Inseparable opposites
We’re always in the middle of fictional thinking — vacillating between what we’d like to do versus what we’re scared to do. Utopia and dystopia...
Category: Life
The spotlight of attention
Willpower rests on the brain’s set point for pleasure. Get used to indulging doses of dopamine, and the mind goes numb to any lack of...
Writing takes guts
Writing is a bitch. It takes routine, grit, and lots of induced anxiety to show up every day and put pen for paper. There’s a...
The invention of things
Most creativity depends on building on top of what’s already there. Novelty exploits and aggregates preexisting stems to manufacture new and different, which is all...
Tackling the brain’s anxiety bias
We take out the wind of anxiety by going toward the fear. The nerves left alone in anticipation, attrit our resistance with cruel swiftness. Uncertainty...
We are nobody’s establishment
Good, bad, and ugly — honesty is what’s at stake. Of course, we strive for the perfect edited self. But such is a fallacy, as...
Strength through struggle
Everything we know we learn from our handicaps. They are far better teachers than strengths. As the author Bernard Malamud quipped, “if you haven’t struggled,...
Passion project be damned
The banality of doing what we’re told gets bottle-necked at the top of free will. Eventually, one balks at the factory of someone else’s to-do...
Hope is a hedge against reality
We live in anticipation. The worker who looks forward to a vacation is probably far happier and more productive than one who toils away without...
The shared intimacy of the individual
Behavior operates at the amygdala level. Without conscious interpretation, we either fight or run away. Instead, what we seek is more constructive: long-term serotonin levels...
When hearts and minds realign
We are exchanging advice, ideas, and information all the time, in effect trading minds with each other. Yet, within that knowledge transfer also oozes emotion....
The brilliance in absurdity
The synergy between brilliance and absurdity is one of the paradoxes of our time. One can’t be crazy without being wickedly smart. Thinking different isn’t...