philosophy
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The important stuff is the ordinary stuff
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1 min read
The important stuff is often the ordinary stuff. It’s the small daily actions — like holding the door open for a random stranger or calling your family or friends to catch up — that have a profound impact on your well-being. Everyone wants to progress. But advancement can be selfish. It gets in the way…
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Hardly looking
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1 min read
Like a bar of soap, it gets smaller the more you play with it. Whether you’re investing in stocks or the portfolio of a better life, you have to leave some things alone. You can’t force the future. It comes to you to meet you halfway. So free fill to take your foot off the…
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Hopium
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1 min read
Hope is not a strategy. Hope is a selfish emotion — we look it to bolster our well-being. Hope, it is convenient. It’s the nearest dopamine hit in a crowd of external placebos. But hope is sometimes all we have. It never capitulates. The reality is that good things happen — they just take time…
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The checklist of normal
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1 min read
“Everything is the way it is because it got that way,” said the British biologist D’Arcy Thompson in 1917. An amalgamation of Cells and clustered neurons, people bloom from individuals into the collective and back to weirdos again. It’s human nature to be weird, but also human to be lonely. This conflict between fitting in…
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Live to work and work to live
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1 min read
We love to feel embattled because we like to think we labored for it. If we haven’t struggled, we haven’t yet lived. The urge to grind away at the remarkable supersedes trepidation. So we feel the fear and do it anyway. “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: No fear. I mean, really –…
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Regression in time
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1 min read
You’re part of an idea. So is every variety of human. One idea is that democracy is the best form of government. But we can’t hide its flaws. It still allows for bombastic celebrities to take charge. Humans are also part of nature. We are to climate change what the asteroid was to the dinosaur.…
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Textbook wisdom
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1 min read
Theories are productive ways of thinking even if they’re proven wrong. They lead to other research. Take the theory of evolution. The topic itself lends to all types of discussions around race, identity, brain and body development. Aren’t we all just pond scum who lucked out on terra firma? This is not to say we…
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No one is normal
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2 min read
The environment that we live in intends to become a part of our mind. But there’s always a mismatch between who we know we are and what others expect us to be. Human beings are intricate. No one individual is alike. Mimetic thinking makes us feel worse, not better in the long-run. Conforming is like…
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Collecting references
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1 min read
Without knowledge, it’s hard to be curious. We need reference points to make connections and inspire deeper thinking. Give a teenager a car and a detailed Google Map, but unless they’ve got some training, they are going to increase the likelihood of an accident. Give a kid some crayons and some looseleaf paper, but without…
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Cold water courage
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1 min read
The quickest way to get used to cold water is to dive right in. The slowest and more painful way to get used to cold water is to go in gradually, dipping in each body part until it warms up. Most people take the gradual approach because they’re scared. As a result, they’re most likely…
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Self-scrutiny is the thief of joy
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1 min read
What do you for a living? It’s either the first or last question you want to answer at a dinner party. Any time you have to open up about a personal topic it burns the lips. Comparisons are natural, contentedness is artificial. Everyone acts happy but they always want what they don’t have. If you…
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‘Be the bamboo tree which bends toward the wind’
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1 min read
“Alive, a man is supple, soft; in death, unbending rigor. All creatures, grass and trees, alive are plastic, but are pliant, too, and [in] death all feeble and dry. Unbending rigor is the mate of death, and yielding softness, [the] company of life. Unbending soldiers get no victories, the stiffest tree is readiest for the…