Archive

Every essay published on Exile Lifestyle, 778 of them, going back to 2009.

778 posts
2026

Ignorant and Naïve

I’m fortunate not to have all the details of my early adulthood chiseled into the immortal stone surface of the internet. Facebook materialized midway through…

People Are People

The most fundamental thing to remember when interacting with other human beings is that they are people, just like you. This shouldn’t be a heterodox…

It’s Not Just Me

When something’s going wrong with your health or your life or your relationships, or if you’ve suffered some horrible experience or found yourself holding just…

Slowly Changing Everything

Many of the real-life conversations I’ve had recently have orbited around the theme that everything’s changing, kinda sorta really fast, but also in some ways…

The I Don’t Suck Folder

When developing a new habit, it can be helpful to set yourself up for success in your strongest moments so that you’re more likely to…

Optionality

I’ve been stuck inside for days. First a heat wave rolled through, blasting the area with 100-degree-plus temperatures and skin-glazing humidity levels that made leaving…

So, So Easy

It’s so, so easy to learn things these days. We’ve been blessed with informational abundance for years, the internet bringing us wonders like the search…

Who Else Are You

A friend of mine recently told me about her decision to start eating fish and eggs again, after many years of strict veganism. She realized…

Conversational Depth

I personally believe that we should put everyone out of work. That’s a big statement, and for all you know, I could be saying that…

Ligaments and Tendons

The text on all the buttons in an app, the tiny instructions under a toggle on a website, and the pop-up tooltips you encounter on…

Early to Rise

For the better part of a decade, I’ve maintained a habit of getting to bed as close to 8pm, maybe 8:30pm as possible. I then…

Fluffy Optimization

Tools and systems can help us automate our tasks and routines, and much of the time, we should do exactly that when the opportunity arises.…

Adult Friendships

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Well-Rounded

Pleasure is a relatively superficial but high-impact and immediate experience. Eating a candy bar can be pleasurable in that we’re flooded with happy chemicals when…

The Starting Problem

When enthusiastic about something, it’s not uncommon to become so bogged down in details to the point that you never quite get around to getting…

Sustaining Curiosity

Especially at paradigm-fracturing moments when it feels like the ground is shifting, the world has changed, and our previously stable grip on “the way of…

Not One Map

I’ve always liked the idea of being my own patron, which in practice involves figuring out how to make enough money to both put a…

On Liking Things

When we hear a new song for the first time, we might immediately love it, we might knee-jerk hate it, and we might feel nothing…

Taking Stock

Every couple of years I begin to yearn for the relative predictability and camaraderie of a more conventional work-life. The idea of earning a paycheck…

Missing the Point

Some of us want to accumulate money because we simply can’t stop ourselves. To those thus inclined, money is like Pokémon cards or Civil War…

Directional Play

Hobbies are great because you don’t have to invest too much of yourself in them, but you absolutely can if you like, and if you…

Templates and Scripts

I have a general sense that—wherever we end up next, however our technologies and politics evolve, and whatever shapes our communities and systems and social…

Break to Make

I recently updated the operating systems on my iPhone and Macbook Pro, as usual waiting a while because the folks behind some of the software…

Hugs Not Nuggs

It’s been said that the average person living today—especially in wealthy countries—will enjoy a better overall quality of life than an emperor living a few…

Reset Layers

Every morning I like to reset to zero. After a quick little stretch-focused workout, I get the kettle going and put all the dishes and…

A Solved Problem

There’s a chance that some of the technologies that fit under the ever-enbroadening umbrella-term “AI” will end the world by vivifying a consciousness (or pseudo-consciousness)…

I’ll Need Fuel

It’s been said (by many people, as it turns out) that’s it’s difficult and at times dangerous to make predictions about the future. Which is…

Paradigms and Gaps

Back in 1960, the concept of paradigms was developed by Thomas Kuhn to refer to our framework of reality—what we seem to know, what seems…

Wantingness

I love the cold. Winter (and to a lesser degree Autumn) is when I can finally spend more time outside, because the sun isn’t persistently…

Info Hoarding

The Google Effect, sometimes called Digital Amnesia, refers to our tendency to treat our tools (like search engines or archives filled with captured notes) as…

Wishing or Doing

I use AI tools for development (in the sense of coding things), but not for much of anything else. I like to keep up with…

Localized

Something that wasn’t obvious to me (not consciously, at least) until the pandemic forced me to slow down and stay put for a few years…

