Seeing the World through the Japanese Concept of Wabi-Sabi

by

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept through which the world is accepted as beautifully imperfect with humble and subtle flaws as it naturally grows and decays. Etymologically, the noun wabi is better understood through its adjective form wabishii (wretched, dreadful). In time, a negative connotation of wabi transformed through the influence of Zen philosophy, with its core concepts of accepting and contemplating imperfection and impermanence, into the quiet simplicity of rustic beauty, for things created by nature or people.  Wabi is beauty coming from subtle imperfections.  The noun sabi is …

Read more

How to Maintain Our Creative Powers by Having Multiple Projects

by

The MacArthur Fellows Program is a prize awarded annually to 20 – 30 citizens or residents of the United States, from any field based on their demonstrated talent, dedication and potential, and not necessarily on their past achievements. The complete list of recipients is here. If you glance through it, you will notice the winners’ occupations are remarkably diverse: spider silk biologists, farmers, atmospheric chemists, painters, sculptors, tropical foresters, rare book preservationists, computer scientists, doctors, historians, etc. As the current prize for the MacArthur Fellows is $625,000 paid …

Read more

Brandon Sanderson’s Framework to Achieve Hard Things 

by

In 2020, Brandon Sanderson, an epic fantasy and science fiction writer, delivered an excellent keynote called The Common Lie Writers Tell You. This session was a map of achieving difficult things disguised as writing advice.  The first thing that jumps from this video is the lie we usually hear “you can do anything if you just set your mind to it”. In Sanderson’s words: Some things are simply impossible, and even for the things that are possible, luck plays a bigger role in accomplishments …

Read more

When Incentives Fail. A Story about Rats, Cobras, Nails, and Atrocities. 

by

Part 1: When Incentives Fail. A Story about Rats, Cobras, Nails, and Atrocities.  Part 2: Avoiding Perverse Incentives  More than a century ago, the French colonialists decided to modernize the French Indochina, especially its capital, Hanoi. Large areas of Hanoi were cleared to accommodate French-style districts with boulevards, bridges, palaces, villas and gardens. This major infrastructure project was supposed to transform Hanoi from a cramped and narrow city into a symbol of France’s “civilising” mission in Indochina.  A sign of cleanliness and civilization was …

Read more

When Rejected Ideas Are a Gold Mine

by

In her autobiography Walk through Walls, the performance artist Marina Abramović describes how she teaches her students the process of ideation: For the first three months, I place each student at a table with a thousand pieces of white paper and a trash can underneath. Every day they have to sit at the table for several hours and write ideas. They put the ideas they like on the right side of the table; the ones they don’t like, they put in the trash. But we don’t throw …

Read more

How to Reduce Biased Thinking

by

The brain is designed with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on its owner the comforting delusion that he or she does not have any.  Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson – Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)   Every day an overflow of thoughts dashes through our minds as we must adapt as efficiently and quickly as possible to everchanging environments. We can’t process all streams of information around us at once, so we turn to mental shortcuts …

Read more

An Overview of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Its Effects on Us

by

Cognitive dissonance is a theory proposed by Leon Festinger in the 1950s related to how we react in the face of conflicting behaviours and cognitions (ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions). According to this theory, people strive to keep their knowledge, attitudes or behaviours consistent (consonant). So, when we encounter contradictory information, we try to reduce contradicting (dissonant) cognitions and restore equilibrium by altering our attitudes, beliefs or behaviours.   Festinger argued that to cope with contradictory ideas or experiences, some of us would blindly believe what we …

Read more

Emotional Escapism: How Watching TV Shows Help Us Cope with Life’s Stressors

by

I simply couldn’t finish a new tv series for the last two years, as I was more drawn to my comfort shows, Monk, Brooklyn 99, Derry Girls, or Avatar: The Last Airbender. There is something oddly comforting in rewatching favourite tv shows when confronting pandemics, lockdowns, social injustice, or war. Comfort watching, instead of binge watching, is that gentle feeling that everything feels ok with the world. There is no twist, dialogue, or scene that could surprise me when I rewatch these shows, giving me a reassuring impression …

Read more