I’ve read a lot of books on nature. Most focus on facts, figures, and information that don’t help. To the extent they provoke emotion, they do so heavyhandedly, lacking genuineness or authenticity. If you’re explaining, you’re losing, as a former U. S. President said, and most books on nature explain. I just finished a book, Over, which you can review online in its entirety for free. It’s mostly a book[…] Keep reading →

On January 9, 2001 the Wall Street Journal published New Motion-Picture Advertising May Enhance London Subway Rides by Sarah Ellison, on the technology I conceived of. We launched later that year in Atlanta, then soon after New York City, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Budapest, Athens, Mexico City, Chicago, and more, eventually reaching the Heathrow Express. News coverage of our launches Our launches got a lot of press. The technology was[…] Keep reading →

What does it mean to master a field? It comes from practicing, performing, reflecting, and practicing more. The result is liberation and freedom. Self-expression. Seeing mastery happen before your eyes Everyone who masters anything goes through a similar process that includes inexperience, looking less than amateurish, practicing, reflection, self-doubt, despair, progress, regress, anxiety, improvement, moving backward, mentoring, and so on. Years ago I found a site that showed the sketches[…] Keep reading →

People disagree on how great or not great America is. Some say we’ve lost our edge in this area or that. Others say we excel in everything. By some measures like GDP we’ve outperformed others for generations. Our military dominates others in total size and firepower. We’ve almost never been invaded. What makes us excel when we do? I’ll answer this question from my perspective not to say good, bad,[…] Keep reading →

Food started my path to finding that acting on my environmental values improves my life. Before trying, I expected stewardship to feel like a burden or chore. Eating from scratch relieved me of that misperception. Food is delicious so great place to start your journey. A new book came out in the Without the Hot Air Series that began with David J.C. MacKay’s Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, available[…] Keep reading →

I’ve meant to post one of my favorite posts, Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 1, to my column at Psychology Today. At last I did. I love the post and what it brings people. I posted it here in 2013, the better part of a decade ago. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it at Psychology Today or on this blog. I’ll post part 2 there[…] Keep reading →

For years I had to wear orthotics when running in regular running shoes and still felt back pain to where I gave up running. Switching to minimal running shoes returned me to pain-free running. Interviewing podcast guest Nir Eyal, he talked about barefoot running. Most people mean ‘minimal shoe’ when they say ‘barefoot,’ but Nir meant barefoot. I decided to experiment running barefoot. Switching to minimal shoe running, where I[…] Keep reading →

If you haven’t seen the pictures recently published by Charles Custer, who drove America’s route 66 with his wife in 1950-51, you’re in for a treat—and, for some of you, a challenge to preconceived notions about progress. They show in wonderful detail, composition, and style, an America now gone, replaced by uniformity, efficiency, and overpopulation. I’ll take the liberty of posting one, but there are 148 of them here, and[…] Keep reading →

I found this bookmark at my mom’s house. She and my stepfather don’t remember buying it so my mom figures someone gave it to them. Here’s the front. Don’t the flowers look pretty? When I was a kid we’d sometimes pick flowers or leaves and press them between pages of books, so making a bookmark of them makes sense. They aren’t flowers, though. They’re pictures of flowers, printed onto paper,[…] Keep reading →