Want to join in? Respond to our weekly writing prompts, open to everyone.
Want to join in? Respond to our weekly writing prompts, open to everyone.
from
wystswolf

What we touch becomes the water we live in... let us be carried together.
River Garavogue
Rushes, Rushes, And hushes, Hushes.
Swans, majestic, Float toward the gentle Shuffle of rocks That slip beneath Hyde bridge.
Slow, elegant Boats that know The feel of the Garavogue Like a lover knows A body
They slip along the nape of wet glory, their silence speaks In ripples only love can read, This blue reads them like verse
Painting a moment For this soul, That will define Splendor every time I glance at the memory.
But for these swans, It is only a Tuesday. And not really even.
It is just today.
They've no thought of tomorrow, And the concept of yesterday Is little more than feeling.
How great the chasm between The beauty of made things.
Here I sit with my dread, burdened to name what simply is.
Deceived that I am somehow in control.
Yet these simple swan, Elegant and graceful Beyond definition, Embrace each moment As it comes.
And this, This is how Life comes Not AT you, But FROM you.
Fellow master, mine, Hold my hand won't you? Let us ride our Garavogue snake
And be grace, witnessed. Beauty, longed for. Life, made. Together... and golden.
In the way He intended, Let you and I be players upon The stage together For all the world to see.
We will pass the rapids , And the bridges, The floods and the Droughts.
And our yesterdays Wont' be feelings, They will be stories Tales and Fables.
And our cygnets will Hang on every word Of how the swans we were.
And no matter Where the snake took us, We rode.
Oh, how we rode.
And because Of the journey
The worlds we build will long to be swans too.
from Golden Splendors
Strong Style Pro Wrestling Vol. 38 results from Tokyo, Japan at Korakuen Hall on Thursday, March 19, 2026 live on Eplus JP pay-per-view:
Rina and Azusa Inaba defeated Big Haruka and Lady C when Inaba pinned Haruka in 11:04.
Tiger Mask and TAKA Michinoku defeated Kota Sekifuda and Ikuto Hidaka when Tiger Mask submitted Sekifuda with a Chicken Wing Facelock in 8:50.
Miku Kanae and Sareee defeated Kaoru Ito and Uta Shima when Kanae pinned Shima with a locomotion jackknife in 9:38.
Kazuyuki Fujita and Kendo Kashin defeated Hideki Sekine and Satsuki Nagao when Fujita pinned Nagao after a soccer ball kick in 8:57.
Hayato Mashita, Masakatsu Funaki, and Yoshiki Takahashi defeated Fuminori Abe, Super Tiger, and Masashi Takeda when Funaki submitted Abe to a Triangle Choke in 11:01.
SSPW Women’s Tag Team Champions Jaguar Yokota and Megumi Yabushita defeated Rina Amikura and SAKI when Yokota pinned Yabushita in 13:36. Yabushita injured her shoulder during the match but was able to finish.
SPPW Legends Champion Kuroshio TOKYO Japan pinned Daisuke Sekimoto out of a reversal in 16:05.

from
wystswolf

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
Burn off the maelstrom and sit quiet with the morning.
Let the light tell me what kind of day the day has;
Does it wake sour and grey or break open, Shower the world with brilliance,
warm sunshine, Bring life and majesty to every surface touched.
The Designer sees that the work is done, gray or not—
but what majesty when the sky is miles of blue.
Then the Master’s work is fully on display.
If only these iron sheets weren’t so heavy.
Only a hero can throw them off and charge into the battle of life, seizing the crown of being awed.
Spring thee from thy slumber!
Heroine or hero, snatch your sword and shield and to battle in a world of indifference.
The fight will not be easy or short, but nothing worth doing ever is.
What it will be is glory.
And glory changes you.
So, let this small moment be the first step, the one that hurts, just a little.
But then, awe and wonder let you become.
That you change into the person you need to be,
into the person the world needs.
And I think that’s beautiful.
#poetry #ireland #day #WYST
from
The Fluid Stoic
I love modern technology. Whether it's smartphones or gaming devices, wearables or desk accessories, software or hardware, I just love the gadgetry of it all.
