My Favorite Blog Post of August 2022
Although writing a short blog post about what post I enjoyed writing the most the prior month is unlikely to offer much value to people who read my blog, it does offer me value because it makes me critically reflect on my prior month's written content. And last month...
Happy Birthday Roo
It was our cat Roo's (short for Rousseau) birthday last week. He is now three years old! Roo, as a 6 week-old kitten, came in to our lives shortly after our 15 year-old cat Olivier died from nasal lymphoma. Our home was so quiet and sad after Olivier's death, but as...
On Covid: Where’s Our Walt Disney of Propaganda?
Propaganda: The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view.Oxford English Dictionary I recently watched The New Spirit, a 1942 animated short film (cartoon) starring Donald Duck...
On Quiet Quitting
There's been quite a lot of discussion recently about "quiet quitting"—the act of doing the bare minimum of your assigned tasks and no more. Most of these discussions revolve around the balance between finding life-work balance vs. putting everything into your career...
Writing Research Can Be Fun!
In my writing research project about synesthesia, I realized my familiarity with the rainbow of colors is somewhat limited. Therefore, and strictly for "research" purposes (of course), I bought the biggest box of crayons I could find. Sometimes writing research is so...
One Thing I Disliked About EHRs
I write my rough drafts with a software called Scrivener. I like using it because they have an excellent tutorial system and user’s guide—all part of the initial package cost. They also have a blog and a podcast. Simple put, the software developers at Scrivener give...
Angry People
It must be difficult being angry all of the time. On social media so many people seem to be constantly angry. Every post is negative, every comment is bitter, every tweet is lashing out. I mean, some of these people seem wake up tweeting angry, tweet angrily multiple...
How Physics Tempers My Negative Emotional Reactions
Physics makes me think of several various philosophical problems. For example, “small” physics—quantum physics—makes me rethink my beliefs about causality and reality. But it’s “big” physics—cosmology—which makes me rethink my beliefs about time and existence, and...
Ought-Is Gaps and Valuing My Time
Like most people, I have a near-infinite number of ideas on how the world ought to be. But I prefer spending most of my time understanding the way the world is. Then, after I identify the ought-is gaps of interest to me, I go to the next step and consider which gaps I...
Aristotle, Habits, And Mindfulness
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle I believe in the truth of this quote. The development of good habits is the key to success in nearly every endeavor, whether it's in the domain of health, relationships, or...