In last Tuesday’s presidential debates, moderator Tom Brokaw asked the candidates a difficult question: will the economy get worse before it gets better? Arguably, it is the President’s job to inspire confidence in our financial system, not to deliver candid investment advice. Unfortunately, such cheerleading amounts to a tax on the credulous buy-and-hold investor, favoring those who better understand the political game.

As I skimmed Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report yesterday, I was reminded of McCain and Obama’s earlier performances. Technorati’s investigation reveals that bloggers are “savvy and sophisticated,” and their daily output is “integral to the media ecosystem.”

Technorati, in case you didn’t know, is a blog aggregation service, whose business is built upon the free content we bloggers create. Like our presidential candidates, it is not necessarily in Technorati’s best interest to provide a frank assessment of our future. So let me provide my own frank assessment. [Read more →]

April 14 is Darren Rowse’s Blogger Appreciation Day.

Martial Development
Unconventional Wisdom
Award Winner

What are the Unconventional Wisdom Awards?
I created the Unconventional Wisdom Awards to give recognition to, and show my appreciation for unusually insightful, thought-provoking blog content. [Read more →]

Qigong and Energy Arts Forum welcomes any submissions related to chi, ki, prana, orgone, et cetera. For this edition, I would also like to extend a special invitation to skeptics, rationalists and disbelievers.

Do you know why chi kung doesn’t exist? Can you prove it is scientifically impossible? Have you personally encountered any frauds, mountebanks or charlatans? Educate us.

Iron Shirt

Provide your best evidence, clearest arguments and most entertaining stories. One participant will be randomly selected to win a prize from the new Martial Development Shop. [Read more →]

While thumbing through the letters to the editor in one of my favorite magazines, I made a troubling observation. Nobody seemed to congratulate the authors on a job well done, or expressed appreciation for all their hard work.

Some letters highlighted an important point that the author missed, while others had the temerity to disagree with the author’s conclusion. How very rude, I thought!

Indignant, I perused the other newsstand periodicals for validation of my feelings. I found none. From obscure technical journals to USA Today, every professionally edited publication followed the same pattern.

Rather than showing gratitude for tight prose and well-researched reporting, readers seemed to expect them; and they spoke up only when writers failed to meet this high standard.

Walking away from the kiosk, I realized that I was judging these professional authors by the standards of an amateur blogger. Anyone who aspires to creating high-quality content and a respectable audience, through a blog or any other medium, should appreciate the difference. [Read more →]

A few weeks ago, Priscilla Palmer graciously included me on her list of top personal development bloggers, and invited me to contribute a few more entries.  In her words, “This list should include any blog you feel can benefit us in our growth process.”

I’ll take this opportunity to mention some of the articles I’ve read and enjoyed over the past few months:

• Blair Warren reveals the secret to attracting wealth: it’s magic rocks.
• Restita (of Seattle Wushu Center) shares a true story illustrating that if we are sincere, we can learn from anyone.
• Elberry reminds us that, in the branch office that is planet Earth, we are all just filthy temps [NSFW].
• Finally: Orwell got the most of details right, but the year wrong.  Check out Tabby Cat’s illustrated guide to 1984. 

With respect to all the other members, the complete personal development list is far too long to repost here; if you read all that stuff, you won’t have any time left to practice martial arts!  Here is the subset that most clearly relates to topics we discuss here at Martial Development: [Read more →]

I stopped tweaking my Ninja Scroll theme for Wordpress a few months back, after deciding it was good enough. I just remembered that I am publishing a personal development website, and good enough is never good enough!

Wild Bill, the Passionate Blogger, is giving away free blog makeovers to five lucky bloggers. If you’d like to see a new and improved look for Martial Development, please take 30 seconds to stop by his blog and vote for me us.

Update: Voting has ended. Thank you for voting Martial Development into the top 5!

Based Upon a True Story
Imagine yourself walking through a busy outdoor mall, surrounded by hundreds of shoppers and tourists. Casually perusing the fresh produce and handicrafts, you are suddenly confronted with a disturbing spectacle.

(Photo Credit: Gina Fish)

An unkempt, fifty-something man stands alone in the middle of the boardwalk, carrying on a loud and emotional conversation with nobody in particular. Interspersing pointless vignettes on politics, culture and yesterday’s supper with violent and unpredictable gestures, he manages to draw the attention of a small crowd. They watch and listen from a safe distance. [Read more →]

Though you might infer otherwise from the proliferation of high-priced self-improvement seminars, personal growth is basically a simple equation. If you eat more than you excrete, then you grow. Eat less, and you shrink.

Not all growth is positive, of course. If you can’t metabolize what you eat, then you will grow bloated and sick, not strong and healthy. So the desired equation is slightly more complicated: personal growth requires both digestion, and nutritious food to digest.

This rule applies to the physical body, and equally so to the work of a blogger. [Read more →]

I was delighted to stumble across the Intention-Manifestation Theory of reality a few months ago. As I understood this theory, the key to achieving success in the spheres of business, dating and health is to intend it.

Fortune smiled upon me that day. Intention-Manifestation Theory seemed the greatest labor-saving discovery since the cotton gin, and I was sorely in need of its utility. Since starting my website last year, I had been overwhelmed by article ideas, but never had enough time to fully develop, transcribe and publish them.

I decided to employ the theory straight away. [Read more →]

Lao Tzu is perhaps the world’s most popular author. In the 2600 years since its initial publishing, Lao Tzu’s masterpiece, Tao Te Ching, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and reprinted more often than nearly any book in human history.

Lao Tzu was a great teacher, and a master of brevity. Though the Tao Te Ching is merely five thousand characters (less than fifty pages of English text), it conveys profound wisdom. His writing was potent, concise, and meaningful: all qualities which would prevent Lao Tzu from succeeding as an AdSense publisher.

No, Lao Tzu could never support himself on income from AdSense, or other contextual advertising systems. He probably couldn’t even earn enough to feed his water buffalo. Why? [Read more →]