The G Chi

The G Chi provides a collection of ponderings, an eclectic compendium of contemplations; a tapestry of essays, aphorisms, musings, quotations, original poems, stories and words of relative wisdom, loosely organized by theme, created for my father’s only son’s personal benefit, clarity and self-inspiration.

In Ancient Greece, the intellectual class had a practice called hypomnēmata (ὑπομνήματα), which was a notetaking system where they kept quotes from books they had read. It was a tool for meditation. Every day, ideally, they would open the hypomnēmata and look for a passage relevant to something they were struggling with, and then they would meditate on that—unpacking it, making the idea top of mind, ensuring it was alive in them. If they needed courage, they’d meditate on a story that made it real for them what it meant to act with courage, and so on. The idea was that over time, the important insights they gathered by reading would be transformed into character, a habit, something deeply ingrained into their way of thinking and acting. It is hard to keep these complex and anti-memetic ideas alive in us, but certain pieces of writing can make us wake up, and if we return to them and meditate on them, they can become part of us.

The G Chi is G’s version of the hypomnēmata.