The Structure of a Story
“Human beings master the basics of storytelling as young children and retain this capability throughout their lives.” — Stephen Denning When psychologist T. A. Harley researched the academic …
Culture
Passionate Prose: Balzac’s Love Letter
“I feel foolish and happy as soon as I let myself think of you.” — Honoré de Balzac *** Even in the age of email, texts, and snap chats nothing has replaced the power of a hand-written …
Bertrand Russell: Love is Wise, Hatred is Foolish
“Love is wise, hatred is foolish.” — Bertrand Russell *** The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) gave us some of the more enduring developments in 20th-century philosophy. …
Abraham Lincoln’s Last Public Address
A few days before his assassination on April 15th, 1865 Abraham Lincoln gave his final public address. The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln does a good job setting the context. General Lee …
The Optimism Bias: Imagining A Positive Future
In The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, Tali Sharot argues that we have a neurobiological basis for imagining a positive future. “Humans,” she writes, “do …
Talent Is Persistence
Kirby Ferguson is a New York based filmmaker who also writes. He’s also the man behind the Everything is a Remix video series, which is about influence and appropriation in the creative process. …
26 Musings from Kierkegaard on What It Means to be A Human Being
I read the The Quotable Kierkegaard at the same time as Mike Tyson. Yes that Mike Tyson1. Apparently he loves the political incorrectness of philosophy. “I don’t really do any light …
Laws of Character and Personality
The Unwritten Laws of Engineering is a book for those engineers who have more obstacles of a personal nature in organizations than technical. First published as a series of three articles in …
11 Rules for Critical Thinking
A fantastic list of 11 rules from some of history’s greatest minds. These are Prospero’s Precepts and they are found in AKA Shakespeare: A Scientific Approach to the Authorship Question: All beliefs …
Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
The “last lecture” is common with a lot of professors on college campuses. Professors are asked to consider what matters most to them. If you’ve ever sat in the audience for one of …
The Impoverishment of Attention
“While the link between attention and excellence remains hidden most of the time, it ripples through almost everything we seek to accomplish.” *** Focus matters enormously for success in …
What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House
In the era of Kindles, tweets, Facebook and instant celebrity how should presidents act? “Are we really better off with a president who knows who Snooki is?”, asks Tevi Troy in his …
Stop Reading News
When was the last time reading the news made you wiser? Not more informed – wiser. We stuff ourselves with headlines and updates, believing that more information makes us smarter. Yet this daily …
The Best Books of 2013: Your 10 Overall Favorites
From philosophy and friendship to idea creation and building daily routines. While I never had any doubt that Farnam Streeters are the smartest people on the internet, the data once again tells that …
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
Scott Adams, the famous creator of Dilbert, has made a very good living by understanding and revealing human psychology. In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams shares “the …
Joan Didion on Keeping a Notebook
Keeping a notebook or diary is easy to dismiss. I often hear people tell me that it’s OK for other people, but it’s not for them. I always find this stance curious as the habit of keeping …