2026-06-24 Am I binge watching *White Lotus?* Sure. But I’m also working. I have a brain, so I’m always working. In S3E7, when the audience goes wild at the Muay Thai match, Mook tells Gaitok it’s because it’s natural for people to want to fight each other; it’s part of life. I think [she may be right](https://npydyuan.mataroa.blog/blog/ailment/), and would add that if you don’t do your fighting in some kind of “natural” way, you’ll do it in some fucked up way, like yelling at your kids, or worse. If you’re avoiding something, you’ll find a way to make the side effects other people’s fault. Skill and performance and virtuosity can take you part of the way to fulfilling the need to express power — but only part of the way. In S3E8 the monk’s voiceover says “there is no resolution” to our need to make things make sense, to run towards pleasure away from pain. Likewise, writing an “essay” is useless unless it unearths a question you don’t know the answer to. There is no conclusion. The way I think about thinking is often specious. I’ve been sitting here thinking I was avoiding something by watching TV, and yet it turns out I’ve been background-processing all about writing and teaching and a bunch of other stuff. If it works it works. Maybe it’ll be something else that works next time; all I know is there will be a next time. Perhaps an unwavering commitment is a kind of fight. Perhaps it counts. Whatever you are truly compelled to do is the only real thing — whatever drags you across the metaphorical rocks to the next literal fight. 2026-06-25 ps: turn the card over, let it sit, put out your leaky bucket and wait for the rainwater (strategy for cw) — my methods dont match (most of) their incentives > In the end, it is only The Telling. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/umyazu “nonzero every day” isn’t limited to “adding” words — it can be removing them as well. it’s ok, remember? chew up and spit out index cards, words are cheap, YOU give yourself permission to start down a path and then say, nope, that wasn’t it after all. it doesn’t “mean” anything, just, go back and start again