If you have been wondering about the radio silence on this blog over the last month, the answer is rather simple: the physical world absorbed a lot of my attention. I went for a two-week holiday and I have been busy navigating an existential pendulum swing. For a while, my thinking and life choices were caught between two extremes. On one side, the disciplined ascetic: pouring my breath and patience into self-development. I play traditional Japanese music on the shakuhachi and blues & jazz on the saxophone. In both instruments, I am finally reaching a point where the bamboo and brass yield something meaningful rather than just mediocre noise. It's wonderfully rewarding to the point of achieving genuine highs after some sessions. But I used to be a hardcore gamer. Those who remember my teen years will know. The absolute couch-bound escapist: surrendering an embarrassing amount of waking hours to the digital, computer-induced dopamine. Self-development—the instruments, the writin...