And though technology has its place in life, there are some areas in which the analog just reigns supreme. While I, personally, maintain a hybrid approach to my journaling habit, daily reflection is one of those areas where I think good old-fashioned paper journals just win out. This is particularly true when trying to develop and internalize Stoic principles.
I have been journaling on and off my entire life. Ever since I was a child and called it a diary, I've been drawn to the idea of private self-expression. That being said, it wasn't until about two years ago that journaling became a daily habit for me, and there's no looking back now.
Admittedly, a big part of that consistency has been building a habit of digital journaling every night. And though that practice helped me gain traction, the real “meat and potatoes” of the experience, for me, comes from physical journaling.
Taking the time to sit down, reflect, and deliberate over my past, present, or future has had such a positive effect on my mental and emotional health. I have developed a deeper grasp of my emotions, I have further discovered my queer identity, I can articulate my experiences and goals more clearly, and I truly love spending distraction-free quality time with myself every single day.
Sitting down with a pen and paper to either brain dump, plan, or just reflect is the key to that. And not only has it been a great experience for me, but I believe everyone should probably develop some form of a journaling habit for more profound insights and mental clarity. This is especially true if you are cultivating Stoicism as a lifestyle. With that in mind, here are three of my favorite paper journals I have used to get the most out of my journaling habit.
My first recommendation is a pocket notebook. This is my favorite and most used type of notebook. It sits in my back pocket or shoulder bag, and it comes with me everywhere I go. This is where I write fleeting thoughts, scribbles, doodles, and miscellaneous tasks. I don't do any heavy writing in here, but I often reference it later when I sit down to journal at night to look back on my thoughts that day.
Long before I developed a journaling habit, I carried one of these around with me. For many years, this was a Field Notes notebook. It's pocket-sized, the paper is nice, and you can write on it with pretty much any pen. But after a few years, I decided to give the Rite in the Rain No. 771FX-M a try. I used that for many months. I tried a few other pocket notebook brands and sizes, and then recently I settled on the LEUCHTTURM1917 Bullet Journal Pocket. Both the Rite in the Rain and Leuchtturm1917 notebooks are wonderful choices, and I will never go back to using Field Notes again.
First off, The Rite in the Rain notebooks are more durable, water-resistant, and pocketable than standard Field Notes. The only real downside to the Rite in the Rain notebooks is that their resilience comes at the cost of pen choice. You can't use gel pens, highlighters, or fountain pens with Rite in the Rain products. You'll have to stick with pencils or most ballpoint pens; otherwise, the ink will rub off.
The LEUCHTTURM1917 notebook is larger than both the Rite in the Rain and Field Notes options, but it offers a few other features that keep me coming back to it over the others. Despite lacking water resistance, the cover is significantly more durable than the Field Notes while maintaining similar pliability for decent comfort while chilling in your pocket. It's also designed to be used vertically instead of horizontally like most notebooks, which is how I prefer to use my pocket notebooks anyway. The paper feels more premium than the other options; when opened, it's the same size as a standard A5 LEUCHTTURM1917 notebook, and it even has several perforated pages in the back for easy tear-away notes.
I keep either a Zebra F-701, Rotring 600 3-in-1, or a Fisher Space Bullet Pen with me at all times, all of which work great with both notebooks. Writing is smooth, consistent, and legible with all three options.
Overall, if you want something extremely durable and as pocketable as possible, I can't recommend the Rite in the Rain offerings enough. But if you want a larger writing space, a more premium feel, and more flexibility, the LEUCHTTURM1917 Bullet Journal Pocket is a solid option as well.
Many people I talk to prefer hardcover journals for their durability and writing support. I am not one of those people. Nine times out of 10, when I journal, it is at my desk, so having the hardcover as support isn't typically a selling point for me. Plus, they are less flexible when packing in a bag or backpack, and I don't love how most hardcover journals feel compared to softcover.
Now, even though I do use the LEUCHTTURM1917 411 A5 hardcover journal for my The Daily Stoic Journal reflections, my favorite premium option has to be the LEUCHTTURM1917 A5 softcover journal. It's beautiful, comes in several colors, and you can get ruled, dotted, blank, or square pages. I prefer dotted, but ruled and square fit most use cases just fine as well.
