Cities normally begin with power. A fortress secures a frontier. A port commands trade. A palace gathers authority around itself. Bath begins elsewhere. Beneath the limestone hills of Somerset, rainwater seeps slowly through fractures in the rock, descending deep into the earth before rising again as warm mineral springs. By
🏛️ I. Sovereignty in the Age of Strongmen In recent years, modern politics has rediscovered a taste for sovereignty. Donald Trump performs it theatrically, as if will alone could bend institutions. Peter Thiel articulates it more quietly, arguing that democracy dilutes decisive agency and that exceptional individuals must be liberated from
"We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” — René Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel 🪞 The Reversal of Names The names themselves seem to be mirrors when put into the Roman alphabet, Tokyo and Kyoto. But 東京 and 京都 is just a same kanji reversed, one facing
‘Non facit martyrem poena, sed causa.‘ ‘It is not the punishment that makes the martyr, but the cause’ Augustine, Sermon 307 St Albans does not shout. It does not arrange itself for reverence. It lives in weather, stone, and the ordinary rhythm of an English town. Yet here, a man
“Genuine repetition is recollected forward.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Repetition Six months after my first encounter with Qatar’s glittering coast, I returned. This time, I turned away from Doha’s vertical gleam and drove into the north and west, where the desert meets the sea without spectacle. I told myself this
“The rose is without why. It blooms because it blooms. It cares not for itself, asks not if it is seen.” — Angelus Silesius, Der Cherubinische Wandersmann I.289 🌾 I. Hokkaido’s Refusal to Explain There is a different stillness in Hokkaido. Not the composed silence of Honshu’s gardens, measured
“The sculptor does not add beauty, but pares away the superfluous. So the soul too must strip away all excess.” — Plotinus, Enneads I.6.9 We come to towns like Takayama hoping for something essential. Wooden lattice, rain-worn cedar, a quiet path between shrine and shutter. But something has settled
🌒 I. Plotinus and the Lamp of the Soul There are stories that refuse to settle, stories that hover between illumination and shadow. The myth of Psyche and Cupid is one of them. Each time I return to it, I sense not a tale about disobedience but a meditation on the
“All real living is meeting.” Martin Buber, I and Thou “Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination.” Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times The Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov feels less like a burial ground than a memory made visible. Graves rise and
"What is in nature unconsciously is in spirit consciously.” — F. W. J. Schelling “Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” — G. W. F. Hegel In Gujo Hachiman, nothing strives. And yet, nothing is left undone. The castle here is not proud. It does not dominate the mountain. It
“There is a certain sacred image (agalma) buried in the soul, and it is for the sake of this that all our efforts are made.” — Plato, Symposium Not all beauty declares itself. In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima speaks of the agalma : a sacred form, hidden inside the outer casing of
“The monkey is the most perfect animal, and the most nearly resembling man.” — Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary There is a peculiar kind of disillusionment that can only occur when reality too closely resembles caricature. At Jigokudani, the famous “snow monkeys” of Nagano are touted as contemplative bathers, half-monks, half-mascots—soaking in