Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Here in Sydney, we are in lockdown, so I haven’t been going anywhere. A few updates on my end: I joined the Foster cowriting program with a scholarship Learning Japanese is going exceptionally well Conversation Culture is still running weekly,...
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Here in Sydney, we are in lockdown, so I haven’t been going anywhere. A few updates on my end: I joined the Foster cowriting program with a scholarship Learning Japanese is going exceptionally well Conversation Culture is still running weekly,...
Smart notes are a way of recording ideas that aim to free our minds from the arduous task of holding and juggling our ideas and enables us to focus on rewarding creative work....
I haven't sent out a new letter in a while. Here's a quick update as to how I'm doing. 21/4/2021...
Hello everyone, Perhaps it should go without saying, but I hope you are all doing well. I mean, it's not like I want you to suffer — that would be rather strange, wouldn't it. I sincerely hope you are happy, dear reader. I don't have an essay for you this week...
The quest for good explanations is at the heart of science and all of our fields of knowledge. In this piece, I discuss the different between good and bad explanations. Namely; that they are hard-to-vary....
Why not use marketing principles to keep people happy? Why not use them to empower everyone to behave in ways that will improve the lives of themselves and others? Much like a knife can be used to wound or simply cut vegetables, marketing is ultimately a tool that can be used for good or for ill....
I have been wondering how much of this is also applicable to learning any language, and how much of this even applicable to learning *anything at all*. What are the mistakes we all tend to make when learning, and how is it that we can overcome them?...
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I've had a realisation, actually this has been floating in my mind for a while. When I started out writing these letters, I had so much to say, so many things I wanted to tell you. The words would flow almost...
Hello everyone, I hope you are well. I woke up early this morning to find out that we have a new President-Elect of the United States of America. It is my hope that with Joe Biden taking the reins everything can return to normal, that the pandemic will be addressed...
I spent a month living pretty much like a monk, in the local monastery. Here is what I learned....
I am about to leave on a one-month meditation retreat. Here is why....
In this letter, I want to make the case for libertarian principles and introduce you to a problem I have been thinking about; *how do we get everyone to cooperate without coercion?*...
Hello everyone, As usual, I hope you are all well. I want you to contemplate all the factors that your wellness depends on. Many of you will think instinctively to your loved ones; your friends and your family. You may also be thinking of the material things needed to sustain...
Hello everyone, It feels good to write to you each week like this. I sincerely hope you have been finding benefit in what I have to say. The reason I write these every week is because I have something to say, I have ideas that I believe will benefit others...
Hello everyone, I hope you are all well, and that you will continue to be well for decades to come. In today’s letter, I will be telling you all about the quest to ensure this happens, that is; the science behind what we have done to address the problem...
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” When we are born, we are given a name. We walk through life with a strong attachment to it, as if something about those syllables revealed who we really are. We pick up many more names on the way. I...
For many of us, the consumption of meat is an everyday occurrence, an activity woven into the fabric of our lives. It is just the way it is, and the way it always has been. It can be difficult to imagine what life would be like without it. This is,...
Life is suffering. This statement is widely recognised as the first of the four noble truths of Buddhism. The only thing is, it’s wrong. The Buddha never said it. The word he used to describe life was the Pali word “dukkha”. This word often is mistranslated as suffering, but...
My mother was having trouble opening a drawer. She pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, she yelled “Jesus!” and it finally opened. “Did you see that? Because I asked Jesus I was able to open it.” This didn’t impress me. “So what you are saying is...
Hatred. Anger. Jealousy. These are all forms of suffering. These are all mental defilements. It is in your own interest to banish these demons from your mind. Even from a purely selfish point of view, it can be said that there are some emotions we would truly be better off...
There are two biases that seem to be affecting all of us for the worse, that I would like to bring to your attention. 1. The Availability Bias[1] We judge the likelihood of events and the state of affairs based on how easily we can recall the data. Think...
“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage” “Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle–but no dragon. “Where’s the dragon?” you ask. “Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected...
In life we come across a whole myriad of different kinds of situations, each requiring us to respond in different ways. Not knowing how to address the different vicissitudes of life is a cause for much of the difficulty in it. There isn’t a single clear cut solution to...
Venkataraman was a seemingly ordinary sixteen year old. One day he found himself suddenly paralysed with a fear of death. He laid down on the floor of his uncle’s study convinced he was about to die. Instead of remaining terrified he asked himself; “Who was it that was about to die?"...
This is my rendition of an ancient tale. This is not the original story. I did not create the events in it.[1] There once lived a miserable man. He was profoundly dissatisfied with everything in his life. Nothing he tried to do, ever seemed to go right. No one...
Where exactly do we draw the line between what we call good and what we call bad? What is it we hope to accomplish by walking a straight path in life? The purpose in this piece is to make the case, that morality is concerned with safeguarding the well being...
In this piece I want to demonstrate the following three propositions; 1. Our beliefs necessarily prevent or enable us to get what we value out of life. 2. We do not choose our beliefs. 3.Beliefs are unworthy of respect...
When people use the word “nature” what they usually mean seems to be “things that happen without people doing things”. Notice something? Like how arbitrary it is. Why do we so quick to separate humans and nature as if they were two entirely separable things?...