The journal has a very premium feel; it comes with multiple ribbon bookmarks to remember different places, and it even has a pocket in the back for loose scrap paper or other memorabilia. If you want a premium-feeling journal to help encourage your daily writing habit, you can't go wrong with any of LEUCHTTURM1917's options.
While the pocket notebooks are my run-and-gun solution, and the LEUCHTTURM1917 is a more premium experience for long-form journaling, sometimes the Moleskine Classic softcover notebook hits the Goldilocks conditions for most people. It's cheaper than the LEUCHTTURM1917, it's even easier to get your hands on, and it's still quite premium.
All things considered, the dimensions between the LEUCHTTURM1917 and Moleskine Classic are quite similar, though the LEUCHTTURM1917 is a bit wider than the Moleskine, and the latter contains 192 pages compared to the former's 132. So, not only is it cheaper, but you potentially get more journal for what you're paying for with the Moleskin.
Moreover, the Moleskine still features a fairly premium-feeling cover, if not quite so as the LEUCHTTURM1917, and it retains the back pocket as well. One thing the Moleskine is missing, though, is the extra ribbon page marker. Though I typically only ever need one at a time anyway, the LEUCHTTURM1917's ribbons are so much better than the Moleskine's that this is almost reason enough for me to pay the extra money.
Honestly, you can't go wrong either way, but the Moleskine just feels like it retains everything most of us require from the LEUCHTTURM1917 without the non-essential bits. Plus, its more affordable price tag will offer compounded savings over time if you intend to keep the journaling practice for the foreseeable future.
Now, after all of that, the real answer to what paper journals I recommend the most is just the ones that help you build the habit most. As a Stoicism practitioner, I am simply an advocate for daily journaling in general. So, if a cheap composition notebook helps you achieve that, then use that. But if you're like me, and you find the ritual of journaling all but sacred, splurging a bit more for a nice experience is entirely worth it.
Tags: #journaling Write.as Comments:
from
Kroeber
Na margem do rio pairam, revelando a direção da imperceptível brisa, partículas de dentes-de-leão, flocos de neve seca quase imaterial. Páro de ler e levanto os olhos, coço a barba e provoco uma nuvem de partículas mais pequenas mas mais pesadas, caspa, que ecoam a leveza a que não podem aspirar, pontuando de ridículo o meu sentimentalismo tão fácil e oportunista.
from
Roscoe's Quick Notes

My game of choice today comes from first round of the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. It features the Nunber 3 seed Michigan State Spartans vs. the Number 14 seed North Dakota State Bison, and has a scheduled start time of 3:05 PM Central Time.
And the adventure continues.
El Gorras cayó como un saco de plomo en la cama, con whisky hasta en las suelas. Sin saber cómo, ocultó el revólver debajo de la almohada y comenzó a roncar como si estuviera contando una novela. Era una noche de mediados de marzo, aún hacía frío en las madrugadas.
Fue incapaz de decir nada cuando lo levantaron y lo esposaron. Seguía tan borracho como al acostarse, pero cuando se movió el vehículo, el aire fresco del amanecer lo terminó de despertar.
En el camino vio florecillas rojas sobre el fondo verde.
Nadie habló y cuando entraron a los sótanos, parecía que también el tiempo estaba detenido. Pensó que el arma estaría debajo de la almohada o camino del laboratorio.
Muchas cosas sucedieron. Los momentos eran duros, como frenados, y el aire, denso, intragable. El inspector jefe de homicidios le dijo:
-Colabora y podrás irte. No tengo nada contra tí, tu arma está limpia. Dime el nombre y la dirección de los amigos con los que estuviste anoche en el club, y estarás en la calle. -Mire inspector, el problema es que yo anoche no estuve en el club. -Si te vio todo el mundo. Eh, muchachos, dice que no estuvo en el club. Y todos rieron. El Gorras se rascó la cabeza, tratando de recordar. Junto a su mesa estaban dos desconocidos con una rubia. -Eso no fue anoche, busquen en otra parte. -Llévenlo abajo -dijo el jefe.
En la cárcel, todos sospechaban que estaba encubriendo a un pez gordo. Era un hombre duro, sabía lo que hacía y disponía de dinero.
