Author: eric
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grasping at sand
When I was a young boy, sometimes while asleep I clearly knew I was dreaming. I would even inform other people appearing in those dreams that it wasn’t going to last. On occasion, I would solemnly share that when I woke up they’d likely be gone. In one particularly memorable dream, as I felt myself…
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woa, woa, woa, feelings
By way of background, for the past five years I’ve started each day with a 15 minute series of standing exercises (called ba duan), staring out a window looking across the valley onto the Oquirrh Mountain range seen above. It began as a way to enhance a decades long daily practice of tai chi but…
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no one in their left mind
Illustration above: Bedroom curtains and blinds (7/6/24) I recently stumbled upon an art instruction classic (well-known to millions of others since 1979): Dr. Betty Edwards’ “Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain.” Its title says it all. The corpus callosum is the nerve bridge bundle that allows the brain’s left and right hemispheres to…
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caution to the wind
“You can’t be too careful.” Or can you? Does this mean there’s no amount of caution that would be excessive – that the stakes are too high for any risk-taking? Or, alternatively, is this an admonition to avoid being too careful? In creative arts, risk aversion gets in the way of innovation. Might it be…
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proportionality
What’s with this love for proportionality? I’m referring to the notion that one side in a conflict should limit its response to an attack to be equal in force to that of the other side’s provocation. But nothing more. Can someone please explain why this is a good idea? The putative rationale I’ve heard is…
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what they’re not doing
There’s this fear among parents (and grandparents) that social media is causing problems in teens that wreak havoc on their well-being and personal development. Although I have avoided social media apps like the plague, I beg to reject these misplaced fears. Social media is no more dangerous to teens and tweens than are video games,…
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putting up with
The Merriam-Webster dictionary folks have just announced that a preposition is now a part of speech you can end a sentence with. Get out! click image to enlarge Lorem ipsum, my butt. This reflects a linguistic trend that I for one am not fond of. After all, incorporating “which” or “whom” behind a preposition and…
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the future is now
Here’s a snippet I came across that has been attributed to various sources dating back to the early 1900s: “The future is just one damn thing after another.” Unlike today, folks back then were clairvoyant.
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stress
While reading about firearm safety, I came across this definition of stress… “Stress is the state of not believing you have the resources to handle a situation.“ I found this to be a thoughtful insight about the feeling of being off-balance and under some duress. From a different angle, in chemistry, Le Chȃtelier’s principle is…
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u.s. elections
There’s this widely-held notion that the two-per-state composition of the U.S. Senate unduly advantages “red” states (rural areas) with sparse populations as compared to those more densely-populated (urban) “blue” states. A corollary to this idea is that the U.S. House of Representatives does the opposite, i.e., because it is a per capita form of representation (each…
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taking vs making
In the United States, the idiom used to describe the act of reaching closure on a set of choices under consideration is to “make the decision.” In the UK and much of Europe, the idiom for that act is to “take the decision.” Semantics aside, taking a decision suggests that the decider (a term popularized…
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curse of the mirror
Upon getting out of bed this morning I passed by our bedroom mirror. I paused for a moment to get a better look. To be blunt, I looked like crap. I don’t mean I looked sickly – nor any more disheveled than one generally looks upon rising in the morning after a good night’s sleep.…
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dead or alive
Ben Franklin famously gave the advice of writing down pros and cons in two opposing columns, making an algebraic-like assessment, and then simply rendering the correct decision. The best choice of the two would then be obvious. Although that’s not bad counsel in certain narrow circumstances, it fails miserably as an effective approach to decision…
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democracy is popular
Democracy is awesome, right? Yet an inherent fundamental flaw remains: giving the power to the people, left to their own devices, the majority can easily exploit the minority. This shortcoming has reared its head repeatedly throughout history. When it gets particularly ugly, we call it “populism.” Put differently, populism is a rather common product of…
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survivorship bias
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During World War II, researchers at the Center for Naval Analyses conducted a study on the damage done to Allied aircraft returning after bombing missions. Based on damage assessments, they recommended adding armor to those areas showing the most extensive damage in order to minimize future losses to enemy fire. However, Abraham Wald suggested that…
