Tag: Random Thoughts

How Tao

lonely dirt road to a distant hill

Let’s be honest
Let’s be real
We are lucky just to be
— Bashō no yōna, 2025

One who traveled as much as Matsuo Basho must have thought about the Tao de Ching, the Dao, the Way. The ways included the Nakasendo Way connecting Edo and Kyoto, the coastal route, called the Tokaido Way that would have taken Basho near his home. Then too there was the shorter Koshu Kaido, that was an alternative of the Nakasendo Way. Then too, Basho and a friend Sora made their own way through Japan’s northern interior and along both coasts. This was the famous Oku no Hosomichi, the book that made Basho famous.

Basho wrote the book, part travelogue, part haiku about his five month journey in the spring and summer of 1689. He spent the next five years editing it until his death in 1694. It was not published until 1702.

It is easier to write
Than edit,
Harder still to publish.

In the blink of an eye,
from here to there
and back again

highway to the clouds
In the blink of an eye, from here to there and back again

Relationships

man on a rock looking at the distant mountains

To fail is no sin —
the true wrong is not to try,
then, sit and wonder.
— Bashō no yōna, May 2025

First Thoughts

“If I fail, it is not a sin, the sin is not to try and wonder.”

Random stuff on relationships. Has Bashō no yōna gone off the track? I think not. Bashō’s spirit is kept alive, of observing nature and relationships. The twist, a modern introspection. 5–7–5 or close enough, cause nothing’s perfect.

Haikus

Separate journeys —
sometimes paths will intertwine,
sometimes they depart.

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Not just random chance—
relationships have their way,
kismet, fate — who knows.

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we were meant to be
two burning stars, now spent
— nothing is forever

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God, the universe —
whatever your guide may be,
always works for YOU.

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This is the way it ends,
Not with regret,
But tears and goodbyes.

Last thoughts

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s quote: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our lives are rounded by a little sleep.” Thank goodness, now that I’ve dreamt, I can rest.

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How easy is that

coffee, soft boiled egg and burnt toast

Random haiku

I like to think, and sometimes say, we are no different you and I. True and not true since some of us like to talk too much. That is why, I suppose, Matsuo Basho got in the habit of seeing everything in the form of a 5-7-5 haiku. Life’s not complicated, or is it?

An easy puzzle,
if each piece fits — I get it.
How easy is that?

Write a haiku using the phrase “how easy is that.”

You wake, you rise, sigh —
for coffee, press the button,
How easy is that.

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Life’s like a bread in the toaster — sometimes it’s warm and buttered, sometimes it’s burnt to a toast.

Burnt toast again, sigh —
Why do I try, I’m no chef,
How easy is that?

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Wordle gives us feedback in the form of green, yellow, and grey tiles where green represents a correct letter in the correct position, yellow represents the correct letter in the wrong place, and grey means you completely blew it. Assuming one chooses different letters, the odds of getting all grey tiles in the first round is:

(25/26​) to the 5th power ≈ 0.814. That’s roughly one in ten. I have managed to go two rounds without a singe correct tile. What are the odds? They say it should be .814 times .814, roughly .6. I wonder?

I have also managed to get into one of those rhyming scenarios where the choices seem endless and I always pick the wrong word. Oh well…

no green, no yellow,
five tries, today, no Wordle,
how easy is that?

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Here’s one about typing letters to form words on the keyboard. Answer me this if you can — How do we think and not think about how to type?

one thinks, one types, wow,
the keys come naturally,
how easy is that…

burnt toast, how easy is that

Light the Fire

To see in the dark

One only has to

Turn on the light

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If it were only that easy, but it’s not, or maybe I’m trying too hard to find the switch.

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I’d light the fire

And you’d place the flowers

In the vase and add water

— Crosby Stills Nash Young

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The afternoon sun

A tall snowman holding a broom,

Becoming nothing

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Random thoughts

Reading Alan Watts

Waiting for the sun to rise