Tiempo después regresó a su habitación. Se metió en la ducha y se dijo:
-¡Qué problema! Cuando me echo dos tragos no me acuerdo de nada.
from
Joyrex
YouTube has gotten me into another niche tech thing…
I was watching a Youtube video about how Iran started up a new numbers station since the new war started, and how it got jammed on its original frequency and was moving to another one. It’s wild that Iran is falling back to old tech and the US and Israel just can’t handle it, but that’s not what this post is about.
After seeing the video, Youtube suggested another of the channel’s video, which was titled The Idiots Guide To Meshtastic – Long Range Comms! “Hey, I’m an idiot,” I thought “long range comms in a little handheld device could be cool!” I’ve always been curious about radio communication even though my knowledge level is very low, and my enthusiasm about having to mount gear on giant poles outside is even lower. Short wave seems to require that type of outside gear, but watching this video, that didn’t seem the case for Meshtastic. Off to Kagi I went to find an Aussie store that sold this gear.
I ended up at IoT Store, a Perth-based place that had a Meshtastic area in their online shop. After some random browsing and reading, I ended up getting a WisMesh Pocket V2 Meshtastic Device, and on impulse I threw in a LoRa Antenna Kit to increase my range. I was again pleasantly surprised that increasing my range didn’t involve adding something I had to post outside and figure out how to run electricity to (I rent).
A few days later the gear arrived, so time to go!
I’m not going to review the device itself. It uses a WisBlock RAK4631 chip, which seems pretty common and effective for this purpose, and the device seems to work fine. It has an on/off switch, and a single button you can use for browsing menus (long pressing to select stuff). The Meshtastic firmware was a bit out of date, but connecting to the device over USB using the web-based flasher in a chrome-based browser worked fine.
I jumped on using the Meshtastic app on my Android phone, hoping to see it start to pick up nearby nodes, and……. nothing.

I was looking at most of the state and there were no nodes. Uh oh.. maybe I should have done some more investigation before buying.
I posted on Mastodon, and some very helpful people told me that I may have to let it run overnight to see if it picks up any nodes, but also Meshtastic wasn’t great at scaling, and that most people in Victoria (my state in Australia) had moved to MeshCore. Luckily, Meshtastic and MeshCore use the same gear and the same frequencies, so my Meshtastic device should be able to get onto the MeshCore network with some extra work.
I let Meshtastic run on my device for 3-4 days, and it found no one. It’s possible I would have found Meshtastic nodes if I had put something up outside to give better range/etc, but that’s exactly what I wanted to avoid. Time to try MeshCore…
Using the same sort of flashing method, but using the MeshCore flasher website instead, I was able to get the firmware installed. It is *slightly* less noob-friendly (at least to me), and I spent some time trying to figure out why my phone wasn’t able to connect to the new MeshCore-firmware-flashed device. It turns out in the flashing process you have to choose “Companion Bluetooth” to enable the bluetooth radio on the device. I was choosing “Companion USB” as I was flashing via USB, but that wasn’t the way to do it. After that, I was able to connect to it on my phone using the MeshCore app.
A kind person on Mastodon had already told me that Victoria MeshCore people use the “Australia (Narrow)” radio settings to communicate, so I was able to set that:

I saved my settings and checked the map anddddddddd.. nothing. uh oh.
I was more confident this time, though. I *knew* the people were out there, and that Victoria had a good MeshCore network (thanks again Mastodon people). Potentially I had to put something up outside (ugh), but first I had a new app to click random buttons in to see if I could get anything.
At the top of the app is a radio icon. I hit that and had the option of “Advert – Zero Hop” and “Advert – Flood Routed”. Just by the names, zero hop seemed to be contacting everyone close to me, and so I guessed that meant Flood Routed meant it would push everywhere. I did Zero Hop first, and after about 5-10 seconds, saw nothing, so I try Flood Routed… then I tried Flood Routed again 30 seconds later.. and.. I started getting notifications of nodes that were being discovered! It was working!
