no flying (first year post). At first, I couldn’t think of much to say about the absence of an experience, the same way I have nothing to say about not riding a camel and not driving a tractor. I just haven’t done it; it’s not a…
Sleeping on a Dog Bed for a Year
From October 2022 to July 2023, I slept on a bed that I made myself by hand. It’s basically a giant rectangular pillow, made of a length of velvety, navy blue synthetic fabric and filled with synthetic pillow stuffing. I jokingly call it a dog bed in the title of this post because while it’s…
I Made Lunch
I had just gotten back from my big trip when the farm I volunteer at asked for someone to take the lead on food/catering arrangements on their annual humble harvest celebration. This was an up-to-50-person event: no small fry, and it would be the biggest audience I’d cooked for yet, if I did. So of…
Biking to a Cob Workshop
In the middle of October I spent two weeks embarking on an adventure I’d been planning for a while: this is the whole story of that adventure. Earlier in 2023, I was thinking about how important it is to have some idea of not only what I am trying to reduce (ecological disaster, suffering, injustice,…
Beantown Digest: Issue #1
I’m so excited to share the first issue of my new monthly newsletter, the Beantown Digest. This will be an email newsletter, separate from the email subscription to this blog, as it’s for Greater Boston-specific content. You can subscribe to the Beantown Digest here. For this first edition only, I am putting it on my…
A 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Course: The Adventure
At the end of June I temporarily departed workaday life to go on an adventure. Back in the winter of 2022, I waitlisted for a 10-day Vipassana meditation course at the nearest center to me, across the state in the western Massachusetts town of Shelburne. I think I heard about Vipassana from two sustainability people:…
Soup
Hello friends! I’ve been encouraged to provide my Soup powerpoint (circa 2022) in a more easily accessible location, so I’ve converted it to blog post form. Enjoy! bean soup or becoming a better person through soup (Updated Spring 2023) I’m going to break it down, easy as soup. Table of contents 1. What I do…
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electronic void 