1) An essay doesn’t begin with a statement, but with a question An essay is something you write to try to figure something out. Figure out what? You don’t know yet. And so you can’t begin with a thesis, because you don’t have one, and may never have one. An essay doesn’t begin with a…
Lower the standard: that’s my motto. Somebody is always pushing the food out of reach. We’re tired of falling off ladders. Who says a child can’t paint? A pro is somebody who does it for money. Lower the standards. Let’s all play poetry. Down with ideals, flags convention buttons, morals, the scrambled eggs on the…
1) The first grand discovery was time, the landscape of experience The first grand discovery was time, the landscape of experience. Only by marking off months, weeks, and years, days and hours, minutes and seconds, would mankind be liberated from the cyclical monotony of nature. The flow of shadows, sand, water, and time itself, translated…
By Douglas Rushkoff From an entry on his June 1, 2002 weblog (an excerpt) One great function of the blog is to reach more people with the same message. Since I receive a few emails each week asking me to explain the best ways to “get started” as a writer or journalist, or to find…
Something has been growing around here, something is going on. I look for signs that we are all being filmed by slow cameras. Around us beds go mad making themselves; pots boil & empty & fill again like magic; toilets convulse & flush under cold porcelain; Wall paint thins to a sigh. Our underwear greys…
One great thing about travel is the way it forces you to come to terms with the rich complexity of history – particularly the amazing historical sites you had no idea existed until you set off to wander the world. Many fellow-travelers recommended that I visit Sigiriya when I was in Sri Lanka, but it…
Travel to majestic historical sites is, when it comes down to it, an act of creative imagination – and few things serve to remind the traveler of this fact like the task of waiting in line to see said historical sites. This image (one that is usually left out of visual travel accounts) documents me…
The day before I ascended Adam’s Peak, I formulated a creative plan to get to the ancient Sri Lankan rock fortress of Sigiriya immediately after the climb. Since the traditional Adam’s hike begins just after midnight and ends just after dawn, I figured I’d skip a second night in the trailhead-town of Dalhousie and head…
Adam’s Peak is the second-highest mountain in Sri Lanka, and (since reaching the peak is a pilgrimage ritual for adherents of the country’s four biggest religions) it is by far the most popular for hikers. Local Buddhists believe a rock on the 7,359-foot summit bears the footprint of Lord Buddha; Hindus think the footprint belongs…
News analysis: Rolf and writers like Pico Iyer and James Fallows speculate on what travel will look like after the COVID-19 pandemic.
After traveling classic Sri Lankan train routes across the highlands from Kandy to Ella to Nuwara Eliya, I ended up taking a long-haul tuk-tuk from Nuwara Eliya to the Adam’s Peak trailhead town of Nallathanniya. This wasn’t planned in advance; I did it at the suggestion of my driver, Suranga, whom I’d hired to take…
