Essays on freedom and personal fulfilment by Chris Barclay
Facebook friends. Instagram followers. Discord groups. We are building systems that help us optimize for separation. While claiming to further connectivity, these algorithms and their frameworks teach us to quantify our personal value by audience engagement versus through actual human affinity. They keep us hooked by gamifying social interaction, rewarding performative likability in place of […]
Continue ReadingThere’s a big fat girl made out of sunshine and she’s rolling all over me. I’m sitting in the garden, teeth chattering, knees knocking, in the swelter of Thai midday. A floor fan hums quietly behind me on the patio. I don’t feel hot, but am dripping with sweat. I reach for a face towel […]
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Stephen Hawking found it tantalizing that we could not remember the future. But remembering the future is child’s play for me now. I know what will become of my helpless, trusting babies because they are grown-ups now. I know how my closest friends will end up because so many of them are retired or dead now […]
Continue ReadingListen to anyone offering lifestyle advice these days and you will learn that to be successful at anything, you need to be mindful. This can’t be a casual thing either. You need to regularly practice mindfulness. Being mindful will help you to become present and grounded and perhaps afford you better boundaries. Soon, you’re on […]
Continue Reading中文 As social animals, people generally don’t respond well to confinement. That’s why it’s our primary form of punishment. It’s really the best disincentive to bad behavior we’ve come up with as a species. Lashings, public humiliation, attending traffic school, nothing makes people think twice more than the threat of being locked up. Which is […]
Continue ReadingMy family and I are heading back to our home in Chiang Mai Thailand after a Summer in Seattle. We maintain houses in both cities and rent the one in Seattle when we’re away. While this may seem like a lot of work, it’s a modern version of human migration that our ancestors followed for […]
Continue ReadingEverything is perfect and there is always room for improvement — Shunryu Suzuki. For those suffering from self-induced pressures of striving to be perfect, here is a reprieve. It doesn’t involve daily affirmations that we are already good enough and should embrace our shortcomings as part of what makes us special. Nor does it reject […]
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