Reading Time: 4 minutes When visiting Barcelona, I get a singular sense of tranquil convulsion. I have never experienced a place that carries such an air of revolution and chaos with absolute ease. When exploring its streets, you can’t help but notice some of its innate contradictions. Many cities contain contradictions. But typically, these contradictions are jarring. I think […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes I recently read Thich Naht Hanh’s Zen tome, Peace Is Every Step. It is a soothing read on how to exist peacefully in the modern world. Overall, it reaffirmed my love for his work. But in the last chapter, he steps outside his usual parabolic style of writing to offer a set of guidelines on […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Phil Jackson, the legendary NBA coach, tucked a profound insight about our mental states into his book, Sacred Hoops. He focused his articulation of it around basketball, and as a result, it hasn’t been as widely discussed as I think it should be. So I’d like to reframe it outside of basketball. Jackson believed deeply […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes What percentage of people’s decisions are driven by their desire to craft their own identity? How much of their choice in music? What portion of their spending? How many of their acts of kindness? Of love? The paths for their career and family? A cynic tends to choose a higher number: “Nobody actually is nice/is […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Why do we like to drink? Or get high? This question typically evokes highly personal answers: to numb pain, to be more social, to appreciate the taste, or fuck off, I just like it. I think the root behind any of those answers is to get closer to oblivion. Oblivion /əˈblivēən/, noun: a. the fact […]
Reading Time: 6 minutes Last night at the bar, I found myself in a conversation about the meaning of life. I had just met the guy, who worked in tech, and he shared how he used to think the meaning of life was to reproduce – until he spoke with a gay person who wasn’t interested in that. Now, […]
Reading Time: 7 minutes A few months ago, my girlfriend broke up with me. I was not particularly happy. I had to make a lot of changes in my life, including finding a new show to watch. I decided to re-watch Mad Men. I figured it would be productive for me to experience male characters that had no problem […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes I spent the last quarter of 2015 in the tech capital of the world, San Francisco. There were apps for everything and wearables for everyone. As a self-proclaimed early adopter, I was excited to be among my people. But even in this forward-thinking, future-facing bastion of the tech elite, a familiar concern prevailed: we have […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes The parable of Diderot’s Robe was one of the most impactful articles I read in 2015. Here’s the Cliffsnotes: After living his life in poverty, the French philosopher (pictured above) was awarded an ornate robe by the emperor of Russia. Suddenly, everything else he owned looked terrible by comparison. So he bought tons of brand new […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes The exact definition of social entrepreneurship is widely debated, but there is one thing everyone agrees on: it involves a business addressing a social issue. One that extends beyond consumer desires into a greater community impact. But that has an implicit assumption: the business is forgoing some level of profit to address that problem. Why […]