About two years ago, I wrote a piece that made the rounds — “A Technique for Deciding How to Say No.” This concept, while not explicitly stated, utilized the notion of teleology to create a constraint for what you should give your time to.

The insights of the article can certainly be useful in today’s conversation, but the teleological emphasis was how a vision assists in forming the notion of what you should not do (which therefore helps delineate what you should do). Two years later, I’d like to frame a process using teleology again.

I recently made a case that change is inevitable — it’s gonna happen.

The question isn’t, “Can we change?” but, rather, “How will you change?” Once you start here, the opportunity emerges to actually determine your trajectory.

Alas, I wanted to offer four approaches I commonly see because the approach one carries into the experience will vastly shape the health and the success of the attempt.

Don’t assume we can. Consider, for a brief moment, whether or not such a process is possible.

Is change possible? Reading that line might appear to be a waste of time. My perception is that the dominant understanding in our social location understands change to be assumed.

But what if it isn’t possible?

A lesson I learned from the Stoic tradition

is a practice that, in hindsight of 2020, our culture might want to collectively consider as a staple of our mental domain.

Though one must beware, this is not a practice that we would normally gravitate toward. In fact, the forthcoming suggestion is an active recollection that we often intend to avoid at all costs. For some people, where trauma and chaos are already too real, it should not be utilized. But, contrary to common belief, it is a practice that might actually be beneficial.

The Macabre & the Mind

It’s mid-December and the winter’s darkness had set in around our home allowing for the…

I recently attempted to make a case that philosophy and ethics should not be seen as mutually exclusive, but that they should function collaboratively; an interdependent dance to aid the journey of living well. But even if we can agree that both philosophy and ethics are important in the existential journey of being alive, we still have a problem — how do we do it?

I am not very good at many things. If my DNA was replicated in almost any historical situation and location other than this one, my chances of survival would be quite slim.

As a defense mechanism, I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with understanding the world as much as possible. While intellectual rigor, learning, and downright nerdiness have become a sort of pastime, I have, of recent, become much more concerned with the practical manifestation of knowledge.

There is an adventure of exploring the world so we can best live in it.

Religion, Science, and the Real Flaw When Talking About “God”

The frequent, anecdotal expositions aimed at proving and disproving God are, quite frankly, boringly predictable. Shrouded by confirmation bias, such arguments, proofs, and debates are a case in substantiating a predetermined belief by finding any information that conveniently approves what one already considers true. Those who do not share in such enlightenment are, at best, wrong and in need of your wisdom and, at worst, monstrously dismissed.

The opinionated premises that follow just aren’t that interesting.

Therefore, before we can begin having proper conversations on metaphysics, we need to address…