Matthew's Blog
On Angry-Tweeting
I see lots of Twitter nonsense online that I find offensive. Yet I do my very best not to "angry-tweet" in response. Why? Because it's both emotionally draining and ineffective and it just winds me up. Heck, angry-tweeting is nearly a form of self-abuse! "Don't ever...
Nietzsche’s 12 Qualities of a Scholar
Nietzsche's 12 Qualities of a Scholar: Probity and a sense for simplicity.Sharpsightedness for things close up; myopia for distant things.Sobriety and conventionality of nature.Poverty of feeling and aridity.Low self-esteem.Loyalty towards teachers and leaders.Routine...
The Lonely Song
Here’s a short quote from Schopenhauer as Educator: Yet there will always be demi-gods who can endure to live, and live victoriously under such terrible conditions; and if you want to hear their lonely song, listen to the music of Beethoven.Nietzsche (The terrible...
The Power Of Blogging For Writers
Blogging via open source software such as WordPress offers many benefits to a writer, but the power of WordPress blogging in a free country is this: You are the creator, the editor, and the publisher of your content. You determine its quality and quantity—for better...
My Nonfiction Writing Project Filters
A challenge I'm having right now is focusing and completing one of my nonfiction writing projects. I have several at various stages of completion: some at the conceptual stage, some at the outline stage, and two with several thousand words already written. Yet I'm...
My Achilles’ Heel
I am gearing up for a significant personal 6-month project which starts October 1st. For me, the question isn’t whether I have the brain power, or the creativity, or the skill, or the energy, or the time, or the seed money, or the talent. It’s whether I have the...
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...