philosophy
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TED Talk: Tim Ferriss ‘Fear-setting’
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2 min read
As an entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, investor, motivational speaker, and life hacker, Tim Ferriss is a jack of all trades. Like many of us, he’s obsessed with work and optimizing work habits. But he learned the hard way. A near suicide and a breakup with his girlfriend made him change. Instead of being goal-driven, he played with…
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You can be anything you want and then some
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1 min read
“You can’t be anything you want,” said comedian Chris Rock. “You can be anything you’re good at, as long as they’re hiring.” You need the cash. But you also need to expand your cognitive horizon and let your mind search for its own stimulation. The artist thrives on autonomy and control. But they also benefit…
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The clock is always boss
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1 min read
When we’re young, one second can last forever. Patience runs thin. The opposite is true as we age — life seems to speed up along with all the responsibilities. And time refuses to slow down. As adults, we wish we could do nothing on purpose, let alone feel our brain processing the freedom of summer.…
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Living with the unknown
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1 min read
Things don’t need all the explanations we try to give them. The urge to seek definition has as much to do with our obsession with absolutes as our inability to trust ambiguity. As soon as we identify the type of bird, we cease thinking about it so. We google up all the information we can…
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About those light bulb moments
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2 min read
Ideas spawn as soon as you stop thinking about them, and only after you experimented and done your research. After the work’s been done, the best thing you can do is allow your ideas to bake. Sleep on them. Turn your focus to something else while your brain connects all the neurons and turns them…
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Give it time to simmer
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1 min read
Nothing ever gets wasted. It just needs time to ‘simmer.’ Gather everything you need to know, facts and crazy ideas, and then let them have sex while you do other stuff, even procrastinating. Revelations follow not when you’re always on but when you let the unconscious mind go to work. Being overly wake, in other…
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Admitting that you’re lost
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1 min read
Whether you’re stuck in a labyrinth or looping around the same racetrack, admitting you’re frustrated and lost is at least a starting point. The hard part is developing a plan to do something about it. If you want to go pro in any profession, you’re going to have to practice your beliefs and take calculated…
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Celebrate the story you tell yourself
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2 min read
You either fit in or strive to stand out. There are promises in both approaches. You’re more likely to feel more secure in the first route as society rewards mimetic behavior. Every obedient dog gets a treat. Success is harder on the fringes. Whether you’re an iconoclast, a contrarian, a ‘weirdo’, or innovator, you can…
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The fog of the present
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1 min read
Attaching yourself to the coming and going will steal your future. You have to listen to your life and follow its intuition. Introspection is your observatory. The depths of inner space needs no telescope but your own attention. You can already see far enough. “You must always know what it is that you want,” the…
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What imprints the outlook
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1 min read
You have to cultivate everything: awareness, happiness, aloofness, sadness, the yin, and yang. Nothing comes naturally, although genetics are known to preprogram our inclinations. People are constantly surveying, digesting the world around them. So they must also decide what sticks and what doesn’t. Inner and outer feelings express themselves as lifestyles. Fashioning one as an…
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Have an exaggerated sense of curiosity
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1 min read
We’re all fake artists, winging it to chase our dreams while simultaneously masking our vulnerabilities. It isn’t a thorny question of attribution. We all steal ideas from each other and recast them as our own. But having an exaggerated sense of curiosity pays off. The cash value of policing thoughts means that we can better sew…
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Bounce back
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1 min read
Why does every new passion start off with a rush of positive energy and excitement and then die? Alacrity lives for the short-term. What’s new becomes old. Boredom strikes, a new and superior product emerges that we have to have. We also give up on our passions. The work involved outweighs the sticktuitiveness to achieve…