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Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale (#803)
“I would finish every day on these walks, get in bed, and just feel that was the fullest possible way I could have experienced that day. Given the cards dealt to me of this day, there was no fuller version of this day.”
— Craig Mod
As promised, welcome to round 2 with Craig Mod!
Craig Mod is a writer, photographer, and walker living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan. He is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa. He also writes the newsletters Roden and Ridgeline and has contributed to The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, and more.
He’s walked thousands of miles across Japan, and since 2016, he has been co-running “Walk and Talks” with Kevin Kelly in various places around the world: the Cotswolds, Northern Thailand, walking across Bali, Southern China, Japan, Spain (Portuguese and French Caminos), and more. He’s a MacDowell fellow, Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow, and Ragdale fellow.
In 2023 he wrote an impassioned recommendation of Morioka, Japan, to The New York Times, prompting the paper to rank the city number two (behind London) for “Places to Visit in 2023,” turning Mod into a minor celebrity. He sat for interviews with some forty or fifty newspapers and TV shows, trying to explain the goodness of a city like Morioka to people for whom the goodness is so self-evident that it has become invisible. This whole media dance culminated in his going on a two-day walk around Morioka with one of Japan’s biggest TV stars: the seventy-nine-year-old, sunglasses-wearing Tamori -san, who was lovely (and very tiny!). The response—a total heartfelt reverence for the avuncular Tamori—from people on the street (“Good morning, Tamori -san!,” yelled construction workers from atop their scaffolding) made Mod feel like he was walking with John Lennon. Mod’s moment of celebrity was mercifully short-lived. Nobody recognizes him anymore when he walks around town.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business; Momentous high-quality supplements; and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.
Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast
Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale<iframe src="https://www.art19.com/shows/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba/episodes/d4192037-471f-45c7-94f3-8076b47c63f2/embed?type=micro" style="width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;" scrolling="no"></iframe>
This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2024 by Forbes, Fortune, and Wired magazines and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders at HelixSleep.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).
Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. Use code TIM at checkout and enjoy 35% off your first subscription order or 14% off your first one-time purchase! And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.
Go to shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim.
Want to hear round one of this conversation with Craig Mod? Listen here as we discuss Craig’s journey from a post-industrial Connecticut town to Japan, advice for adults who want to pick up the Japanese language, bizarre homestay stories, struggles with spirits of sauce and the supernatural, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
Website | Bluesky | Instagram | YouTube | Roden (Monthly Newsletter) | Ridgeline (Weekly Newsletter)
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
Books and Written Works
Movies and TV Shows
People
Places
Walks, Routes, and Trails
Institutions, Organizations, Companies, Software, and Platforms
Concepts
SHOW NOTES
MORE CRAIG MOD QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“I would finish every day on these walks, get in bed, and just feel that was the fullest possible way I could have experienced that day. Given the cards dealt to me of this day, there was no fuller version of this day.”
— Craig Mod
“I love my scale because it’s sustainable. It gives me total creative freedom.”
— Craig Mod
“If you spend 30 days doing that physical activity every day to that degree, your body changes. You become what I call a bobbing consciousness. By day 20, 25 on the road where you’re walking 20, 30, 40k, your legs are just so powerful.”
— Craig Mod
“One of the weirdest things about being a contemporary human is, first of all, we’re never bored because we always have this stupid Black Mirror slab in our pocket that’s always distracting us with some other dopamine hit.”
— Craig Mod
The post Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale (#803) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
View all episodes
“I would finish every day on these walks, get in bed, and just feel that was the fullest possible way I could have experienced that day. Given the cards dealt to me of this day, there was no fuller version of this day.”
— Craig Mod
As promised, welcome to round 2 with Craig Mod!
Craig Mod is a writer, photographer, and walker living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan. He is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa. He also writes the newsletters Roden and Ridgeline and has contributed to The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, and more.
He’s walked thousands of miles across Japan, and since 2016, he has been co-running “Walk and Talks” with Kevin Kelly in various places around the world: the Cotswolds, Northern Thailand, walking across Bali, Southern China, Japan, Spain (Portuguese and French Caminos), and more. He’s a MacDowell fellow, Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow, and Ragdale fellow.
In 2023 he wrote an impassioned recommendation of Morioka, Japan, to The New York Times, prompting the paper to rank the city number two (behind London) for “Places to Visit in 2023,” turning Mod into a minor celebrity. He sat for interviews with some forty or fifty newspapers and TV shows, trying to explain the goodness of a city like Morioka to people for whom the goodness is so self-evident that it has become invisible. This whole media dance culminated in his going on a two-day walk around Morioka with one of Japan’s biggest TV stars: the seventy-nine-year-old, sunglasses-wearing Tamori -san, who was lovely (and very tiny!). The response—a total heartfelt reverence for the avuncular Tamori—from people on the street (“Good morning, Tamori -san!,” yelled construction workers from atop their scaffolding) made Mod feel like he was walking with John Lennon. Mod’s moment of celebrity was mercifully short-lived. Nobody recognizes him anymore when he walks around town.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business; Momentous high-quality supplements; and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.
Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast
Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale<iframe src="https://www.art19.com/shows/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba/episodes/d4192037-471f-45c7-94f3-8076b47c63f2/embed?type=micro" style="width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;" scrolling="no"></iframe>
This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2024 by Forbes, Fortune, and Wired magazines and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders at HelixSleep.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).
Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. Use code TIM at checkout and enjoy 35% off your first subscription order or 14% off your first one-time purchase! And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.
Go to shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim.
Want to hear round one of this conversation with Craig Mod? Listen here as we discuss Craig’s journey from a post-industrial Connecticut town to Japan, advice for adults who want to pick up the Japanese language, bizarre homestay stories, struggles with spirits of sauce and the supernatural, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
Website | Bluesky | Instagram | YouTube | Roden (Monthly Newsletter) | Ridgeline (Weekly Newsletter)
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
Books and Written Works
Movies and TV Shows
People
Places
Walks, Routes, and Trails
Institutions, Organizations, Companies, Software, and Platforms
Concepts
SHOW NOTES
MORE CRAIG MOD QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“I would finish every day on these walks, get in bed, and just feel that was the fullest possible way I could have experienced that day. Given the cards dealt to me of this day, there was no fuller version of this day.”
— Craig Mod
“I love my scale because it’s sustainable. It gives me total creative freedom.”
— Craig Mod
“If you spend 30 days doing that physical activity every day to that degree, your body changes. You become what I call a bobbing consciousness. By day 20, 25 on the road where you’re walking 20, 30, 40k, your legs are just so powerful.”
— Craig Mod
“One of the weirdest things about being a contemporary human is, first of all, we’re never bored because we always have this stupid Black Mirror slab in our pocket that’s always distracting us with some other dopamine hit.”
— Craig Mod
The post Craig Mod Returns — Epic Walks in Japan, The Art of Slowness, Digital Detox, Publishing “Impossible” Books, and Choosing Beauty Over Scale (#803) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.