Trying too hard, the artist or the athelete lets slip their best abilities. The aim for perfection breeds imperfect results. The monkey mind always tries to woo one into unnecessary complexity and confusion. But let it be. A good way to negotiate with a chatoic mind is to let it be while you keep it […]
Tag Archives: philosophy
Into the vortex of interestingness
We try to put things in the right order, solve and find problems. The lighthouse in our mind is always moving faster than any fifth dimension of reality. The impulse is always to learn more to keep the story of life flowing into a vortex of interestingness. The end goal is to avoid the […]
The telescope of attention
We’re ideating everywhere, all the time. But it’s not so much about the information haul as it is the synthesis. We really don’t understand something until we write it down or draw it out. Behind comprehension are two influential variables: our genes and the undercurrent of environmental factors. Some people look at society from the […]
Against playacting
It takes an anarchic mindset to disrupt the status quo. The freedom from playacting the role society enlists us permits the most creative thinking and endeavors. Do you think Steve Jobs would’ve created the Mac growing up on the East Coast? No, the West Coast was where all the wackies and hippies lived. Once we […]
Reset the mind, fulfill your day
Intelligence isn’t fixed. We can change our mind just as we can change our bodies. But first, we have to make the mental shift into believing the brain’s elasticity. While past performance is an indicator of future success, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of deliberate variation. How we think determines what we do and […]
Know thyself
Self-awareness is a vehicle for making better decisions. It’ll prevent you from the pitfalls of time-wasting, confusing busyness with productivity, and force you to reconsider the importance of stepping back to think. The external world fights for your attention so it can rattle you. Email, negativity, and breaking news never go out of stock. Instead […]
Home is work. Work is home.
Home is work. Work is home. With the smartphone, we straddle one foot in and out of the office at the same time. There is no real freedom, no way to untether from the tyranny of the desk. We are addicted to being ON all the time. But the phone is not the new cigarette, […]
The self that signals
What signals are you giving out? Everything from your wardrobe to your attitude goes on display in to convince or dupe others of who you really are. Led by imaginings, you chase the perfect external note. But sometimes the creation of the ideal self sends you in the wrong direction. Trying to change from outside […]
Compartments of personality
Know when to laugh and when to cry, when to work and when to play, when to focus and when to daydream, when to float and when to sink — different pieces of our personality snuggle in aliveness in various compartments of the head. What gets complicated is when you cry because you’re happy, play […]
We need the prodding
We need the prodding, we need Mom’s extra push. If it weren’t for other people like Mom, Dad, a coach, brother, or teacher advising us what we should do, important experiences and future cues would go missing. This is not to say that following advice is a prerequisite to success. For one, instructions are subjective […]
At a crossroads
Waiting for confirmation begets a wish washy answer. The solution is never what you want to hear. Fence-sitters are the first ones to capitulate to the doubting disease. Debate decreases their likeliness of action. What if instead of a tip-toe in, we pursued our beliefs despite our ambivalence. As Eleanor Roosevelt once implored us, “Be […]
Variables of reason
The riddle of life requires that we turn the page with equal uncertainty and confidence. By peeking into to the future, we dive into the uncomfortable experiment of digging up our past. The vacillation opens up the floodgates to creativity. Yielding to a strange loop, we can finally ignore the feeling of being left behind. […]
Placebos: the lies we make true
What the mind believes, the body can achieve. Look no further than a placebo who’s sole power is in its real effects. If it’s broken, only then do you fix it. But placebos work just as an app’s colors dupe the brain into submission. The slightest taste of sugar helps the medicine go down. The […]
Play by keeping score
Disorder creates progress. It is within the mess we find out what needs to be cleaned up and what needs to be improved. The same goes for failure — it’s a motivator in disguise, telling us to make improvement more present. Unlike sand, problems never escape counting. They are easy to keep tabs on as […]
A dent in free will
The frustrator reveals its entire hand but still can’t be resolved. Because even when it tells all, its outcome is predictably unpredictable. There is no such thing as chance, with most things in life predetermined at the outset of infancy. Free will, liberating in theory, presents its own constraints. We are living in simulation, with […]