Oddly, and I have no idea how this works, it was discovering nodes around Albury/Wodonga and one on the other side of Melbourne. Weird. But it was working.. and someone had posted to the public chat! I could see that! I tried to send a message asking for someone to confirm they could see me, but got no response. Damn.
I went to bed for the night. When I woke up the next morning and went back to the app, I was seeing over 100 nodes!

This was great! And there were overnight chats in the public channel! All this was happening after about 9 hours of being on. I was stoked.
I sent another message to the chat asking for confirmation. After sending this, I noticed instead of saying “Sent” under the message, it said “Heard 1 Repeat”. This clued me in that the chat client in the app shows stuff is actually sent if I hear it repeated back to me at least once. When it says “Sent” and doesn’t update to “Heard # Repeat(s)”, it means the message didn’t make it out. Good to know.

I can explain the early timestamps: I have a cat that likes to wake me up around 5-5:30 in the morning.
Anyway, this was great news. I left it and started my day, and checked in later in the afternoon. I had (literally) hundreds of new nodes listed!

There was even a repeater in NSW that I had seen (not directly, but through the network).
It’s now been a couple days and I have maxed out my contacts (nodes) list. The device can only hold 350 nodes, and by default it will add every node that is mentioned on the network. Maxing it out in a couple days is huge! I have ticked an option that cycles out the oldest seen nodes to add the new ones, so I think my list will stay at 350 contacts now.
The public chat is a mix of people testing and people chatting about life or whatever. Yesterday a person visiting Melbourne from Denver, CO, USA hopped on and said g’day. They had brought their MeshCore device down with them. They said Denver is just starting to build its MeshCore network and they liked how popular ours was.
I have found that I get about a 33% success rate of my messages actually making it out to a repeater on the first try. Thankfully the app has the option to long-press the message and say “Send Again”, to let it try and send out again. After a couple tries, it generally makes it out. That was annoying me, so… I’m somewhat doing what I didn’t want to do: I’m buying something to put outside.
As was pointed out to me in the chat, part of the fun of MeshCore (and similar) is building your own devices with the different radio boards/whatever, but for this purchase, I went for another pre-built thing so I can be sure it’s not my terrible soldering if it doesn’t work. I purchased a SenseCAP Solar Node P1 Pro, which I plan to flash with MeshCore in repeater mode. Then I plan to put it somewhere outside, and hope the solar is enough that I don’t have to try and run power to it. I am well aware that higher/line of site is better, but I still don’t want to mount a pole to my roof, so I’m planning just to set it somewhere outside, maybe just on my roof, or hanging off it somewhere. We’ll see, but I’m hopeful that extra little access of being outside (instead of my bedroom where the WisBlock is right now) will give me clear access to the multiple repeaters that around me, and I won’t need the height.
I think it’s extremely cool that this invisible network exists and there’s a large group dedicated to helping everyone communicate, either doing it for fun hobby reasons, or “real” reasons. One of the things pushed with Meshtastic/MeshCore is it can be used on rural sites when hiking/on farms/etc where signal won’t reach, and I’m sure it works great for that. It’s sweet this exists and is being run across Victoria’s suburb wasteland around Melbourne, as well as across the state as a whole. I am excited to see how well my external repeater helps my message sending, as well as feeling good that I might be helping out others in my immediate area (1km around me, after that they’ll be closer to another repeater around here) that are on the network (if any). I’m also looking forward to learning about setting up the repeater itself. It scratches that nerd itch.
Things are weird right now in the world, and the Internet is being enshittified more every day. Here’s something that’s pure, done by people for the love of it. It’s great.
from DrFox
Il y a des histoires qui ne font pas de bruit. Elles s’installent tôt, dans l’air des maisons, dans ce qui est là sans être nommé, dans ce qui manque sans être expliqué. On grandit avec des présences incomplètes, des équilibres fragiles, des liens qui prennent parfois toute la place ou qui laissent un vide difficile à saisir. On s’adapte. On apprend. Et plus tard, on appelle ça l’amour.