Quality of the Light

Just after sunrise and just before sunset, there’s a period often called the Golden Hour (or Magic Hour, depending on who you ask) when the…

2025

That Was 2025

For me, 2025 will be remembered as a year in which the wheels fell off many of the large-scale structures I’ve long taken for granted,…

The Why of It

We’re rapidly approaching New Year’s, where we all make resolutions, many of which don’t stick, and we then castigate ourselves when our grand ambitions don’t…

Planting Seeds, Tending Gardens

There’s a tension between reinvesting in what we already have and investing in possible next-steps. You can think of this as ‘explore versus exploit,’ but…

This Is Me

An age ago, long before I would have reason to wonder whether my creative work might someday make any money, I was challenged by an…

Bad At Things

When I go too long without experiencing the gut-punch of failure, I know I’m doing something wrong. Feeling like I’m good at things feels good.…

The Magic of Consistency

I write every day. Words flow from my brain to my fingers to the keyboard to my screen, tallying somewhere in the 1-5k range, depending…

Nudgers

There’s an argument to be made that we should all be creating for AI. Doing so, it’s been posited, is the best way to ensure…

Fall Cleaning

For many people, the dawn of Spring triggers a desire to clear out the closets and tidy up the home; to get everything nice for…

Focus Focus Focus

At the most macro scale, focusing on where we are in life and where we’d like to go next can help us make calendar-level decisions.…

Light a Candle, Paint the Walls

We can worry about rot and horribleness and still tend a beautiful garden. I try to remember this when I feel myself drifting into a…

The Actual Thing

Any suitably aspirational goal will require we complete a bunch of steps before we can cross them off our list, and the stair-step nature of…

Creative Agency

When I was a child, I would often envision an incredibly rich, detailed image (usually something related to monsters or robots or superheroes), but I…

Horizon Scanning

There’s a term of art, “horizon scanning,” that initially emerged from the world of futures studies, but which has since been adopted by tech-oriented businesspeople,…

Concrete and Nebulous

Different types of work demand different sorts of fuel. You might be primed and ready to write an essay, but completely incapable of cleaning your…

It’s Temporary

I’ve got hair on my head, but hair isn’t guaranteed for anyone at any age. At some point, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few years,…

Surface Areas

I’m curious about pretty much everything, and I’m prone to falling into rabbit holes and picking up previously unfamiliar hobbies on a whim. I try…

Honing Stone

I write every single day. I often write for pleasure and exercise, but I also write essays and books, podcast scripts and speaking notes. And…

Stretch Projects

I like to have multiple projects going at a time, but they’re not all the same type of project, and they all require different sorts…

Not the Final Me

Something that helps me cope with periods of malaise, pain, or discomfort is reminding myself that the me I am today is not the final…

Ever So Slightly More Difficult

Most growth happens beyond our current capacity. Maintenance is good and healthful, and at times (and in some aspects of our lives) that’s exactly what…

The Stuff You Do

It feels good to have written a book. It’s similar, I suspect, to the feeling of running a marathon or hosting a successful dinner party:…

Status Quo Burdens

The price of a medication goes up, your rent or property taxes increase, maybe you suffer an injury or develop some kind of chronic condition.…

Persistence Curve

While we all have at least a few things we’re just latently good at, most of what we’re able to do (for fun or for…

Strengths

It’s good to feel strong, and that’s perhaps even more true during periods of unrest and change. The word “strong” often evokes concepts like steel…

Tactical Reset

A surprising number of technical issues can be solved by resetting the glitchy device. Sometimes you have to unplug it or hold down several buttons…

Eye-Opening

I wear contact lenses most days, though I wear glasses while getting ready in the morning and at night before going to bed. I got…

Why Not This Way?

