Apr 4How Context Explains the Meaning of LifeThe most important question ever asked — and one attempt at an answer. A science teacher shared a video on TikTok giving a brief (yet thorough) glimpse into the unimaginably massive size of our universe. The teacher explains how enormous everything is by detailing the number of times our Earth…Philosophy14 min read
Dec 21, 2021Can We Ever Really Know Anything?A quest to solve the trickiest puzzles of existence. — Imagine you’re in an empty room. In front of you is your best friend or your significant other (if you’re lucky, they’re the same person). Pick just one (I won’t tell). You’re now sure that your bestie or partner is in the room with you. You can see them; they…Philosophy15 min read
Jan 9, 2021I Finally Invested in Bitcoin. Here’s Why.After half a dozen podcasts, part of an audiobook, and countless articles from experts and bloggers: I finally bought $2 of Bitcoin. Not two Bitcoin, mind you. Two dollars worth of the stuff. At the time of initial investment, two whole Bitcoin would have set me back about $40,000, or…Cryptocurrency8 min read
Nov 16, 2020Fringe Groups Offer a Critical, Teachable MomentEven as a sitting President continues to lob disparaging remarks on social media about the integrity of the election, we have yet another (related) issue with which to contend. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an adherent of theories espoused by QAnon — the pro-Trump conspiracy group that the FBI has labeled anti-government…Politics4 min read
Feb 17, 2019The Eighth Wonder of the WorldAccording to legend, Albert Einstein said there was an eighth wonder of the world. This particular bit of nature has the ability, like nothing else in the universe, to combat entropy, that secret magic of the Angel of Death, sprinkled out amidst our atoms like salt in a wound. Matter…Finance6 min read
Feb 13, 2019Master the Stock Market in 8 Minutes or LessIt’s January of 2018. Frost hangs in the 50º Los Angeles air. It might be even colder, but no one is brave enough to find out. …Investing8 min read
Feb 7, 20197 Unbelievable Habits You Can Steal from Famous WritersWriting can be a lonely profession. When your job is to sit by yourself and hammer out page after page, there will likely be days that you lack motivation. It happens to the best of us. Sometimes, inspiration simply runs dry. …Writing8 min read
Sep 20, 2018Dinosaur PoopDiscovering history in unlikely storehouses of the past — I saw her hands first. Spindly, splayed in front of her golf shirt, a penitent gesture. She apologized, “We’re closing early today. In thirty minutes. I have a doctor’s appointment. I just wanted to let you all know.” She bounced her head a little as she said it, each sentence…Creative Non Fiction7 min read
Sep 14, 2018Lights Off, Eyes OpenTreading a trail through the dark matter of communication and understanding. In his landmark text Of Grammatology, French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) wrote, “There are things like reflecting pools, and images, an infinite reference from one to the other, but no longer a source, a spring. There is no longer any simple origin….The reflection, the image, the double, splits what it…Science5 min read
Sep 9, 2018Doubt Is a LocomotiveHow I went from faith to skepticism and learned to love the journey. Photo: Taneli Lahtinen. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (a personal favorite), he writes, “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” It is a statement about finding your belief system and sticking to it despite naysayers. …Philosophy8 min read
