I’m writing with a slight optimism right now, cause I have a feeling that the AI-madness and all the current dystopia is leading to a resurgence and increased interest in the poorly cared for…

The hidden cost of rituals in organising

I am writing this for the times it feels like the only possible collective future is one where things inevitably get a lot worse. We live in the age of one-in-a-lifetime crises occurring 1 every few…

An essay about the past AI-promises-era and how we got here in the first place

Value of things #Philosophy

What can we do as individuals? Nothing, virtually nothing. We cannot influence in the decisions of our leaders, nor in the attitude of the gregarian crowds that they manage with maquiavelic…

that callus, that thick impenetrable skin, is the only definitive proof of your hard work. maybe you played the guitar, did pull-ups, sawed a log, walked in new shoes... maybe you started the…

Every so often he had to skim off his bubbling thoughts. — Jules Renard, Journal 1887-1910 **** One ruins the mind with too much writing. One rusts it by not writing at all. — Joseph Joubert, The…

the trap of low-hanging fruit

Faced with the need to justify allocation of resources, how does a person who doesn't understand the decisions that were made respond? One approach would be to build relationships with stakeholders,…

Final thoughts on the story and where to go from here

An old gorilla looks back through scratched glass, and the human animal briefly loses its alibi.

They will ask you about Carnegie Hall. About the Musikverein. About standing ovations and spotlit stages and famous names in programme notes. I will tell you about a Tuesday afternoon in 1987. Trust…

Every triumph, every tragedy, every fleeting moment of perceived permanence – reduces. To dust. The empires you build, the loves you cherish, the resentments you harbor; all ground to the same…

But I think it's more than just avoiding boredom. It's more than being inquisitive. It's about having a fight to fight. Having something that excites you. Something that drives you. Something that…

Some thoughts about the past and dwelling on it

We cannot use the same evidence to convince everyone. Be careful.

i actually do this quite often. but today, i finally asked someone else about it. it feels like something that’s hard to explain—like something you can only conceptualise if you feel the same way,…

I’d already planned to write about this, but noticing an article from the May issue of The Atlantic , “ The Eighth Deadly Sin ” (or: “The Medieval Roots of Modern Self-Help”), has spurred me to write…

I can’t listen to music while writing. For a break I might play the video of a song that had been nagging my memory. More often I’ll select a comedy clip – Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Jack Benny,…

Epistemic humility is correct. It's also available as a stop button — and the two uses are hard to distinguish from inside the system.

Plus: The search for instant coffee and a universal clock. (#570)

A thin lit edge of a pale blue dot against vast nothingness. The same picture Apollo 8 took in 1968. Updated for 2026. To remind us, all of us: Everything and everyone we have ever touched is…

unprovable truths in diagonalosis all watching that space interrogation - and me? a forest fade other things said marginal these are the days, my friend Yesterday :: Thursday, 7th May 2026

Some happiness depends on not knowing, and once you know, you can’t get back. The child’s joy, the contented spouse, the loyal citizen—each rests on something unexamined, and examination…

Grief erased the sound of her voice and the feel of her fingers. Then flour on my wife’s hands, and ink from my mother’s long-kept letters, brought Mama back. The post The Flour on Her Hands, the Ink…

A South Alabama mama tugged her sleepy boy into the predawn cold to chase the Great Comet of 1965, a faint smudge above the dark trees. Now, nearing the age she was when she left this world, he gazes…

MicroStimuli argues that human decisions are made in milliseconds by non-conscious processes. The entire tradition of trying to change behavior through awareness, information, and rational persuasion…

Modern technology is amazing, but it’s hard to get excited about it because we are simply too used to it. Wouldn’t it be great if we could experience that technology as though…

I keep quoting him, but here’s another Cal Newport podcast that I can’t stop thinking about: Why do better tools make me worse at my job?. To save you a long listen: when you think about the theory…

Introduction This post will be tough to write. There's a lot of discourse and arguing about AI everywhere you look. I've read it all. I don't want to get caught up in arguments, get misinterpreted,…

I’m going on tour next month (Portland and SF) and then a bunch of other places around the world in the early fall. Come see me talking Stoicism—grab tickets here. I hated writing essays in high…

...was the question on the cusp of my dreaming mind as i woke from the last of it this morning just now. not i certainly not. the graying threads on the skull, politely demur. the ache on a molar's…

You cannot be happy if you have only one dimension to your life, one personality and one source of validation. People who dedicate their entire existence to their business or job are worse off than…

Here is Matt Glassman discussing how he's a bit less market-happy than he used to be. It's a good read and very close to my own attitude. Matt's view is, roughly, that the world is getting more and…

One of the essays in Voluptuous Panic! is, or started as, an attempt to clarify and explain what ‘genius’ is to me — the word is freighted and its meaning too shifty, so it…

Pharma blogger Derek Lowe offers good advice regarding a trap that many with experience in their professions can fall into. In "How Not to Be That Chemist," Lowe cautions against being too biased…

It is right that the murder of many people be mourned and lamented.

Every experience in your life has a last time. You almost never know when it is. That's not a reason for guilt or grief — it's a reason to design your life with intention.

please explain me

“There is a difference between abandoning the world and finding a way to remain part of it.”

The Managed Life There is a version of life that works. It runs on time. It eats well. It doesn’t overreach. It keeps its impulses contained and its moods within acceptable range. Nothing spills.…

As I was packing for my month long trip to the Philippines, I cleaned my room. Not a deep clean, just the kind you do when you want to come back to something decent after being gone for a good while.…

A talk by Michael Crichton given at the International Leadership Forum in La Jolla, California, April 26, 2002.

Everyone's going to write about some café or a park. Fine. I'm going to tell you what this city actually is, how it actually works, and why the best move is to stop needing its approval entirely.…

Dust Claims Kings, Too Every tick of the clock, every sunrise, is a thief stealing moments from your finite existence. You hoard possessions, chase fleeting pleasures, and build empires destined to…

From Mari Ruti’s The Call of Character pg 18: Likewise, there is perhaps nothing that contributes to the uniqueness of our character more than our suffering. In so many ways, who we are arises…

Sometimes it seems as if the universe is warning us against something. Or, perhaps, it is just measuring our determination. Testing us. In “The Once and Future King,” the fine telling of…