Reading and General Study

I’m an avid reader. I have a room dedicated as a library/study with over 1400 physical books. Many, many more electronic books (PDFs/epub/etc.). I have some books fiction in nature (manga, light novels in both English and Japanese), but a very large portion of my library is non-fiction. Many books on Philosophy, Buddhism, and Computers.

For Philosophy I’m a big fan of stocism, as it aligns well with my religious books. My religious books are primarily around Zen, although I take a good portion of books from other sources.

You can find a current view of what I’m reading, planning to read, and what I have read HERE

Soto Zen Practice

Sōtō Zen is the major religion I practice, and have been for my entire adult life. I often times meditate multiple times a day. My religious practices aren’t entirely aligned with Sōtō Zen insofar as I take the best elements as part of my life from all sorts of religions. That said, from a ritual and practice standpoint, I focus entirely on Sōtō Zen.

Calligraphy (Japanese and Western)

書道 (shodo) is the term used for Japanese Calligraphy. I’ve been studying this since around 2015 or so. Western Calligraphy I also do, but not nearly as long. I started that around 2017 or so. My main driving factor for that was getting into fountain pens.

Video Games

I used to be far more into video games than I am now. I do enjoy playing them. One of my favorite genres is JRPGs. The Tales of series, Final Fantasy, and so on. Another genre I really enjoy is Rhythm-based games, such as Project Diva (pictured above - which is for the PS4). I also have a full VR setup (Bigscreen Beyond) setup, and I routinely play Beat Saber.

Music

I’m a huge fan of higher quality music. I have multiple Amps, DACs, and headphones. I spend a considerable amount of time listening to music while working. Common genres include JPop, Rock, and Classical/Sound Tracks.