Uncategorized Vulnerability Created 26 May 2020 / Updated 18 April 2025 by adamf I’m starting a new project, and am feeling vulnerable. So I wanted to write something about it. To try something new, you have to be willing to believe in something when few others do. You have have to be willing to fail, sometimes in obscurity, and sometimes publicly. There’s the risk of loneliness and embarrassment. […] Read more »
Uncategorized Humility Created 27 September 2019 / Updated 30 May 2022 by adamf This is part of the book Summoning Genius. Read more »
Uncategorized Undoing Racism In the Northwest Yoga Community Created 4 March 2018 / Updated 6 March 2018 by adamf I’ve said before that an enlightened society would not be a racist society. I’m fortunate to be part of a yoga community, 8 Limbs, that is doing work to understand and talk about racism. They’ve helped me expand my mind and heart in this area. Recently there was an incident that occurred at the Northwest […] Read more »
Uncategorized An Account of the Land of Witches 20 February 2018 by adamf In the Land of Witches there is, every year, a Festival of the Dreaming, during which all the witches dream the same dream together. The dream may be very simple. Last year they dreamt they were taking a pumpkin cake out of the oven. Everyone awoke in tears. The Dream Science obliterates distance as well […] Read more »
Uncategorized Beautiful Mitochondria Created 12 February 2018 / Updated 11 February 2018 by adamf Via AskReddit, a beautiful description about how cells came to use mitochondria for energy: Back in the old times, when all life was single celled… photosynthesis was invented by the cyanobacteria. This released a poisonous, toxic gas into the atmosphere that killed almost all life: oxygen. There were few ways to survive. Most of the […] Read more »
Uncategorized Undoing Institutional Racism Created 10 February 2018 / Updated 11 February 2018 by adamf I’m new to talking about racism. But undoing racism is one of my interests. And I want to be courageous, and I want live in a kinder, more tolerant, fair society. It’s clear to me that an enlightened society would not be a racist society. So here goes… On Thursday and Friday I attended a […] Read more »
Uncategorized Ursula K. Le Guin Created 28 January 2018 / Updated 25 February 2018 by adamf Ursula K. Le Guin died a few days ago. She was a hero of mine – someone I looked up to my whole life. I read her books as a child and as an adult. They expanded my mind and heart, helped make me an optimistic person, and made me interested in kindness. Jo Walton, […] Read more »
Uncategorized Gourd Day Created 17 December 2017 / Updated 29 October 2017 by adamf About gourds, one thing they say in Blue Ridge is, “It takes a fool to grow a gourd,” and they notice how I always get a good crop. The other thing they say is that you have to hard-cuss gourd seed as you put them in the ground. To get their attention before they’ll even […] Read more »
Uncategorized Lifetimes Created 6 December 2017 / Updated 9 December 2017 by adamf I was at my Buddhist center tonight and a friend asked me, “Adam, how are you doing?” And genuinely wanted an answer. I found myself saying, I am feeling grief. It comes in waves. Often I don’t even know what I’m crying about now – often there’s no story anymore. It is contact with sorrow […] Read more »
Uncategorized What’s a Mathematician To Do? Created 31 October 2017 / Updated 29 October 2017 by adamf Great answer on Math Overflow by mathematician Bill Thurston (1946-2012) to the question, “What’s a mathematician to do?”: It’s not mathematics that you need to contribute to. It’s deeper than that: how might you contribute to humanity, and even deeper, to the well-being of the world, by pursuing mathematics? Such a question is not possible […] Read more »