Aux filles qui ont grandi avec une question sans réponse, je veux dire ceci calmement. Tu n’as pas seulement cherché quelqu’un. Tu as cherché un regard posé, stable, qui ne te demande rien en échange. Une présence qui dit sans parler : tu es là, tu existes, tu n’as rien à prouver. Alors tu es partie dans le monde avec cette attente silencieuse : est-ce que je compte vraiment pour un homme ? Et parfois, tu confonds celui qui te désire fort avec celui qui te voit vraiment. L’intensité rassure au début. Elle ressemble à une réponse. Mais elle ne tient pas toujours dans le temps. Et tu te retrouves à donner plus, à attendre plus, à espérer que cette fois, ça restera.
Aux garçons qui ont grandi en apprenant à sentir avant même de penser, je parle aussi. Tu as appris tôt à écouter, à ajuster, à anticiper. Tu es devenu celui qui comprend, celui qui apaise. Et tu as cru que c’était ça, aimer. Mais personne ne t’a dit que tu avais le droit d’exister en dehors de ce rôle. Personne ne t’a dit que tu pouvais dire non sans perdre le lien. Alors tu avances avec cette idée simple et dangereuse : si je donne assez, si je suis assez bon, assez patient, assez solide, alors ça finira par s’équilibrer. Tu ne vois pas que tu t’effaces lentement, que tu t’éloignes de toi pour rester près de l’autre.
Quand vous vous rencontrez, ça semble évident. Comme si quelque chose reconnaissait quelque chose. Elle reçoit enfin une présence. Il trouve enfin quelqu’un à qui donner. Au début, c’est beau. Vraiment beau. Mais ce n’est pas encore libre. C’est une réponse ancienne qui s’habille en présent.
Et puis, doucement, ça glisse. Elle teste sans le vouloir : est-ce que tu restes si je prends un peu plus ? Il répond sans le voir : oui, je peux donner encore. Et vous vous installez là, dans un endroit où personne ne respire vraiment. Elle ne se sent jamais totalement rassurée. Il ne se sens jamais totalement reconnu. Et chacun fait un peu plus de ce qu’il sait faire, comme si c’était la solution. Mais ce n’est pas la solution. C’est la répétition.
Je vous parle depuis un endroit où l’homme et la femme en moi ne se battent plus, où aucun des deux ne mendie l’amour de l’autre. Un endroit où le lien n’est plus une nécessité, mais un choix. J’ai marché ce chemin, des deux côtés. Celui qui donne trop. Celui qui attend trop. Et j’ai fini par voir que l’amour ne répare pas ce qui n’a pas été construit. Il révèle. Il amplifie. Il met en lumière ce qui était déjà là, silencieux, mais actif.
Ce n’est pas en aimant plus fort que vous serez choisi. Ce n’est pas en donnant plus que vous serez respecté. L’amour ne vous demande pas de vous dissoudre. Il y a en vous une part qui veut être vue, et une autre qui veut se fondre. Une part qui désire, et une autre qui craint de perdre. Tant que ces deux forces ne se reconnaissent pas en vous, vous les jouerez dans le lien. L’un prendra, l’autre donnera. L’un testera, l’autre prouvera. Et vous appellerez cela une relation.
Alors un jour, quelque chose s’arrête. Par lucidité. Vous voyez que vous n’avez plus à courir après un regard qui vous échappe. Vous voyez que vous n’avez plus à mériter votre place. Vous voyez que réparer l’autre ne vous construira jamais. Et ce moment est sobre. Il ne libère pas par explosion. Il libère par retrait. Vous vous tenez là, avec vous-même, sans vous abandonner.
Vous regardez l’autre, et la question devient simple : est-ce que je peux être entier ici ? Pas parfait. Entier. Si la réponse est non, même légèrement, vous ne forcez plus. Vous ne négociez plus votre intégrité contre un peu de lien. Vous vous retirez. Pas contre l’autre. Pour vous.
Parce que l’amour, le réel, ne vous met pas à genoux. Il ne vous demande pas de choisir entre vous et lui. Il ne vous divise pas intérieurement. Il vous laisse intact. Quand vous devenez intact, quelque chose se transforme. Vous ne cherchez plus à combler. Vous ne cherchez plus à être reconnu à tout prix. Vous ne cherchez plus à sauver ni à être sauvé. Vous êtes.