Many norms, folkways, and standards exist because they’re (almost always) the best way to do something (by some metric). The USB-C standard isn’t the most…

Signaling

A whole lot of what we do—probably more than we’d care to admit, even to ourselves—is the result of social signals, both received and sent.…

Opportune Moment

Whatever work you do, you almost certainly rely on other entities for some aspect of the goods or services you provide. I rely on several…

The Slowdown

Being able to persist through difficult times, tedious moments, and dark nights of the soul is important if you want to achieve any kind of…

Nothing In the Tank

Ideas tend to beget more ideas, but only if you spend the ones you accrue. It’s a nice feeling, having a good idea. But if…

Failure States

I will, at times, fail. And the more I push myself the more failure I’ll tally—so optimally I’m failing at things semi-regularly. That’s a tough…

Believing Myself

The difference between competence and confidence is that the former refers to one’s ability to do things and the latter refers to one’s belief in…

The Weakest Me

When I’m trying to establish a new habit—working out each morning or freewriting for a few minutes each day, for instance—I try to set things…

Age 40

At 40, a man living in the United States has used up more than half of his statistical years; the average man dies at around…

Recognizing, Understanding, Fixing

The things I’m most embarrassed to have done over the course of my life have almost universally been the result of self-consciousness. I’ve worked on…

Sharecropping

I’ve been feeling ambivalent about social media platforms these past few years, and part of that ambivalence has been the result of truly anti-user behavior…

Midlife Crises

Midlife crises can be annoying, cringe-inducing, and even hurtful (especially when they lead to income disruptions, breakups, and other things that impact folks beyond those…

First Drafts

I recently finished the first draft of a new book I’m working on (the initial entry in a new science-fiction trilogy I’m having an absolute…

Filling Potholes

Potholes are pits in asphalt surfaces (like roads) caused by a weakness in the underlying soil that’s been amplified by the weight and impact of…

Pre-Indexing

In linguistics, “indexing” means establishing things within the context of a conversation. So if I say “I” while chatting with you over coffee, you know…

Is This Productive?

Networks like Facebook and Instagram have increasingly oriented their services around their own, internal (mostly economic) goals, which as a result has made the experience…

Validation

Validating another person’s feelings often just means listening when they tell you about something that’s wrong (or worrying them, or stressing them out) and then…

Bliss Point

There’s a concept in the food world, “bliss point,” that refers to the perfect balance of salt, sugar, and fat to make a food optimal…

Fits and Starts

I’m about a third of the way through writing a new book, and I’m trying to figure out how to get my protagonists from where…

Blurry

I’m near-sighted and I have astigmatism. So I wear contact lenses to help me see things far away, and my eyeballs have “rotational asymmetry,” which…

We Are Responsible

Many forces influence what we think and how we behave. These factors can be pernicious and potent, but we’re responsible for our actions. We might…

Acceptance

I know several people who are currently struggling to accept aspects of reality that don’t align with 1. who they believed they would be, 2.…

Cognitive Overload

When there’s a lot happening all at once, it’s not uncommon to experience cognitive overload: a nonstop feeling of overwhelm, memory problems, difficulties with focus,…

2024

Another Year

Another year around the sun, another 365 days tallied, another torrent of experiences weathered and another boatload of lessons learned. Last December, my life was…

Prodding and Reaffirming

I’ve been toying with the idea of continuously wearing some kind of “smart” gadget that tracks basic things like heart rate and steps taken, and…

Clearing the Way

It’s amazing how often a sense of stuckness or listlessness or internal confusion can be remedied (at least in part) by cleaning, reorganizing, and getting…

Internal Logic

I read a lot of fiction, and one of the biggest determinants of whether a book grips me or not is the degree to which…

Dark and Cozy

Milwaukee is cooling down. After a long October of teases, the temperature dropping for a few days before rocketing back up to the mid-80s (~30…

Consumption Season

We’re headed back into Please Buy Literally Everything season, so here are some quick thoughts on consumption, gifts, and the like. Many things (especially but…

Non-Clarity

I’m writing this before the end of election day, so I don’t know how everything’s going, whether I’m thrilled or sobbing, or how everyone involved…

The Fundamentals

When I’m trying to learn something new—anything really, from physical skills to a functional understanding of an unfamiliar subject—much of my initial effort is focused…

Tensions

Writing and sharing words would superficially seem to be the same thing no matter where you write and share them. But the number of words,…

Which Ends?

A new working paper suggests that there’s an imbalance in the benefits of working with artificial intelligence tools: some people get more out of them…

What’s My Thing?

