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Cultivation Journal
2026-10-28749 words2 mins
Observation: Sixty Per Cent Chance of Rain
A sixty per cent chance of rain, which we read as probably will not.
2026-10-27731 words2 mins
Rambling: People Who Speak in Absolutes
Words with no room left in them are the cheapest to say, and the least likely ever to be called to account.
2026-10-26688 words2 mins
Jottings: The Steps We Skip
What tools save us is steps — and also the ground where ability used to grow.
2026-10-25722 words2 mins
Night Reading: Tao Yuanming Was Not Lying Flat
Reading Tao Yuanming as the founding father of lying flat is the great misreading of our time.
2026-10-24653 words2 mins
Appreciation: Luoyang Paper — Should I Let It Go to My Head?
From Zuo Si’s Rhapsody on the Three Capitals to Xu Song’s ‘Luoyang Paper’ — a creator’s confession that uses the old story to speak about the present, on persistence, pride, and first intentions.
2026-10-24154 words1 min
Sample: A Typography Demo
This is a typography sample: a look at how the various elements behave under the “Xuan Paper and Ink” theme.
2026-10-24250 words2 mins
Aside: What Is the Old Style?
People ask me often: what is gufeng, the old style? Silk and satin? Pavilions and towers? A vocabulary of archaisms?
To my mind it is first of all a state of mind that shows up as taste — leaving blank, holding back, keeping warm.
2026-10-24265 words2 mins
Opening: A Blog Opens for Business
A domain was chosen, a small site built. The personal blog I had been turning over in my mind for months finally opened today.
The site is called “The Writing Road: Easy to Know, Hard to Walk” — writing is easy to talk about and hard to do, and the only way to get anywhere is to keep …
