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Labubu isn’t just the next blind box toy collectible. According to Kyla Scanlon, it serves as a perfect specimen of a broken economy — where the only game most people can play is speculation, and anything can be for sale. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky figured out the psychology behind why people do such bizarre…
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“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly…
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“In the karaoke universe, we can be whoever we want. We express ourselves by turning into colorful and disastrous parodies of pop stars who are already appalling parodies of human beings. And somehow, that’s how we end up as our most sincere version of ourselves. When you step into the song, you’re not sure who…
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Here are my reflections on Chapter 15 of Longinus’ “On the Sublime,” using the Criticism, Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Philosophy (CRAP) framework. Criticism Longinus begins this chapter by emphasizing the importance of phantasia, or visualization: “…dignity, grandeur, and urgency are to a very large degree derived from visualization (phantasia).” He distinguishes this from the mere production…
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“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” – Cory Doctorow Jared Henderson included this quote in a July 2025 video…
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Many people are so scared to fail that they don’t even start. If you wait until everything is perfect before acting, then you will never succeed at anything. It may seem prudent to keep your confidence level high by giving up after your first attempt ends in failure. But, your chances of success aren’t much…
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Whether it is expressed through words or pictures, artistry thrives, no matter what the medium. Like other forms of art, writing cannot be perfect; this does not mean it cannot be a work of beauty in its own right. Everyone has their own personal style to everything they do – whether you’re speaking aloud or…
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In my college years, I often lamented at length in my journals about so-called higher education being rarely more than an extension of high school. On some rare occasions, a professor would present more advanced and challenging material, but those happenings were few and far between. I was thinking about what my first class would…
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I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the entertainment industry. It’s not really a novel realization, and it’s been hit on by quite a few critics and commentators, but it’s really beginning to bother me. Human creativity seems to be waning in such a dramatic way in recent years. There are so many formulaic attempts at…
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Illusions of success, or perhaps even delusions of success, have become the key reason that most talented individuals find themselves in dead-end avenues of employment or must struggle as “starving artists” in an attempt to get by. The issue is not in having employment where you have to answer to a boss or going to…
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Whenever I get in a bad mood, I do what I can to reframe the situation. I try to put what’s negative into a more positive frame so that I can build off of that. One of the ideas that I’ve gotten when trying to figure out how to be more positive is the idea…
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History is often poorly represented and so much is being lost to current generations. If you want to learn anything about history, good luck finding any decent guided tours. You must do much digging and piecing things together to get enough insight into history to make your trip worth embarking upon. Essentially, if you want…
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I’ve dabbled in philosophy a lot over the years, including watching many philosophy videos on Khan Academy. Yet I’ve never actually sat and read many original philosophical works. When I have, I find myself lost. It seems like I can’t put myself into the right state of mind very often to understand the profound ideas…
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“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” – Maya Angelou With courage, Maya Angelou once said, comes the ability to consistently practice any other kind of virtue, including kindness, honesty, and…
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“Writing: It starts at the keyboard, and it ends at the far corners of the universe.” — Paako, From Vincent Lowry, Constellation Chronicles: The Lost Civilization of Aries Long ago I came across this quote on Twitter and it got me thinking. Whenever I sit down to write something, I usually don’t have much of…
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“Failure runs parallel to letting your guard down.” – Eric Longenhagen & Kiley McDaniel, Future Value No matter how hard you try to prevent it, failure will happen in your life. It’s an unavoidable part of being human, especially when you have your guard down. Sometimes you think it’s safe to relax and let your…
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“It is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.” – Sherlock Holmes, from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes short story, The Man with the Twisted Lip. While I’ve always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, since reading the DK Big Ideas Book about Sherlock Holmes, I’ve gained new…
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“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius Accepting and cherishing your own individuality is the most important thing in leading a good life. The greatest…
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“Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey, legendary baseball general manager Branch Rickey is most famous for being the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to become a regular player in Major League Baseball. In baseball circles, though, he’s perhaps even more famous for inventing what…
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“Ask for money, you get advice, ask for advice, get money twice.” – Pitbull Yes, this quote is from the very Pitbull you believe I’m referring to, the rapper from Miami, Florida. The quote is literally from the opening lines of “Feel This Moment,” the fourth single from his Global Warming album. This is excellent…