Category Archives: Brief Musings

Or, the Cure to Anxiety Maybe you expected to see this subhead say something like “and here’s why that’s okay” or “and it doesn’t matter”. But this is not some ode to self-care. Nor is it some weird segue into explicating the doctrine of original sin (I’m no theologian, though I am a notoriously bad […]

Is learning how to disagree an art? You may disagree. However, that is entirely within your rights. Art is notoriously subjective, after all. Moreover, I acknowledge that the fact you disagree is very unlikely to be motivated solely by the desire to somehow hurt me; if it is, then I regret to inform you that […]

A few weeks ago, my good friend Alex died. It was not due to coronavirus, rather, some other illness took his life in what was a complete shock to everyone who knew him, from friends to colleagues to acquaintances. At the same time, the all-encompassing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic kept encroaching slowly upon everyday […]

Thesis: Even as modern societies struggle with the adverse effects of digital immersion on mental and social health, a second wave of even more immersive experiences is imminent, with unanticipated yet not wholly negative consequences for cultural norms. Virtual reality is quite hard – augmented reality may be even harder, all said and done, based […]

Thesis: What makes the most sense to be decentralized? The maintenance and operations of the people closest to doing the thing. What makes sense to be centralized? The most common denominators and broadest parameters of the scenarios, e.g. laws that apply to all humans based on human nature, and decisions directly pertaining thereto. Human history […]

The sentiments of Christmas are so enduring because they so powerfully combine both the nostalgia and idealism intrinsic to human nature. Peace on earth to all humankind – who would openly disparage that? Joy to the world – however you follow that up, or for whatever reason you mention it, it is hardly a declaration […]

The coming of the internet promised easier access to quantities of information on a previously unimaginable scale. Until the first truly ingenious browsing tool was invented by a company with a name alluding to quantities, there was fierce competition for the ability to find that information. There is still competition for the best aggregation of […]

(Armed with nothing more than mid-to-late 20s hubris, here’s the graduation speech that I wish most undergraduates and, heck, all other types of graduates could hear.) Most of you will fail at most of the things you undertake in your life. Some of those failures will be so small you may not even consider them […]

It’s rather sardonically amusing that, even amid the latest uproar around giant tech companies’ violations of user privacy, most people don’t really seem to care all that much about their privacy. Exchanging one’s browsing history and app usage for free access to such great tools such as Gmail, Google Drive, Facebook and the like still […]

A favorite if frustratingly smug exclamation of mine is “Time is a biological construct.” It’s not strictly true, as time is more of a purely physical construct than anything else that enables our limited mentalities to make sense of a world in which we are bound to three dimensions bodily but can dimly grasp the […]