When starting a new creative project—any kind of project, from writing a book to designing a new type of semiconductor—one of the better questions to…

Unlocked

One of the reasons I love doing the work I do is that it provides me more opportunities to say the right words to the…

Lustrous Tools

I recently decided to replace a (digital) tool that I’ve used every day, many times a day, for years. The outgoing tool is called Simplenote,…

Other Implications

I’m in the process of finalizing the specifics of a new project, and though the basics are sorted out and my pre-launch to-dos are essentially…

Pursuit-Worthy Elements

One way to figure out which challenges (of all possible challenges) are worth pursuing is to gauge how difficult they are to perform, how desirable…

Rising Waters

It’s an interesting time to be alive. I think that’s true both in the curse (“may you live in interesting times”) sense of the phrase,…

Fresh Coat of Paint

Novelty can be fun and refreshing; new home, new job, new relationships, new clothes or classes or whatever else. Introducing different variables into our lives…

Good For Me

I’ve recently segued into a new life season that’s defined by enthusiastic experimentation. This follows a period more focused on reassessment, refurbishment, and reinforcement. I’m…

Staggeringly Valuable

I probably use my laptop, a 2021 MacBook Pro, more than any other tool I own. It enables and amplifies my efforts in countless ways,…

Scattered Thoughts About Random Things

Some of the most incredible creative output of the past ten years (and arguably before that, too) has been created in support of video games…

Envisioning

It’s impossible to know what a future version of ourselves will want, need, and prioritize. But we make assumptions about our future selves (and the…

On Having Agency

One way of thinking about being a conscious, cognitively capable being is through the lens of agency. In this context, “agency” refers to our capacity…

I Can Take It

It’s not a bad idea to know how to take a punch. I don’t mean that in the literal, someone punching you in the face…

Endless Expansion

One of my primary aims in life, since I’ve been old enough to think about such things, has been increasing my range of options: upping…

Untrue Beliefs

Some beliefs are technically untrue, but still useful. I tend to believe I can do anything if I really want to, and if I’m willing…

Just Enough Predictability

Predictability is great because it allows us to make plans and investments, and to feel some degree of security. If we know where we’ll be…

Scars and Wrinkles

The more years I’ve accrued, the more obvious it’s become that I can’t take anything for granted. My physical capacities, my mentality clarity, the way…

Quixotic Variations

I’ve had some good discussions with friends, recently, about what we make and how we spend our time. There was a period in which you…

Vulnerability Hangover

Note: Paid supporters of my newsletter receive additional, monthly essays as a small thank-you for their support, and I’ve decided to open up this month’s…

Writing Books

I’ve been writing and publishing books professionally since 2010. A lot has changed in the publishing world since I started sharing my work and authoring…

Accomplishment

Note: Today’s essay is an excerpt from my upcoming book, How To Turn 39, which is about aging and how we might do it better.…

Seasonality

Note: This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, How To Turn 39, which is about aging and how we might do it better, and…

All This Space

Every time I finish a book (or bring some other major effort to a close) I find myself with what feels like an overwhelming volume…

Enabling Structures

It’s vital, I think, to give ourselves space, time, and energy to process difficult moments, to cope with cumbersome realities, and to undertake the (at…

Four Powerful Phrases

There’s a quartet of phrases that I use a lot, but which I don’t hear as often as I believe their usefulness justifies. The first…

Compelling or Addictive

Even a week after returning home from a family visit to Seattle, several of the songs my baby nephew loves are still stuck in my…

Lines

I’ve been using a little grammar app while editing my new book so that I have a visual sense of what I’m doing wrong (according…

Marble

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth, sometimes called the Bicycle Problem, refers to our tendency to assume we know more about something than we actually do.…

Then What?

When we’re making plans and setting goals, in some cases the desirability of the outcome will be assumed, our only real question being how to…

Everyday Kairos

One interpretation of the Greek term “kairos” is that it represents a point of maximal leverage for some kind of undertaking. So while “chronos” means…

Vague Footpaths

I’ve been thinking a lot about aging, of late, and the way we perceive it, deal with it, and respond to it. It’s been interesting…

Capacity and Application

I tend to believe that a life well lived (by most standards) involves a consistent increase in one’s personal capacity. In practice, this means we’re…

Simmer or Sear

Some creative work requires the application of quick, definitive force if you want to take what’s in your head, commit it to a distributable medium,…

2023

Some Final 2023 Thoughts

I decided at the last second to do away with my usual newsletter format for this final newsletter of 2023 (I’m taking next week off…

Taking Time

The calendar provides us with all sorts of baked-in milestone moments, and though we don’t require such moments (holidays, birthdays, etc) to pause, assess, try…

Instrumental Flute Era

There was an episode of Rick and Morty in which the father character is engaging in his hobby—beekeeping—and he’s being watched by his daughter’s friend…

