If you think something external is causing you stress or keeping you from the life you want, you’re looking in the wrong place. This early passage in Walden reminded me of how the challenges of living your life how you want to change with the external changes of the world. Thoreau could have described today. Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so[…] Keep reading →

This post is about one of the best experiences of my life. I couldn’t have planned it, but looking back I realized I had spent years preparing for it. When you’ve prepared, sometimes you only need to show up. One fall in the mid to late 90s, when I was playing ultimate seriously, I was looking for a team to play with. A good friend of mine told me about[…] Keep reading →

The other day I was arguing with a friend. Maybe not a full argument, but a misunderstanding. During a break I got online and noticed a link to an interview with someone whose thinking I liked. The first few minutes of the interview told me it would help. I suggested to my friend we both listen to the interview. We did. We then immediately came to understand each other, resolved[…] Keep reading →

I studied physics to nearly the farthest levels you can at one of the great institutions. Now I study evolutionary psychology more. I’ve thought about these things a lot. As a practicing businessman and inventor, I look to nature — physics — for ideas to create and engineer to bring to market. As a leader I look to people — biology — to interact with, team up with, buy from,[…] Keep reading →

Learning Chinese as I am, I’m learning a lot of rules of that language. If you’ve spoken to me in person over the past few years, you’ve probably heard my fun-with-language game to purposefully conjugate the verbs to be and to have wrong. I often say “How is you?” or “I has to go to the store.” I’ll be the first to admit the mis-conjugation is affected, but it’s also[…] Keep reading →

Richard Feynman, one of my heroes, Nobel prize in physics winner, and entertaining guy, had concise advice in his commencement address to Caltech relevant to yesterday’s post on not fooling yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. Here’s the text of the full speech, which is famous in scientific circles for his concept of “cargo cult science“,[…] Keep reading →

I can’t help reposting a comment I put on another site. Readers here know that while I don’t eat meat I don’t consider avoiding it virtuous or better. I don’t consider not eating meat any more healthy, virtuous, humane, delicious, or whatever than eating meat. I don’t understand why so many people who eat meat call themselves vegetarian. What do they gain? As best I can tell they consider not[…] Keep reading →

Entering a public bathroom in China means your clothes and hair will smell like smoke all day. It feels barbaric to me. Does that overstate things? It just gets to you after a while. I can’t believe how smoky they get. Do you get the same feeling?

I don’t know if this will sound deep or what, but this question hit me the other day and I found it making me think enough about perception to share it here. Perception being one of the main components of my Model, I like thinking about and understanding more about perception, whether literal, physical perception, or conceptual. Maybe it will read like a koan. Everything has a color. My computer[…] Keep reading →