Matthew's Blog
I Love My Hoban Cards
For most of the things I purchase, I focus strictly on functionality and cost. But there are rare purchases that are important to me at the level of my ikigai—my purpose. And for these items, I always strive for quality. For me, these items include my Montblanc pens...
In Perpetuity: The Foundational Principle of Corporate Ethics
In a recent New York Review of Books article by Jake Bernstein (Loopholes for Kleptocrats, referencing the books American Kleptocracy: How the US Created the Worlds Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History, by Casey Michel and The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires...
My Long Struggle With Causation
Since the 1980s, when I earned my advanced degree in Physics, I’ve struggled with understanding the concept of causation, and thirty years as a physician hasn’t helped. I’ve decided to crack this philosophical nut in 2022, so I just pulled the Amazon trigger and...
My Blogging Habit: Measuring Time By Cups of Coffee
As I work on my second year of daily blogging ( I am quickly approaching 400 consecutive days!), I'm occasionally asked how much time I spend each day on blogging. A good question. And the answer? From the blog post’s conception to its first rough draft, a selection...
Pivoting My Ikigai Means Shifting My Twitter Focus
I am part of two Twitter communities: the healthcare community and the writing community. In the past, my Twitter focus has been on the healthcare side. But now, being fully committed to my ikigai pivot from healthcare to writing, I have decided to shift my Twitter...
Ikigai Dangers: the Siren Call of Your Old Career
The Sirens bewitch everybody who approaches them. There is no homecoming for the man who draws near them unawares…For with their high clear song the Sirens bewitch him, as they sit there in a meadow piled high with the mouldering skeletons of men, whose withered skin...
An Easy-To-Read Book About Venn Diagrams
Some books are meant to be read hard and fast, in just one sitting. Here’s the book I am reading now: Cogwheels of the Mind—The Story of Venn Diagrams, written by the mathematician A.W.F. Edwards. It’s only 94 pages long, packed full of both lovely graphics and...
Releasing The Inner Kraken
One downside of reading Nietzsche is that it makes me take stock of my creative architecture, especially in regards to the balance and conflict of its two hemispheres: The Apolline and the Dionysiac. For Nietzsche, Apollo represents moderation, sculpture, illusion,...
Writing and The Philosophy Rabbit Hole
My dream is to write a definitive book on the need for a deontological ethics of artificial intelligence use in healthcare. But that requires an understanding of healthcare, which requires a definition of health. This means I need to understand what a good definition...