Missives from Samsara

I am reading a book now called The Gift of Aging. In a chapter about the dying process the authors make the statement you can see below, that hearing is the last of the senses to fade during the death process. Digging in a bit, it seems hospice workers frequently notice that people who are dying and who seem unconscious often respond to the voices of their loved ones. This study supports these anecdotes.

My wife, being a devout Buddhist, has very specific instructions I am to follow were she to pass before me. Central to her wishes are keeping people away who are overly emotional, as well as playing Buddhist prayers on repeat.

The quote below got me thinking about what I want to hear if I am lucky enough to die at home with people around me who can carry out my wishes. The conclusion I have come to is that I don’t know and that I need to think about it, then make sure my wishes are known.

In the past I have assumed I would want my favorite music to be playing. But that isn’t an easy ask as I like a wide variety of music, and I would likely want to make sure aggressive tunes were not in the playlist. That means if music is my answer, I’ll need to make a playlist and make sure my spouse knows about.

Another possibility is to simply have my loved ones with me, talking to me so I can pass with their voices in my consciousness. However, like my wife, I wouldn’t want anyone to be too hysterical, as I am Buddhist enough to know that I want a calm mind as much as possible at the very end.

A third possibility is to have mantras that I love playing. There are many beautiful, long mantras available on YouTube that I have discovered over the years that might fit the bill. The ones I like definitely calm my mind and would be familiar to me, which I think would be helpful.

As of now, I still don’t know. However, I now realize this is something I should try and figure out. If I will be able to hear through to the end, ideally I am hearing something that is calming and brings happy memories. If and when I figure this out, I’ll post about it.

I love college football. Growing up, I was mostly an NFL fan. Nowadays though, I watch football on Saturdays, not Sundays. I’m not sure I know why I love one so much more than the other. I root for a school I didn’t even attend (although I root for my alma mater too, they just aren’t as easy to follow since they are FCS and aren’t on TV very often). I root for Stanford, where my dad went to school, because that was the first team I learned to love as a kid. I think the first in person game I ever saw was the Big Game in either 1978 or 1979 (in Berkeley).

One thing I know is that my love for college football generally evolved over time. Indeed, my growing interest coincided with the rise of cable programming and the ubiquity of college football on TV. It also helps that about 15 years ago, Stanford started winning and for a few years were one of the country’s elite teams. Rooting for a team that wins is really fun and in my case stoked my interest. Now, though they are not very good, my memories of winning are there egging on my interest. “There’s always next week…or next year.”

This time period also coincided with the rise of Oregon football. Oregon State has also had some great teams over the past 25 years. When those schools do well, I found myself rooting for them too. The web of relationships between schools and conferences also played a role because I increasingly found myself rooting for Pac 10/12 teams against teams from other conferences. So, in addition to watching Stanford, I often found I had a rooting interest in a ton of other games every weekend, as well. I suppose this sort of logic could also be applied to the NFL in the sense that a fan would have a rooting interest against their favorite teams' conference rivals. However, for me, it was the college match ups that got me juiced.

That leads to another element of college football I like: the randomness of the match ups. There are so many colleges with Division I football teams that there are some really unique matchups between schools. With the new conference alignment, Stanford’s schedule is filled with schools they don’t have a history of playing. Increases my interest. Better than watching the Chicago Bears and New York Giants play for the 200th time.

Like all sports, college football is also filled with drama. For me, movies and TV shows often lack drama because they are either predictable or for some other reason I am unable to forget that I am watching something that is scripted. Saturday football can still surprise and many games come down to the wire, decided by randomness, amazing athletic ability that is a joy to behold, or something else totally unexpected. The Play comes to mind, as a Stanford fan.

Finally, I also used to make the argument that the players were playing for the love of the game; that they weren’t mercenaries. Sadly, that argument no longer holds. The money sloshing around college football has finally made its way into the pockets of the players and all of college athletics have been changed by the new NIL rules that are in place. I’m not sure I like the changes and I worry about what it will mean for schools like Stanford and Oregon State moving forward. Nevertheless, for better or worse, I’m still happily tuning out the bad craziness in the news and following along.

A misogi is a Japanese idea that has roots in Shinto purification practices. The idea is to ritually purify oneself by bathing in rivers, waterfalls, or the ocean. Samurai also adapted the practice to develop discipline, focus, and clarity. Writer Michael Easter wrote a great book called The Comfort Crisis. In it he adapts the idea of misogi to a modern western context. For Easter, a misogi is an epic personal challenge. He talks of scheduling one every so often, say every quarter or twice a year. I had never heard of the idea and can see why it is appealing.

The quote below resonates because of the idea that in the modern era social media has led many people to cultivate an image online. Misogis are personal, and private.

In preparing this blog post I decided to ask my AI of choice, which knows a bit about me, to provide some misogi ideas. I thought they were interesting so I’ll share them. What kind of misogi could you take on?

• Go on a 7-day silent meditation retreat.

• Fast for 3 full days (water and electrolytes only).

• Complete a “no excuses” month: no alcohol, no sugar, no processed foods, daily workouts, daily journaling.

• Learn a completely new skill (martial art, musical instrument, or language) and perform/demonstrate it publicly.

