Counting The Last Hours of 2022

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There is something so special about the last day of our calendar – or any calendars for that matter. At least in my case, it gives me an illusion that something is about to end and something is about to begin.

And by illusion, I do not mean in a negative sense, but to simply acknowledge that time is a concept. The Gregorian Calendar that we are using is after all not universal. The Chinese Calendar for instance has a different new year than ours. Other cultures do not have the year of our Lord 2022.

Furthermore, I do not see time as a linear progression that has beginning point (1st of january) and ending point (31st of March). But of course, we cannot travel back in time. At least, not yet.

Time for me is continuous and circular. There is nothing so special about the 31st of December and the 1st of January. They are just days like any other days. The 1st of January is just a continuation of the day before.

The Daily Stoic: Life Is Long – If You Know How To Use It | The price of indulgence

Its’s not at all that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and its given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well. But when it’s poured down the the drain of luxury and neglect, when its’s employed to no good end, we’re finally driven to see that it has passed by before we even recognized it has passing. And so it is – we don’t receive short life, we make it so.

seneca, on the brevity of life, 1.3

Christmas boxing day is an excuse for many to do nothing, I am one of those many. Today, I have decided to have a lazy day with the justification of ‘it is the day after Christmas’ or ‘I deserve to have a break.’

What I did today is just watched a Netflix programme the whole day, well, almost the whole day. It was fun at first, but then at the end of the day, I felt quite empty.

I agree with with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that we are most happy when we able to achieve the state of flow when we are fully engaged in the activity we do. Mindlessly watching a meaningless serie is not engaging at all.

The Daily Stoics: Meaningless… Like A Fine Wine

You know what wine and liqueur tastes like. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand bottles pass through your bladder – you are nothing more than a filter.

SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 77.16

Seneca teaches us that being able to consume wine does not make a person better than others. A rich man who can afford to buy expensive wines is not morally superior than a poor man who could just afford to buy enough bread to feed his family.

I think the ‘wine’ in Seneca’s quote is a metaphor, or at least can be used as one. Wine in this context symbolises affluence and privilege. Even though some of us are more privileged than others, we are all the same.

The Stoic philosophy teaches us to check our privilege, so that we will remain grounded. All the material things we posses will not make our life complete if we do not invest in feeding our mind. According to Stoicism, we make our souls healthy through philosophy. That is through reflections in how to live a more fulfilling life.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How to optimize your site and gain more traffic?

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This post is rather different from the other post I normally wright. Usually, I write about my stoic way of life and mode of thinking. But today, I am writing about some SEO strategies I have learned so far from the SEO course I am currently taking. This post is therefore an exercise – or an experiment if you will – in which I will apply what I have learned from that course.

If you are a blogger like me, you may be familiar with the acronym SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a technique people use to make their websites more visible in google search results. And if you do it right, your blog or website may rank higher in search engine result pages (SERP) and thereby increase your traffic.

Here are some of the things I have learned from the SEO course I am currently and how to utilise it so that our website may gain more visibility. For the sake of this exercise, I will pretend I am offering the reader an SEO tutorial.

The Daily Stoic: What Comes to Us All

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Both Alexander the Great and his mulekeeper were both brought to the same place by death – they were either received into the all generative reason, or scattered among the atoms.

Marcus aurelius MEDITATIONS, 6.24

From time to time, I consult the book entitled The Daily Stoic, which is written by two modern stoic thinkers, namely, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. In each day of the year, the authors provide a stoic quote with their commentary. It is an invitation to us to meditate on the ideas of Stoicism.

Marcus Aurelius and His Writings

Today’s quote is from Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor and one of the most renowned adherents of Stoicism.

Writing is an integral part of a Stoic life. Through writing, we examine our thoughts and emotions. Writing is a way of communicating with our deepest self.

And like many Stoics before him, Marcus Aurelius was writing down his intentions and meditations. As a diarist myself, I love the image of Aurelius writing on his ‘journal’ (so to speak).

The Books I Have Read in 2022

Time flies! Just a few more days and it is already 2023. It seems to me that we have just started with 2022. Where did the time go?

In moments like this, as we approach the end of the year, I often reflect on the year that is about to end. 2022 has been a very good year for me. And from the bottom of my heart, I am grateful.

It is not my intention here to enumerate the reasons why 2022 is a good year for me. I will do that in other post. In this post, I would like to focus on one particular aspect: reading. And more particularly, the books I read.

This year, I have read loads of books. I have discovered new authors and enjoyed immersing in the worlds that they have created.

Here are the books I read in 2022.

A List: Things I Wish I Am Doing More

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In one of my previous posts entitled The Weekend Challenge: How To Manage Your Freetime?, I provided a list of activities I do in my free time. The activities I listed in that post, namely, reading, writing, playing the piano, running and cooking, are activities that are fulfilling.

These activities structure my free time. They help me not to spend too much time in mindless and meaningless pursuits such as Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok. And by the way, I already deleted my TikTok profile and removed the app from my phone.

In this post, I would like to share a list of the things I wish I am doing more. Things that I am considering to do or do more often. Here they are:

Help! I Am A TikTok Addict: Some Reflections on Social Media Addiction

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From time to time, I utilise the book entitled The Daily Stoic as my writing prompt. It gives me an idea and inspiration on what to write.

This book is written by modern Stoics, namely, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. I think that the idea of the book is to invite readers to reflect on stoic quotes and ideas in each day throughout the year.

It is like a stoic calendar. On each day, from the 1st of January until the 31st of December, there is a designated quote from prominent stoic philosophers. The quote for today is from Seneca:

I say let no one rob me of a single day who isn’t going to make a full return on my loss.

Seneca, on tranquility of the mind, 1.11b

This quote is rather timely and relevant to me at this moment. In the last few weeks, I have been struggling with what I call social media addiction. As such, I feel that I am robbing myself of my own precious time. In this post, I would like to reflect on this obsession of mine through the lens of Stoic Philosophy.