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“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.” – Pablo Picasso Many people might think of Picasso as the man who looked at the world as if it were a kaleidoscope and thought, “Why not make it even more twisted?” But, he’s also the guy…
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“You know my method. It is founded on the observation of trifles.” – Sherlock Holmes in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the greatest fictional detective of all time and Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character. It’s probably not too surprising as I find myself quoting Holmes that I tend to analyze everyday…
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“Failure is always an option.” – Adam Savage of MythBusters Is it better to fail miserably and be forgotten, or to fail gloriously and make history? Would it be better to fail in obscurity and fade away into irrelevance? Or, should we seek to fail spectacularly in public view so that others may partake in…
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“One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” – Nikola Tesla I can’t count the number of times that I’ve caught myself overthinking. I’m all too used to that exhausting, unproductive feeling of running a mental marathon in quicksand. When I find myself facing a conundrum, my…
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“You gain more by not being stupid than you do by being smart.” – Phil Birnbaum, baseball analyst, “An Important Life Lesson from Blackjack and Baseball” In an article published on Slate.com, baseball analyst Phil Birnbaum talked about focusing on minimizing bad decisions rather than trying too hard to make the right decisions. Birnbaum continued…
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Incompleteness has been written about extensively in fields such as mathematics and philosophy. Sadly, it isn’t at all frequently discussed when it comes to volumes of complete works. A collection of complete works is supposed to be a group or set of literary, musical, artistic, or academic works created by a single author. Yet, one…
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Intellectualism is defined as “the exercise of the intellect at the expense of emotions.” In other words, it’s when you convince yourself you’re smart by ignoring your feelings. For the philosophers in the back, intellectualism is also a fancy cousin to rationalism, the belief that knowledge comes from pure reason, not from our muddled emotional…
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This is a response to a particularly thought-provoking newsletter from one of my favorite Substack writers. It’s part of her 28-day Writer’s Notebook challenge to find joy in writing again. This particular post from Collected Rejections gave me pause. Valorie Clark discusses the word “inevitability,” its roots, and the conclusion she comes to is that…
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In the world of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow (Generation I), one type oozes through nearly every corner of the Kanto region: Poison. From the very first routes to the Elite Four, players are inundated with noxious creatures – purple sludge monsters, smog-spewing orbs, venomous plants, and Zubat swarms. It turns out almost 22% of…
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A Deep Dive into a Modern Pop Masterpiece Sabrina Carpenter’s latest single “Manchild” might just be one of the most brilliant pop songs of the 2020s. Beyond its catchy beat and sassy lyrics, the track doubles as sharp social commentary, and its music video unfolds as a pastiche of classic film moments that enrich the…