Miyamoto Musashi’s classic ink paintings reflect the same radical minimalism and focus present in the Dokkōdō. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons) In 1645, days before his death in a cave on Mount Iwato, the legendary warrior Miyamoto Musashi wrote down twenty-one short precepts titled the Dokkōdō: "The Path of Aloneness." Musashi was not writing a martial manual. He was leaving behind a blueprint for mental independence. After surviving over sixty duels, practicing ink painting, calligraphy, and architectural design, his final work was not about how to strike an opponent. It was about how to prevent external noise, impulses, and chaotic environments from mastering the human mind. As students, researchers, and young adults working across complex systems today, our primary battleground isn't a duel at dawn. It is the steady erosion of our focus, intention, and autonomy by a world designed to fragment our attention. Looking at Musashi’s Dokkōdō not as an ancient relic, but ...
Why agentic AI’s most important healthcare test may be fixing the relationship between payers and providers In 2026, a physician can use AI to write a prior-authorization request. A health plan can use AI to review it. If the request is denied, another AI can draft the appeal. Prior authorization can turn a clinical decision into an administrative wait—the gap Agentic AI could help address. The patient still waits. When I first thought through that sequence, it seemed almost absurd. We've built intelligent tools for every stage of the disagreement, but not for preventing the disagreement itself! Are we using AI in healthcare to solve the wrong problem? This is the strange place that healthcare has reached. Providers are getting better at assembling claims, contesting denials, and recovering revenue, and payers are getting better at applying medical policies, identifying inconsistencies, and controlling utili...