Rearviews

I’ve had reason, recently, to look over a digital archive of my older written work. This can be both a thrilling and harrowing process, as…

The Lean

I don’t think false, unjustified optimism is productive, but I do have a bias toward reframing bad situations to focus on the (at times meager)…

Tending to Saplings

At any given moment I have more maybe-projects at early, sapling (and seedling) stages than projects I actually work on for a living, or those…

Boxes, Tubes, and Shovels

All metaphors are imperfect, as a map that is a 100% accurate representation of the region it portrays would be the region itself, defeating the…

Disconnected Thoughts About Reading Books

Books are just one way to consume written information. They’re wonderful in that they’re often optimized for deeper looks at things, but there are other…

Informed Opinions

It’s okay to not have an opinion about things. It can be awkward, though, and sometimes people will find it offensive if they share their…

Deeper Goals

When you consume alcohol, there’s a good chance your prime goal is not to consume alcohol: you’re looking to socialize, you’re interested in feeling altered,…

Generosity of Ignorance

Years ago, I dated an Icelandic woman who—among many other accolades—was an enthusiastic linguist. She spoke a handful of languages, and was always endeavoring to…

Compensation

More than once over the past handful of years I’ve adhered to a contractual rule that my landlord didn’t realize existed. It’s almost always a…

Resting State

One of my superpowers is figuring out how to do something big and cumbersome and specific, breaking it up into smaller (but still incredibly boring…

Discussing the News

The news can be stressful, anxiety-inducing, tribalism-reinforcing, and littered with misleading, misinformed, heavily biased takes. There are things we can do to make our news-consumption…

Sharing and Preserving

There's a tension between sharing enough of oneself to convey complete, round narratives, and sharing too much: stepping over the line into something uncomfortably open,…

Time Spent

I don't particularly enjoy the process of making a podcast: there are elements of it I find fulfilling and this process allows me to produce…

Social Tangles

For about a decade-and-a-half, beginning just after the arrival of smartphones in everyone's pockets and the subsequent deployment of social media platforms on those devices,…

Mini-Vacations

Over the years, I've often waxed poetic about my love for slow-paced, long-term travel, but I'm also a big fan of what I've come to…

What We Take In

I tend to believe that a balanced informational diet is important. That means trying to engage with a variety of different sources, different mediums, different…

When the Ground Moves

I've been working for myself, running a collection of publications and small businesses and "weird internet projects," since 2009. That's a long time ago! Smartphones…

Meant To Be Used

Our brains and bodies default to conserving energy. This energetic setting made a lot of sense in primordial history, as the creatures that could accumulate…

Places to Put Things

When I think about work, I sometimes visualize a collection of little boxes in which I can put things. This is true of paid work—the…

What I’ve Got

It can be useful to embrace your limitations when you feel stuck, uninspired, or unable to make any progress on some task or undertaking. Sometimes…

Energetic Expenditures

There are countless ways we might visualize our portfolio of intrinsic resources, but one metaphor I find to be useful is that of electrical production…

Motivation Sources

To what degree is what I want shaped by how I think others will treat me if I get it? This is a question I…

Notes On Speaking

I've been speaking professionally (in the sense of standing up in front of groups of people and talking for a while, for money) since 2009…

The Spark

Recent data almost universally suggest we're in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Folks are spending less time with friends and acquaintances, more time wishing…

Weighing Maybes

I'm in the process of figuring out "formats" for some experimentation I’m doing in the video world. In publishing or production, your format is a…

Training Wheels

A few months ago, I decided I should learn to do crossword puzzles. My dad's done them as far back as I can remember, always…

Fumbling and Juggling

I turn 38 this weekend, and as tends to be the case every year I've been wrangling over whether to instill the day with additional…

Microgrid Thinking

In the world of energy transmission and utility, a “microgrid” is an electrical grid that operates like a typical grid, but smaller and more modular.…

Enriching Exposure

One of my grand ambitions when I was younger was to build a lifestyle that would allow me to just sit around and read all…

Front-Loading

As a general rule, if there's something vital you need to get done, it helps to shift it forward to the morning. Everyone's circadian rhythm…

Vigilances

My car—a beige 2007 Prius I bought several years ago, and which I intend to keep driving until it's dead (over 150,000 miles and still…

Personal Affordances

Working the way I work is sub-optimal by many standards. Over the years, I've figured out all sorts of ways to do my work more…

