It feels like watching a land mass splinter into pieces in fast forward, dividing a single species into many; Darwin’s finches. Let’s hit pause, rewind, play to figure out what’s happening.
Let’s start with the situation at Columbia University. It …
My grandmother used to remind me - typically in response to an inexplicable decision I had made - that when I was 5 years old I told her: Grandma, I’m a player, not a worker. Hard to say if I …
Progressives must today be “anti racist”. Complexity and nuance has been collapsed into a one-dimensional axis of oppressor/oppressed. This is based on immutable things like racial identities; character is irrelevant.
The word evil has lost meaning. This matters because when …
Post; hit publish; share. To share is to leave a record, a residue of our having existed. It's modern cave painting.
Contemplation is invisible, time consuming and hard. To understand and not share is to question whether the contemplation happened. …
We walk down the street. “5” he says. “hmm”, I ask? “5. That’s how many people I’ve seen in the window in my life”.
We continue walking. I look up, noticing the figure in the window. He’s running background jobs, …
Decisions, options and overwhelm destroy clear thinking.
What is it you would miss if your time was cut short?
This question tends to cut through most of the cruff. Visualize it. That feels like a good way in to the …
It's a marathon. Or maybe it's a series of sprints. Whatever it is, the thing that's important is to notice fatige. Sometimes struggling against a specific problem, or even trudging one foot in front of the other in a general …
Overwhelm is the enemy of craft. The rush, the deadline, the stress. On it goes. Fear underlies this. What is the fear? What if I miss the deadline? Will I be mocked? Get a bad review? Fired?
How can we …
Bill Gates codes programs on a sheet of paper that he will later punch into the computer; Feynman scribbles equations describing a spinning plate (related to his Nobel Prize) in the school cafeteria; Sherlock Holmes; The guy working out in …
Hard things make us better. It’s what we were designed for. If you doubt this, ask: why does my body - as if by magic - adapt to these hard things? When I lift a weight repeatedly I will be …
I finally understand the dictum to "know thyself".
I am grateful for the struggles before me. They aren't fair. People are making decisions without the full information....etc. etc. But I do genuinely mean it that I'm grateful for these issues …
As a child I recall falling asleep staring at my night light. An array of yellow-orange light beams danced through liquid eyelids. They were the closest thing to a connection I knew. I was thinking about this as I dozed …
The frisbee veers into the brush. Lua and I walk over. As we crouch over the planter box I look down and notice green protruding jaws cup two tablespoons of water. As I inch closer, I notice white spots, patterns …
Holding onto work too long leads to stagnation, like part of a river branch flowing into a dead end swamp.
A good outcome for showing work is either some fundamental flaw is exposed or tweaks suggested to optimize it. Either …
I engage with the present moment - in this case, staring at my daughters face. And there’s no background noise - remarkable. I’m calm, just…being. It’s peace. Not by addition, rather by subtraction! The removal of cruff leaves the desired …
I pass over a graveyard. If I had to guess I would say the overwhelming majority of bones beneath the stones had unfinished business - open loops.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish response to solving this issue and putting it …
I pass over a graveyard. If I had to guess I would say the overwhelming majority of bones beneath the stones had unfinished business - open loops.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish response to solving this issue and putting it …
There are several flavors of exhaustion. Here’s the taxonomy.
This is my enemy. This is what I’ve been doing the past few days as I onboard at a new company (oh, I’m now at Facebook!). But …
The cursor pulses hot green against the black terminal. A few quick taps execute the script. I watch the simulation unfold on the screen. Then, a stocatto barrage of keystrokes: Simulation number 39…no change from 38…The pX protein displays kinetics …
On the way to seeing her I jotted down the memories, talking point bullets in my notebook: the warm feeling from sitting on the carpet as a kid, the smell of spaghetti and meatballs permeating the air on a random …
The day begins at 4:30. I must have eaten more than I can remember the previous night. I cooked up a vat of pasta, garlic bread and salad for a few folks including some fellow K-star runners. We watch chariots …
…If you emphasize the physical side of training you may become superbly conditioned but mentally not advanced at all. On the other hand, if you concentrate on the mental aspect, it is inevitable that the physical side will follow. My