Et depuis cet endroit, la rencontre change de nature. Elle ne vient plus remplir. Elle vient s’ajouter. Elle ne vient plus réparer. Elle vient circuler. Deux entiers qui se rencontrent ne s’absorbent pas. Ils s’accordent. Et là, l’homme et la femme ne sont plus en tension. Ils coexistent. Ils choisissent ensemble. Ils avancent sans se trahir.
Ce n’est pas plus simple. Mais c’est stable. Et surtout, c’est libre.
from
The happy place
That which lie hidden in the snow is now visible. For example I’ve walked past this deck of discarded Pokémon cards on the side of the sidewalk leading to a school.
As I see them lying there in the sun, weather beaten and deformed, it fills me with sadness.
Picturing in my mind eye this child who lost his deck of cards, maybe. Possibly there was some act of malevolence behind this, how else would they end up there?
It’s a tragedy in miniature to find something bought for with children’s money discarded like that.
Life doesn’t care whether you’re grown up or a child when dishing out misery.
from
The happy place
I dreamt that I was both a pig and a package of sliced ham.
There was another pig who had made me into the sliced ham package, but somehow I had managed to free myself to some extent from this curse, and now back into my original pig shape, I was the one hunting this antagonistic pig.
I had located this other pig’s package of ham, with the plastic packaging and everything.
And as I ragefully bit into it with my pig’s maw full of hatred, and as I did, the package turned into the black furred coat of this other pig, and I felt that with its rising panic, the realisation in him or her that I was the one doing it, not the other way around.
And to the sound of me taking a bite of this — the sound as if taking a big bit of a green apple — I awoke
from 下川友
穏やかに暮らしたい。
そう言うと、普段からいろんなことに苛立ち、叫んでいる人間だと思われるかもしれない。 もちろん、叫んでいない。 強く意識しているわけでもないが、さまざまなことを思い、そして多くは黙ったまま忘れていく。
言葉にしないからこそ、それらは鋭利なまま、美しい。 だが最近、言葉を文字にするようになって、自分の考えがそれほど美しくないことを知った。 言葉は、実際に音や文字として外に出て、他人に受け取られ、咀嚼されてはじめて、その輪郭が決まる。 その過程を経なければ、美しいかどうかすら分からない。
この事実も、本当は認めたくない。 自分が放った言葉が自分に跳ね返り、それを浴びることこそが、本来の自分にとっては正しくあってほしいからだ。
「穏やかに暮らす」とは、何も喋らないことだと、最初は思ってしまう。 だが、おそらくそうではない。
「穏やかに暮らす」とは「発言に言い飽きること」。
何も言わないのではなく、むしろたくさん言い、そして飽きる。 いつか燃え尽き、静かに枯れていくように生きる。それが穏やかさだ。 木のようなおじさん、というイメージにもどこか通じる。
分かりやすい例として、言いやすい、入門のような対象がある。 SNSの経営者。 なんて、ポップな対象だろう。 本当にいる存在なのにチュートリアルな感覚から抜け出せない。
彼らは、ときに不快な変化をもたらす。 頭が良いはずなのに、ユーザーが嫌がるアルゴリズムを平気で選択する。 こちらの繊細さを知りながら、踏みにじってくる。 もし「あなたたちはターゲットではない」と言われるなら、それはそれで構わない。 こちらから願い下げなだけだ。
ここで本当に嫌なのは、好きだったサービスの仕様変更そのものではない。 繊細な自分たちが、声を上げなければならなくなることだ。
叫ぶ事は、本来の自分からは大きく乖離する。 だからこそ、みんなで言う必要がある。
意見を言うのは、高い意識のためではない。 一人ひとりが、言い飽きるためだ。
穏やかに暮らすためには、一度みんなで声を荒げ、それが飽和するところまでいかなければならない。
そうしてはじめて、本当の穏やかさに近づくのだと思う。 そこまでは、個人が支払わなければならない。
穏やかに暮らしたい。
from
Manual del Fuego Doméstico
Hay algo que me empezó a incomodar en la cocina.
Seguía recetas, respetaba tiempos, incluso cuidaba detalles… pero había momentos donde el resultado no tenía sentido. La misma carne, el mismo corte, ingredientes iguales… y resultados completamente distintos.