• Teach a public seminar or workshop outside your usual classroom—stretching into a new audience.

• Take P– on a multi-day backcountry trek, just the two of you.

• Memorize and recite a long text (like the Bhagavad Gita, Gettysburg Address, or Declaration of Independence).

• Build a “digital sabbath” habit by spending a full week unplugged from screens.

• Swim across a large open-water stretch (lake, bay, or river).

• Live abroad for a month with your family, immersing yourselves in a new culture.

• Go on a 12 hour hike around Portland

The novel I am currently reading is Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry of the Future. (It is worth noting that Robinson lives in the awesome college town I grew up in.) In it he describes the problems with GDP as a measurement tool and mentions some alternative ways to measure how well a society (not just an economy) are doing overall. I found this relevant because GDP is something that always comes in my classes and it obviously has it’s flaws.

Here are some alternatives to GDP.

Genuine Progress Indicator Unlike GDP, which counts all spending as positive regardless of its purpose, the GPI subtracts costs associated with pollution, crime, and resource depletion while adding the value of volunteer work, housework, and education. The index was developed in the 1990s and aims to provide a more holistic view of progress by measuring whether economic growth actually improves quality of life rather than simply increasing total economic activity.

United Nations Human Development Index This index, created by the United Nations in 1990, combines life expectancy, education levels, and income to provide a broader view of human progress. Countries are ranked from 0 to 1, with scores above 0.8 considered “very high human development,” and the index has become one of the most widely used alternatives to GDP for comparing national development levels.

Happy Planet Index
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is a measure of sustainable well-being that evaluates countries based on how efficiently they deliver long and happy lives for their residents within the planet’s environmental limits. Developed by the New Economics Foundation, the HPI combines life satisfaction, life expectancy, and ecological footprint data to calculate how much happiness and longevity a country achieves per unit of environmental impact. Wealthy nations often score poorly on this index.

Social Progress Index This index measures a country’s social and environmental progress independently of economic factors by evaluating three main categories: basic human needs (nutrition, medical care, shelter, safety), foundations of wellbeing (access to knowledge, information, health, and environmental quality), and opportunity (personal rights, freedom of choice, tolerance, and access to higher education). Initially published in 2013, the SPI deliberately excludes economic indicators to provide a clearer picture of how well societies meet their citizens' fundamental needs and create conditions for human flourishing.

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness I’d heard of this one already. Introduced by Bhutan’s Fourth King in the 1970s and formalized into a measurable index in 2008, GNH evaluates progress across nine domains including psychological wellbeing, health, education, ecological diversity, time use, and community vitality. This approach has guided Bhutan’s policy decisions for decades, leading to constitutional requirements for environmental conservation and making Bhutan one of the few carbon-negative countries in the world.

There are a lot ways people can spend their leisure time. I have friends who spend a lot of time in the gym, and others that like go bird watching. My favorite way to while away the time is to read. Over the past 15 years I have slowly been the type of reading that has several books going at once. At first it was two to four books, and now it is as much as 10 or 11. I’m fairly sure I am in the minority when it comes to this reading habit. Nevertheless, it is my way of reading and I love it.

The picture below shows my current stack. There is only one novel and there is also a high school textbook. I don’t ever have more than one novel going and it is unusual for me to be reading a textbook. This particular book makes it easy though because it is broken down into two page subsections, so I can just read a spread or two and put the bookmark back in.

Usually there are one or two books that I spend more time on that I finish faster. That is not the case with this pile. These are mostly dense books that force me to consume in relatively small chunks at a time.

Once a month, towards the end of the month I am going to post my current stack. Books on the bottom are ones I have been reading the longest.

Seth Godin is one of the world’s great bloggers because he publishes a thoughtful take every single day, and has done so for nearly 17 years. His posts are usually short, which I appreciate since I already have more than a handful of daily blogs and newsletters to get through. Godin is also a prolific author, educator, and well-known marketing thinker. Not everything he writes applies to my life, but often his ideas are both interesting and relevant. As a new blogger, I find him inspiring.

Earlier this year I finished his latest book, This is Strategy. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you work in marketing, but as usual, I found a few quotes worth saving and reflecting on. The one below resonates with me as a new blogger with no social media presence.

On one level, I think about the systems that exist for bloggers—Medium, Substack, LinkedIn. The main reason I have decided to blog is simply to practice writing and thinking in public on a regular basis (something Godin highly recommends). I’m not trying to become famous or turn it into a major source of income. Still, I want my ideas to reach others and to invite feedback and conversation. To grow an audience, though, I have to consider engaging with the systems that make that more likely.

Godin’s point helps me reframe the decision. Instead of focusing only on what these platforms can do for me, I need to ask what they will demand of me. For instance, posting through them means exposing myself to their algorithms, and I know from experience that’s a mixed bargain. Leaving Instagram, Facebook, and later Substack has been a real boost to my mental health, so I’m cautious about opening those doors again.

Even if I eventually choose to cross-post, Godin’s reminder will help me pause, reflect, and step in with eyes wide open. It also makes me wonder: what other systems in our lives deserve a closer look at how they shape our habits and our thinking?