Dr Alex

If you’re brave enough to fight yourself with daily writing, AI can hold up a mirror.

The book is totally recommended, by the way.

Joli Jensen’s “Write No Matter What” has a beautiful idea: keep a “ventilation file”, where you dump obstacles, anxieties, and resistance so you can keep writing.

I’m convinced this is where #AI can help. It’s a 24/7 ventilation partner. Tell ChatGPT what’s blocking, and ask it to reflect it back.

I’ve written some of my clearest pages at 3–4 am in cities that aren’t home but temporarily are.

Jetlag is an underrated research method.
You wake up at impossible hours, the city is empty, and your mind goes sideways.

My risk tolerance and adventure hunger let me wander for a couple of hours if inspiration doesn’t strike (and it always comes).
Liminality first, coffee second.

Curious, I had been observing the participants. Folks from #HK and #Singapore are always somewhere. There are talks about #America in a crazy variety, #Zambia, #Tanzania (and lots of Africa), #China, everywhere.

Keywords: #PostTrump, #diversity, #death, #aging, #diseases, #postHIV, #hauntings.

#AAA2025 is such a cool gathering, by the way :)

I planned precisely nothing beyond my paper talk and Marriott writing time, and still ended up learning about disease prevention, eco-civilizational futurology… ten or twenty parallel streams (I’m not good at counting, and even the app doesn’t help).

Luckily, my Marriott has French vanilla creamer and bottomless filtered coffee.

My almost-broken trip is saved.

In #Thailand, 7/11 is a fresh, moderately delicious restaurant.

In #HK, a night bar and a social theater at 2 am.

In #Korea, it’s fashion, electronics, snacks, air con—a tiny urban ecosystem.

In the #US, 7/11 is hot dogs, giant vats of coffee, and the only place where tipping anxiety disappears.

What’s fascinating about New Orleans is that it has no 7/11.

These are the places I visit most in America—maybe because I’ve spent half my life between Thailand and Hong Kong.

One day, I’ll probably write a book, “A Global Liminality: The Sociology of 7/11.”

The differences are wild—and below:

Somehow, New Orleans is even better than Hong Kong for suitcase runs.

Within a few minutes’ walk: six Marriotts, a Hilton, a Hyatt, and even a Best Western.

#HK #AAA2025 #TheHabitusOfStaycations

#HongKong #COVID19 #Autoethnography

My beloved Prof. Liz Jackson told me a few of days ago that she actually prefers reading to writing these days. (And she’s an incredible writer.) She’s probably right—I don’t remember Liz being wrong. But I love both writing and listening to audiobooks while walking long distances or cleaning home.

My real library is in another country, which I last visited about seven years ago. I travel too much; everything is electronic now, most of it audio.

Excellent book stands at #AAA. The books are just mind-blowing. I keep thinking I should buy a cheap suitcase on Canal St of amazing quality and fill it with books. Not going to happen. I have maybe three paper books back home.

I don’t quite see the difference between #raves and #conferences. Walk and talk to smart, interesting people. Worse catering, no dancing—but a gym at the Marriott, proper meditation, and better sleep. #AAA #USA

Planning to talk at Ozora (and bring Euan). “Same Same but Different” Thailand (2009).

It’s unbelievable how time changes things. First time in New Orleans—9 years ago—True Detective S01, Texas–Louisiana–Georgia by Greyhound.

Now as Marriott Bonvoy Titanium, networked in academia, polishing my AAA paper & UNESCO report. Still IPA from a paper bag.

Same city—just a little rough.

New Orleans feels like it’s built around #AAA this week—my second time here (first was 9 years ago), but the whole city has that conference gravity.
It’s like Barcelona during MWC: the air changes.

On the airport bus yesterday, two girls from my flight suddenly realized they were both presenting.

I told him I’m only passing through this time. #RaveAsMethod at #AERA and freedom of conscience at #CIES will take a while next spring.

Landed in Seattle—zero (!) people in the non-US passport line.
Used the chance to pitch The Habitus of Staycations.

The poor officer:
“Do you live in HK?”
“Why are you flying to New Orleans?”

And suddenly—COVID, 49 hotels, my PhD, the accidental pet project turning into paper. Even googled #AAA.

Speaking of audiobooks—they’ve become my core consumption/method.

When I’m in walking through HK, Seoul, or Tokyo, I can finish a book a day. Movement clears space; language slips in.

Audible has limits (especially if you devour 10–15 books/month), but for writing-craft literature, it’s unmatched.

Ryan Van Cleave. Not a classic, but a perfect match with my current “autoethnography and memoir.”

Practical insight from structures and archetypes to “writers and substances”—Hemingway's “write drunk, edit sober.”

Glad I managed to finish it in HK: started listening to it on the bus when landed.

After finishing Writing Down the Bones, I can’t stop reading and listening to Natalie Goldberg.
She speaks about mortality:

“I don’t have any great thing I want to accomplish.
I’d like to hang out more. Sit at the bus stop, on a bench, and just be there—breathing in and breathing out.”

Beautiful.

Hoping to launch afedorov.com, but spending time creating content than fixing #WordPress menus.

Wrote a new blog post: “A Minimalist, Autonomy-First OS Cocktail — 30% Secular Buddhism + 25% Moral Autonomy + 25% Fromm + 20% Late Tolstoy.”

My supervisors always say my upside is being provocative ;)

The more I think about liminality, the less it feels like a threshold.
It’s not “between” states—it’s the state that stays.

From noble silence to conference emails—same volume, different frequency.
Reentry is always the real meditation.

Heading to New Orleans / #AAA next week with The Habitus of Staycations on Hong Kong pandemic leisure.
The project that once felt bizarre feels bizarre again—full circle 😎

While I was meditating, our #RaveAsMethod paper was accepted by #AERA Arts-Based SIG.

Euan and I are thrilled—it’s one of the few spaces to provoke about the blurring lines between epistemology and affect/emotions in academia. And in a liminal world.

Hoping to be in LA soon. Loved the reviews 🫠

As much as meditation is ethical and experiential for me,
I find aesthetic criteria borrowed from the arts deeply relatable.

Someone once said that true art works when everything you can take from it—and hold—is yours.

Strangely accurate for #Vipassana, too.

7 years ago, I left my first 10-days Vipassana halfway through.

Went back to the same Lantau center. Full circle. The awareness was sharper, the silence louder.

The teacher laughed when I said I preferred my thoughts to the present moment. “Relax,” he said. He was right.

Turner wrote about ritual liminality; Hong Kong is the urban version. Hard to find a more in-between place.

Had a chat why I picked #HK as home (if I have one). The most beautiful, layered place I know (I’ve been to 130+ countries). Partly true.

The bigger reason is its liminality—the theme I’ve been working on recently: Rave as Method, The Habitus of Staycations, Travel as Non-Method. Even my website.