Where do I live now
I live in Japan. I have founded two companies here in the Engineering consulting sector and blockchain sector.
People ask? Why do you live in Japan?, my reply is something along the lines like "Well- Japan has the Sun on their flag and I really like the Sun, I am a Solar Engineer." After this reply I always get strange looks. But that's ok.
Honestly, there are probably a million reasons for living here, like there is a million reasons for living anywhere. Plus there are vending machines around the corner that sell all types of drinks and the machines themselves talk to you. The vending machines are conscious.
Philosophy and Influences
I guess it is hard to define. But a mixture of many. I do value that it is important to find a closer approximation to the truth. That has naturally lead me towards blockchain. Gandhi's biography and philosophy was centred around search for truth. The title of his autobiography was The Story of my Experiments with Truth and after thinking a lot about what he stood for and what he achieved, I believe he was one of the most enlightened individuals that has walked the planet in the last 100 years and he really did understand that the truth exists, and we always have to try to find it from within ourselves. We have to start with ourself first.
Some of my favourite base writings are from these lists; I-Ching (The Book of Change)- one of the oldest books at least out of China, and for a good reason. This book contains so much wisdom wrapped up in its short but difficult text, Plato-Republic where Plato describes his famous Allegory of the Cave, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where a man goes on a physical motorcycle journey across the United States with his son after a great trauma in his life. This book is rich with metaphors about Eastern Philosophy, maintenance and self perception, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Book of Five Rings 五輪書 Go Rin no Sho by Miyamoto Musashi which is the topic of this post, Art of War by Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu: Te-Tao Ching.
Out of those above readings, three of my favourite philosophies are the following; Miyamato Musashi, Plato and Lao Tzu. Also when I mention favourite, it doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with everything about what they taught, just some things. Today I will talk about the first person, Miyamoto Musashi.
Musashi was one of the greatest Samurai to have lived in the history of Japan. Yes-he was a real person. In his era, Japan was in the waring states period and life was bloodthirsty, cheap and violent. There were the Samurai class, who were higher class than most of the peasant farmers, but that said, even Samurai had tough financial times. Musashi found himself born into the midst of turmoil. He was forced to walk on the road of duels. In those times, if you were challenged to a duel, then a person who is challenged should never decline. If he was to decline a duel, then others would destroy his reputation and say that he ran away. Now Musashi (who was quite a physically tall fellow for his times) became very adept at duels and apparently is one of the only Samurai to have NEVER lost a duel. I mean, the stakes were high. It was either die, or fight. So he is quoted to have said;
Once you begin walking the path of fire, there is no other.
Musashi's reputation continued to grow and he became associated with pure power. He was undefeated. So Musashi- who practiced the philosophy of strength, might and power was challenged to a duel by another, his name was Sasaki Kojiro and Kojiro was associated with his philosophy, beauty. I won't go into the political reasons for their duel, but basically it was setup between powerful politicians and Musashi and Kojiro were largely dragged into it without choice. But they had to fight.
The duel itself is probably known to be one of the most famous fights in Japanese history. It was setup carefully on an island in the inland sea called Funajima. The duel was short. Musashi killed his Kojiro with a bokken that legend says he had carved from an oar used on the boat that carried him to the island. Musashi's late arrival is controversial.
Both Samurai, Musashi and Kojiro respected one another deeply, and at the moment that Musashi killed Kojiro, who was one of the greatest fighters in his area, Musashi knew that he had crossed the line. He didn't fight many other duels.
Finally after he retired from the dual life he was taken under the wing of a Daimyo of Kumamoto in Kyushu. Musashi retreated into the forests nearby, became a hermit and wrote his seminal work. The book of five rings. This book, which is more like an instruction manual for becoming a better person has been read over and over again by millions of people in Japan and around the world until this day, is one of my favourite books. One of my favourite quotes at the end of it is in the book of void. He talked a lot about The Way and Void. Now, there has been a lot of different interpretations, but I would like to propose my own.
When you have trained your whole life, you have devoted a lot of your woken energy to learn something and constantly improve on it, then only after many years of trial and error and mistakes do you actually start to become better and can then start to teach others. But, there will always be a void to perfection. Perfection is perfection and is largely unachievable. Plato also references this point with his Allegory of the Cave. But, that said, you should not at least try to achieve it. I believe Musashi was talking about this point. He had spent his whole life training and finding his Way. He called it The Way. He knew that even if he was good at it, he would never be perfect.
In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.
There are reflections of what Musashi practiced in modern Japan. There is still a lot of honor in Japanese business culture. There is a lot of Sensei-student relationships. And there is always the relentless attention to detail in everything. Visitors from the west do comment on this and do find it confusing.
Myself, I believe in balance. But I believe more in an evolutionary perspective. A good example of this is The Nature of Value but I also do understand that when the timing is right you do need to listen to what Musashi taught, and that is;
From one thing, know ten thousand things.
but also
Do nothing that is of no use.
I could talk a lot more about Musashi and other Japanese philosophers like Basho. I can also talk about Goethe and especially what he wrote about debt and monetary debasement in his second book, but that is enough for now.
Entrepreneurship and challenges
For myself, in 2011 after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake gave me a jolt and I re-evaluated my life in the space of a few minutes, I actually decided to go back to my own journey. I was working in a comfortable engineering job, but I had always entertained the notion of fully starting my own business. So I decided that afternoon to figure out ways to actually start do that. Sure enough, by November I had registered my own company and I was out in the big world of management consulting.
In these next 2 years, I learnt a lot. I had sleepness nights and even sleepless weeks. But, I was happy to be back on my way. I also knew that I was walking the path of fire. I was starting to discover the layers in the business world and how it all fed back to certain organizations and the banking institutions. At the end of 2013 and in early 2014 I discovered SolarCoin, and from there on a lot is history.
Projects
I am currently working on a lot of consulting projects in the solar industry, a blockchain startup, and a non-profit organization based out of Andorra called ElectriCChain.
Importance of thinking for oneself
I have written about this before. In my post Critical Thinking Recipes and also following the anti-fragile concepts laid out by Nassim Taleb. I cannot reiterate this point enough.
My concerns for the future and problems to solve
Humanity has huge problems ahead of us. But, I am an optimist. We need to come together, not become more divided and respect each others skills to be able to solve them. Scale doesn't matter here. Start your own project, and follow it to the end with all of your skill and might.
Thanks for reading, I am always listening to comments and feedback.
-lpninja