About

Me

The author, hair dyed blue, standing in front of a palm tree, squinting due to the tropical sun. — In Playa del Carmen

I'm Chris Dempewolf (dim-pee-wolf), software engineer, former ESL teacher, and, most recently, husband and father.

I'm from Fort Smith, Arkansas. I lived in Seattle for 2 years and abroad in Mexico 🇲🇽, Japan 🇯🇵, and Germany 🇩🇪. I taught English for a couple of years and have worked as a software engineer for 7 years.

I made this blog to explore my thoughts and practice my writing. I don't really know what I know until I write it, so this blog is meant to serve as my light in the dark.

Contact

PGP

I use ProtonMail, which has seamless PGP encryption built in for emails between Proton users. But if you're not on ProtonMail, here is my public key:

Or download it directly.

Fingerprint: 4171 EEDE 0752 58E9 DB57 9F33 8D72 C84E 77B5 475A

The Title

In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

This blog's title, Shoshin, is a Zen concept roughly translated as "beginner's mind", a concept first popularized in the West by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki in his book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. It implies curiosity, openness, and approaching things without preconceptions. It is the goal of this blog to explore many new and interesting topics—always through the eyes of a beginner.

The Characters

Sho

simple, cartoon, black cat, green eyes, smiling, black nose, pink mouth — Sho the Cat

Sho is a lively little fur ball. She's spontaneous, creative, and adventurous. She loves jokes and thrives in chaos. She's full of passion and lets her impulses guide her more than reason.

Sho's Greek god is Dionysus. Sho is Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll. Sho is Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Sho is Yin. Sho is System 1.

Shin

drawing, owl, yellow eyes, stern look, grey beak, european eagle owl — Shin the Owl

Shin is a quiet and thoughtful Snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). His favorite place to be is alone with his books and his thoughts. Shin makes little time for revelry. His life's mission is to dispel any and all entropy leaving only clear, logical order in his wake.

Shin's Greek god is Apollo. Shin is Dr. Jekyll. Shin is the Narrator before he meets Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Shin is Yang. Shin is System 2.

Mu

simple, cut out photo, brown and white cow, sideways, blasé expression — Mu the Cow

Mu is a cow.

If chaos and order are orthogonal to each other, then Mu is the z-axis. In other words, Mu is the opposite of both chaos and order, whatever that means. Mu is the sound of one hand clapping. Mu is neither Yin nor Yang, but Mu is also both Yin and Yang.