Latest Posts
Conversation in the time of Covid: needy extroverts and empathetic introverts
It took me 40 years to realize that I don’t owe anyone an audience. Life is too short to become captured.
Deep Reading as Secular Spirituality
“Intellectual stimulation is an emotional experience for me," remarked the mathematician and polymath Eugenia Cheng. Her words have stayed with me. Around 7 this morning I was sipping my favorite brew of coffee in the living room, listening to the ambient background...
A few thoughts on beginning the second half of life, part 1
The Internet is so saturated with unsolicited life advice; why would I ever share my midlife self-absorption publicly? In case it serves someone else, as Steven Johnson’s birthday reflection from 12 years ago served me then, and served me again today.
A review of Cool Gray City of Love
Call it historical schadenfreude: I’ve been greatly comforted over the past couple of months by reading historical accounts of just how much worse things used to be a hundred years ago.
Highly Recommended: Audiobook of Trevor Noah’s Memoir
I was one of those overly ironic Gen Xers who stopped watching the Daily Show after Jon Stewart retired and a millennial took over. So I didn't know much about Trevor Noah other than the occasional YouTube clip that made its way across my social media feeds. But what...
Why is Karl Ove Knausgaard Afraid of Therapy?
How were these writers able to endow their characters with such sentimentality while totally cutting themselves off from the emotional lives of their loved ones in real life? Or is it the inverse? Perhaps the well-adjusted person, who shares his vulnerabilities honestly in the social world, lacks the burning impulse to produce great writing.
Select Photos
It was Megumi Nishikura, a talented filmmaker who is currently making a documentary about the experiences of mixed-Japanese people around the world, who first introduced me to Akira Uchimura Moraga and his project the Nikkei Youth Network. A month or two later and Akira and I were sitting and chatting at my neighborhood Japanese market along with his Mexican Nikkei friends Minoru and Jun (who has a trilingual electric pop band in Mexico City). I've grown used to Japanese-Peruvians and -Brazilians, but never in my life have I met someone with Japanese features speaking Spanish with a thick Chilean accent. I had to pinch myself a couple times. Akira was born in Costa Rica to a Japanese father and Chilean mother. He's lived throughout Latin America, but currently calls Yokohama home (when he's not traveling). He is equally fluent in Spanish, Japanese, and English, and he's a talented web designer and photographer to boot. With support from the Nippon Foundation Akira co-founded the Nikkei Youth Network as an international community of individuals of Japanese descent who live around the world. He is currently planning next month's Nikkei Youth Network Summit in Tokyo. It will bring together young Nikkei leaders to share experiences and network. Most importantly, the afterparty venue looks amazing. It goes without saying that I am incredibly impressed by Akira and his vision for the Nikkei Youth Network. I think that it can help serve as a model for other diaspora networks like Diasporacamp and Fundación Jalisco.
