Who is your favorite historical figure? Detached from reality or insanely locked in? History favors the different, the tinkerer, the disruptor. They are not neutral. Some are irrational, with deliberation. A despot continues committing crimes to preserve power. But that modus operandi is not radical enough. Exercising an iron fist without a benevolent purpose reflects…

How do you want to retire? His anticipatory anxiety ballooned once he realized that the work was over. Or was it? The artist always kept pushing on in the most extraordinary circumstances. To make something meant connecting the dots, leveraging cognition architecture to express a type of order. Art, like the emoji, represented a shortcut…

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood? There he was trying to explain away something he didn’t understand. Let alone, he couldn’t categorize the print. The boy remained attentive but disengaged, as his reading skills fence-sat en route to an acquired taste. He knew the important stuff existed on the other side of effort.…

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why? Despite the age of schizophrenic media sensationalism and dopamine hitting love buttons, books retain incredible value. Unlike ephemeral tweets, they train the mind to sit with thought and hone in on the continuous present. One book can change your life, maybe even save it.…

What quality do you value most in a friend? Artificial fields, he preferred. It was as if digital scrolling through a video cacophony between his ears took precedence over a real mode of living. His refusal to unplug induced a coerced digital blackout. Thrashing at the harsh reality felt justified. The real drama came at…

What are you good at? The drift, whose central defect is the rigidity in floating past. The arrest fails to enlighten her; she prefers the pain of deference. The current problem, which she’s good at, is deciding when to titillate the online crowds. All marketers are liars, and the right pen and chair provide just…

What personal belongings do you hold most dear? The term “belonging” seems to be an ancient phenomenon. The Internet owns our words, multiplied and magnified by coerced AI-machine eating rhythms. The handwritten letter remains undigestible. The most dear? Snail mail starts with the labor of a stamp and the delivery of an envelope and ends…

What is the legacy you want to leave behind? We don’t want to babysit our legacy. Of course, there are expectations, and futuring into them is what gives humans the biological edge. We can control our effort, emotions, and relationships. It’s the quality of each window, what we discover in the continous present, that predetermines…

Have you ever broken a bone? That’s one hell of a bone. It becomes a clue that can at least incite another bicep curl. But for the brain, the extra performance presents a little madness. When our body moves, so do the neurons, following unsealed from Tupperware’s trap. The fascinating sidelight of bonus body strength…

What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today? Reboot after reboot. Of course, not the metaphorical boots themselves. But fashion is cyclical. Clothing suffers from the issue of diminishing returns. Its decay starts from the moment of checkout and subsequent first wear. However, its emotional value can remain priceless. Jean holes, dilapidated Jordan heels, salty, stained…

Our future has been greatly exaggerated. Imagine a time when all the scrolling and clicking is done for us. We engage in automation in the name of learning. The answers lie before us, summoned with a single prompt. Creativity is like water, free and accessible, with little explanation for what we give it and what…

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day? It certainly would be rational to be the man who walks 500 miles. At least, we’d be remembered as a unique cannon in a sea of blistering sameness. Who wants to exercise as the next passing star? Consumed and quickly forgotten, dieting on…