Every place seems to be more laid back in Chiang Mai. In coffee shops people sit quietly, working on their laptop or reading a book. In Bangkok there always seems to be a business meeting, or a life and death phone call happening wherever you go. Then what do you do? You’ve already paid your 100 baht for the drink. All you can do is glare at them and hope they shut up, which they never do.

I think for many of us our minds have become like an out of control AI, that starts to cannibalise the whole system. The mind was only ever supposed to be a tool that you can use. Not a tool that uses you to reinforce it’s own self importance. The end result of this perversion of the natural hierarchy is suffering. That much I know.

The first question I get when I tell someone I work as an investor is, “what do you think of bitcoin”? The second is, “which stocks should I buy”, or “how do I invest in the stock market”?

I’ll answer those questions in this post.

I’ve met some great people lately in Bangkok. In meeting them I’ve realised something about life circumstances in general and particularly about people: good is the enemy of great.

In a previous post I mentioned that, “I have no concrete spiritual experience”. That’s not entirely true. This post is about how I stumbled upon the first base of spiritual experience, no mind.

The mind and our thoughts are slippery things. You might get a grip on it or you might not. Either way it’s likely to take a long time, too long as far as I’m concerned. What I’ve found is that if you want to regain your inner equilibrium the best way to do so is through the body.

This topic comes out of my recent experience living in Bangkok. At first I was conscious of the need to make new friends, but gradually I got sucked back into lone wolf mode. I became pretty isolated and eventually started to feel anxious. Here is how I changed things and you can too.

So I set myself up in Bangkok. I had the vision, worked hard, I was bold and I arrived triumphant. Only problem, I wasn’t enjoying it. Why?

As I write this I’m watching the Bangkok traffic at peak hour crawling along. In an effort to beat the traffic many use motorbike taxis. Without helmets they risk their lives as the motorbikes weave around cars and zip along the side of the road. Some women even sit sideways with their delicate legs hanging in the air. Other times you see three people on one bike. Drivers texting.

Then there is the nightlife. I don’t like to drink regularly and prefer to get an early night, so that’s out. The girl bars, also not appealing. I don’t gamble. I don’t smoke. Hell, I don’t even drink coffee. So what is there left to do in this place?

What if there is an afterlife? And you have to sit up there for eternity, tormented by everything you could have been, but are now powerless to do anything about.

Everyone was totally soaked, so I figured to make any impact I’d have to adopt a special approach. I’d take note of who shot at me, calmly take the hit while making sure my gun was at full pressure, then deliver a piercing burst of cold water into their ear or in between the eyes. Women and children were spared.

The wife is doing all the talking. I try hard to hear any response from the husband. Amid the surrounding thrum I can hardly hear a thing from him other than the occasional affirmative grunt. She talks and talks. He says nothing, arms crossed.

Time moves slowly on the walk. It’s not hard to imagine the scholars of earlier times strolling along in their brilliant kimono, tweaking their latest poems.

A man about my age, perhaps a little younger, walked by with one of the building managers. A petite woman, I’d seen her taking people through the gym on level 10. She dashed into the office to get her phone and the pair exchanged details. To what end I wondered.

If you can work out a way to earn even half your home salary online, you can afford to live a good lifestyle in Thailand. But to what end? Is it enough just to get by?

In my street I’m constantly hailed by scantily clad women as I walk by. After a week they are starting to leave me alone, but if I slip up and make eye contact I still get some kind of musically voiced pitch thrown my way.

There is often a lag effect between when we start on a new endeavour and when we see results. So how do you stay focused?

“Why the emotion”, I wondered as I sipped my Asahi. It made no sense. It’s not like I had grown in Japan and been forced to flee. If I had to give a rational explanation it might be that my experience living there was transformative. But that doesn’t explain everything. In fact Japan and it’s culture had captivated me ever since I was a child. I saw the Karate kid and I was hooked.

Something had to give. That something was inflation, which like a sleeping dragon we managed to wake up after much poking.