Hasta que entendí algo simple, pero poderoso:
Cocinar no es seguir pasos. Cocinar es controlar cómo el calor entra en un alimento.
Y ese fue el punto de quiebre. Esta clasificación la aprendí en un curso teórico del The Culinary Institute of America en un taller que se llama The Everyday Gourmet – The Joy of Mediterranean Cooking impartido por el chef Bill Briwa, además de experiencia y razonamiento propio.
En la academia te enseñan listas: hervir, saltear, hornear, estofar… catorce métodos, cada uno con su técnica.
Pero hay otra forma de verlo. Más simple. Más profunda.
Todo se resume en una sola pregunta:
¿Cómo le estoy transfiriendo calor a este alimento?
Y la respuesta cae en cuatro caminos:
Eso es todo.
El resto son variaciones.
Aquí el calor viaja a través del agua o el vapor.
Hervir, pochar, cocinar al vapor, blanquear… parecen técnicas básicas, pero hacen algo muy específico: ablandan, hidratan y extraen.
Un caldo bien hecho, por ejemplo, no es solo agua con huesos. Es tiempo + temperatura + extracción de colágeno, minerales y sabor.
El agua no dora. No crea costra. Pero penetra.
Y eso cambia la textura desde dentro.
Aquí empieza la magia.
Cuando usas grasa —aceite, mantequilla— estás creando un medio que puede alcanzar altas temperaturas de forma uniforme. Y ahí aparece la reacción de Maillard.
Ese dorado en la carne. Ese fondo oscuro que estoy aprendiendo a construir. Ese “algo” que huele a cocina seria.
Esto no es decoración. Es química.
Y es lo que separa una comida correcta de una comida memorable.
Aquí el protagonista es el aire caliente o el contacto directo con el calor.
Hornear. Asar. Parrilla. Gratinar.
No hay líquido que suavice. No hay grasa que medie.
Aquí el calor golpea directamente.
Y lo que hace es concentrar: evapora agua, intensifica sabores, crea textura.
Una buena corteza de pan. Un corte de carne bien sellado. Un gratinado que cruje arriba y es suave abajo.
Esto es control de energía, no solo de tiempo.
Aquí es donde la cocina se vuelve interesante.
Brasear. Estofar. Glasear.
Empiezas con calor seco (sellar), desarrollas sabor… y luego introduces humedad para cocinar lento, profundo.
Este es el territorio de los cortes duros. Del colágeno que se convierte en gelatina. De platos que no impresionan por técnica visible, sino por profundidad.
Un buen estofado no grita.
Se queda contigo.
Cuando entiendes esto, algo cambia.
Ya no piensas:
“¿Qué dice la receta?”
Empiezas a pensar:
“¿Qué necesita este ingrediente?”
Y de pronto, tienes criterio.
Estoy empezando a ver la cocina como un sistema.
El fuego no es solo fuego. El agua no es solo agua. La grasa no es solo grasa.
Son herramientas.
Y aprender a usarlas no es memorizar técnicas… es aprender a leer lo que está pasando dentro del alimento.
Porque al final,
cocinar es invisible.
Y todo lo importante… está ocurriendo donde no se ve.
(Para cuando no quieras filosofar… solo cocinar bien, dejo mi glosario práctico y consultativo de métodos de cocción)
(Para cuando no quieras filosofar… solo cocinar bien.)
Principio: transferencia de calor por agua o vapor Rango típico: 65°C – 100°C (hasta 120°C con presión) Efecto: ablanda, hidrata, extrae sabores
Blanquear
Pochar (escalfar)
Hervir
Al vapor
Principio: transferencia por grasa caliente Rango: 160°C – 200°C Efecto: dorado, sabor (Maillard), textura superficial
Freír
Saltear
Principio: aire caliente o contacto directo Rango: hasta 280°C Efecto: evaporación, concentración, corteza
Hornear
Asar (horno/parrilla)
Parrilla / plancha
Gratinar
Principio: seco + húmedo Efecto: desarrollo de sabor + transformación interna
Brasear
Estofar
Glasear
Poeler (soasar)
Si alguna vez dudas:
Y con eso… ya sabes más de lo que parece.