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I have basically no energy today. Apparently, I’ve come down with the same bug as my wife Emily, so now we’re both sick. So, Emily made me some chamomile tea with honey and I’m going to read some of Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World” which is both eye-opening and a bit on the wordy side.…
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Every so often, I’ll decide to step away from posting online for a while, especially if no one is reading much of what I have to say anyhow. I’ll promise myself only to make reading notes and write down ideas as they come to me. But then, I’ll threaten to no longer do my reflective…
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When Taylor Swift dropped 1989 in 2014, she was pivoting the entire pop landscape. That record captured a generational shift: the country girl had fully transformed into a pop architect, and the world adjusted to her new rules. Ten years later, a similar moment may be unfolding—not in the stadiums of the most powerful artist…
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Coming across an article in the New Yorker called “How music criticism lost its edge” (behind paywall), it got me thinking: Has criticism gone shallow in its quest for safety? And what does that mean for cultural honesty? What passes for “criticism” right now often feels like risk-managed copywriting wrapped in pseudo-thoughtful language. It’s less…
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Why Do Our Minds Refuse to Pick Just One Rule of Reasoning? Most of the time, we don’t notice how we decide. We just do it. Whether it’s a restaurant menu, a job offer, or a fork in the road we’re pondering, our choice feels immediate; it’s like instinct. But underneath, our minds run little…
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Jonathan Leland begins his 2010 paper “The hunt for a descriptive theory of choice under risk—A view from the road not taken” for the Journal of Socio-Economics.with a confession: his life’s path could have turned on trivial choices. A missed concert or an elective taken on a whim, and suddenly he’s not writing about decision…
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Freud unmasks us as murderous angels—civilization’s hypocrisy hides our primitive psyche, where love and hate entwine, and even our gentlest virtues are born of cruelty. Sigmund Freud’s Reflections on War and Death from 1939 reads like a mirror polished just enough to show the rot beneath our civilization’s cosmetics. He argues that conscience isn’t some…
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You may not have heard of “spaced repetition learning,” but quite likely you’ve been the unwitting victim of it. It’s the educational equivalent of being force-fed the same soggy cereal every morning until you can recite the ingredients list in your sleep. For those unfamiliar with how this insidious method is structured, I’ll break it…
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“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt With its vast potential for possibility, the future holds within it the power to shape our lives in ways we can’t yet imagine. We all have dreams—some outrageously unattainable, yet alive within us. In order for dreams to come…
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Back in 2022, Substack writer Heath Racela got to meet legendary musician Ben Folds. Apparently, Folds holds master classes now, this one being in Concord, MA. The key take away that Heath mentioned in his write-up: “embrace the messiness of learning” Other keys: songs as a three-act story, “balance between the liberal and the practical”…