Here’s where I tell you a bit about me and what I write about in this blog. In case it’s not evident enough, my name and the title of the blog are one and the same. This is a “personal blog”: I use it to compile and share a more or less coherent collection of links, essays, news commentary and notes about topics in which I have a particularly strong personal interest.
The range of topics is wide, but they mostly revolve around my views on how to live a good life, and how to make the world a better place. And these views are of course tainted by my idiosyncratic “personal philosophy,” which draws on elements of Anarchism, Daoism, and Epicureanism.
If you’re still reading after such belabored introduction, I’d like to let you know that I have not always been the kind of person interested in articulating a “personal philosophy” in such precise terms — or interested in the concept of having a “personal philosophy” at all.
That interest emerged mainly during a life-transforming sabbatical year that I took from October 2008 until the end of 2009, a period that I have come to call my “Year of Nothing.” This series of posts capture much of what happened during that year, and are a good starting point for reading this blog.
With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that the most important thing I did during that Year of Nothing was starting a systematic practice of Tai Chi Chuan and Taoist meditation. For the ancient Chinese masters, spiritual and political awakening was one and the same — the martial arts train the warrior’s body for war, that ultimate form of political conflict; but also allow him to reach a state of spiritual connection with the cosmos that spontaneously transforms his character towards virtue: the state of “effortless action” (wu-wei). This spiritual state was, in turn, considered to be the key for sociopolitical harmony, peace and prosperity for the world.
For me, that awakening made me realize that up to that point I had been working for an industry instrumental to the propaganda machine of what we call “globalization,” but is nothing else than a particularly brutal, modern form of imperialism. Much of what I write in this blog reflects the change in my worldview since then.
Duality and paradox are ever-recurring themes in Daoism, and one of the most important paradoxes of my personal transformation has been that despite being now more aware than ever of the very powerful, destructive forces that threaten the very existence of humanity, I also find it much easier to see the beauty of the world and sense the ultimately good nature of man in my everyday life. I have developed an appreciation for simplicity in general, and a sharper taste for simple pleasures than ever before. That’s why this blog is also about the virtues of being a small business owner, simple productivity, coffee, good food, music, friendship, writing, reading, and other simple, Epicurean pleasures.
