Ian's Blog

We live in a world that often reduces intimacy to the body. To passion. To the spark that burns in a touch, in a glance, in the closeness of skin on skin. And yet, when the lights are off and the world grows quiet, we come to realize that intimacy is not measured in moments of heat, but in moments of safety. What we truly long for is not simply passion—it is rest. It is the deep exhale of knowing that the one beside us will not turn away when our beauty fades, when our strength falters, when our spirit trembles. Intimacy is not the thrill of the body alone. It is the anchoring of the soul. Because you cannot be close to someone who makes you afraid. You cannot give your heart to the one who may break it in anger, betrayal, or indifference. You cannot open yourself when you feel the sting of judgment or the shadow of rejection. Passion may ignite a fire, but only emotional security allows that fire to become a hearth—something steady, something enduring, something that warms not only ...

There is a quiet wisdom that flows through the heart of Japanese philosophy. It is not shouted, not written in capital letters, not forced upon the world with the loudness of certainty. Instead, it whispers. It leans into silence. It invites us to sit with the imperfection of life, to soften into its fragility, to marvel at its incompleteness. That wisdom is called Wabi-Sabi . Wabi-Sabi is not a single definition, but a way of seeing. It is the art of finding beauty in the cracked and weathered, the unfinished and incomplete. It is the embrace of transience, the acceptance that everything—ourselves included—is fleeting, imperfect, and always in the process of becoming. It is summed up in three truths so simple, and yet so difficult for the modern mind to accept: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. These are not words of despair, but words of freedom. In them lies a path out of the tyranny of perfectionism, out of the anxiety of permanence, out of the pressure ...

There is a recurring theater that nations perform when citizens are murdered by the state. It begins with outrage: bodies in the streets, cries for justice, mass anger that cannot be contained. Then comes the ritual: the hurried announcement of panels, commissions, taskforces, and inquiries. These bodies are presented as mechanisms of justice, as the state’s proof that it is listening. But in truth, they are designed to do something far more sinister. They are not built to punish. They are built to pacify. They are not instruments of justice, but laundromats of human blood. Their purpose is to wash the stains of power, to translate human grief into numbers, to manage public anger while protecting the perpetrators. They function as valves—releasing pressure so the system does not explode, but never changing the pipes that carry oppression forward. Across continents and centuries, the pattern is unmistakable: compensate the victim, shield the perpetrator. Price the life lost, but protec...