I’m listening again
to your alt-pop, New York
you call me back
make a head case out of me
sublimely syncopated
I’m not alive enough
I’m not taking on enough
The city
The city!
The only city, goddam
every other world a suburb
sprawling in mediocrity
wishing it could be you
I hear your lights
take me back
I can live out here in California
forever
but I will never be as [...]
Category Archives: Life
I <3 NY
April 20, 2013 – 12:01 am
Notes
March 25, 2013 – 2:02 am
It’s always nice to have the opportunity to reflect.
I began last semester with the intention to look inward and think about epistemology again. That was rewarding in ways I couldn’t have dreamed. Now I am looking outward again.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to “be the change you want to be in the world” unless you [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 12: Harvest
February 20, 2013 – 8:58 pm
A week ago I had my last coaching session with Jacob Winkler. He had asked that we use the time for what he calls “Harvest”–a retrospective on our work together.
In preparation, I had to write the blog post I owed him. I was still reeling a bit from that–it’s an emotionally challenging thing [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 11: The Fault Register
February 12, 2013 – 7:01 pm
In my penultimate meeting with Jacob, he guided me through a technique he calls the Fault Register.
The goal of the Fault Register is, if I’m interpreting it right, to confront the Shadow directly and a constructive way. First, one lists ones faults. Then, one considers each one in turn, acknowledging the ways in [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 10: Power and Martyrs
January 24, 2013 – 6:38 pm
Last Thursday afternoon, I had recently returned to Berkeley from the East Coast where I had spent my winter break. Critch and I were reconnecting, talking about the philosophical implications of astrophysics. There is an emerging scientific consensus that the universe as we know it is part of a broader multiverse composed of universes with [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 9: Trolling, Workaholism, Twitter, and Parapsychology
January 16, 2013 – 10:54 pm
Jacob’s call last week caught me in the middle of another conversation. That is, if you can call a brief exchange on Twitter a conversation.
I had just tweeted several remarks about the socially constructive uses of trolling–which Urban Dictionary defines as “The art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 8: Owning the Shadow
January 8, 2013 – 5:53 pm
My last call with Jacob followed a long hiatus. I am back on an academic schedule, working furiously through finals and then spending long holidays with family and friends. It wasn’t until after New Years that I found the time to engage again with my spiritual coach. There was plenty to reflect [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 7: Mystical techniques for completing ones statistics homework
December 21, 2012 – 7:09 pm
I’m delinquant once again in the blog post I owe Jacob, this time due to finals. I have just completed a fascinating but at times very challenging semester. The most difficult class by far was Wainwright’s Statistical Learning Theory class, which goes into the mathematical foundations for the kinds of statistical learning algorithms [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 6: Reuniting with a teddy bear, a note on apologies
November 26, 2012 – 1:47 am
Last weekend on the Saturday when Jacob called, I had devoted myself consciously to hibernation. The week before had been tiring but had culminated by an amazing meal my friends cooked for me. I realized that I hadn’t spent a “me” day for a long time. So I curled up in bed [...]
Spiritual Coaching, part 5: challenging
November 17, 2012 – 6:07 pm
A week ago I had my last call with Jacob. Since then life has been so busy and rich that I’ve been unable to sit down and type up the blog post I owe him.
Our conversation last week ranged over a number of topics. I found myself talking about everything from elements of [...]