Everlasting Present

When our lifestyle variables remain the same or roughly the same for long enough, it's a simple matter (bordering on the inevitable, for some of…

Optimism Scaffolding

I'm generally skeptical about claims of silver bullet solutions to complex problems. Biological matters—our bodies aging, our brains not always functioning as optimally as we'd…

Life Stages

I've spent maybe too much time over the past several years thinking about society's assumed, “normal” stages of life. This is partly (I suspect) because…

Particular Ways

When I find myself endlessly (and purposelessly) ruminating, worrying, or otherwise spiraling in a negative direction, maybe half the time I can pull myself from…

Extended Mind Reorganization

A flurry of new organization-, optimization-, communication-, and consolidation-focused tools have been announced and released over the past few years. Some are slightly upgraded versions…

Relatively Ignorant Opinions

One of the better decisions I've made over the past decade or so is allowing myself to say "I don't know" and "I don't have…

2022

Boxes and Tools

One way to assess the settings on our creative endeavors (professional, hobbyist, experimental, or any other commitment level) is to think in terms of boxes…

Sharp Tools

It's been a really wild year in the AI industry, and I have some thoughts on this category of technologies and its potential, alongside some…

Depth and Accessibility

I struggle sometimes—especially when starting a new project—at intuitively sussing the proper balance between depth and accessibility for whatever it is I'm presenting. These two…

Empowering Constraints

Many of the questions I field each day (in my inbox and DMs) are related to habits and how to formulate and implement productive, healthy…

Gratitude

It’s relatively well-known, at this point, that allowing ourselves to feel gratitude is a calming, anxiety-reducing, happiness-inducing, overall psychologically healthful exercise. Reflecting, meditating, praying, journaling—anything…

Resculpting

I'm in the process of rethinking my platform use, moving things around, and reconfiguring various projects and online presences. This process is partly the consequence…

Pragmatism

I believe that looking for commonalities and shared concerns will typically lead to better outcomes than creating and reinforcing tribal (in the sociological sense of…

Keyholes

Our lives are stippled with parasocial relationships. We engage with other peoples' work and feel connected to those people as a consequence. Sometimes these relationships…

Panoramic

I semi-regularly catch myself fixating on minutiae. This is possibly the consequence of my tendency to become absorbed in whatever I'm doing (and to assiduously…

Living Off the Land

We are (alarmingly but maybe predictably) tumbling into holiday shopping season early this year. Tidal waves of deals are flooding the market as not-good back-to-school…

Killing and Composting

A few weeks ago I decided to kill one of my projects. I've been running a little podcast called I Will Read To You since…

Sick and Tired

I've been in Seattle, visiting family and pet-sitting for a week. I've been sick for nearly the same duration. I had a few days of…

Centaurs

One of my favorite myth-related conceptual labels is that of chess tournament centaurs: a human who plays with computer assistance. Centaur players tend to outperform…

Slow Fast Near Far

I think (and write) about consumption a lot, because—as someone who loves to create things—what I consume informs what I produce, and the time and…

Social Media

It hasn't been a great year for social media companies. They're still raking in money, dominating the ad-sector, and shaping personal, economic, and political discourse…

Questions for Deciding

When I'm mulling over some kind of new opportunity, relationship dynamic, career change, or other deviation to my existing lifestyle structure I work through a…

Small, Simple, Every Day

How do we become the people we need to be to live the lives we want to live, do the things we want to do,…

Coiling and Uncoiling

For the past few years, I've been spring-coiling. That's how I think of it, anyway: a focused process of assessing, experimenting, consolidating, retracting, refurbishing, replacing,…

Cause-Orientation

When you're cause-oriented—there's something you care deeply about and you've committed part of yourself, your life to it—it's normal and understandable that you might wring…

The Work Itself

I've had a similar conversation with maybe a half-dozen people recently, about how "work"—in the sense of doing what one does to make a living,…

Expand and Contract

As someone who typically travels quite a lot, it's important to me to have comfortable, sustainable inflated and deflated modes of operation. This means having…

Fluffy and Foundational

I've historically experienced a significant shift in my lifestyle, priorities, and thinking every seven years or so. Based on that schedule, I'm likely to see…

Tools

When I'm learning something new and looking to veteran practitioners of that field, study, or craft to see how they do things, I almost always…

Grief

We grieve we when lose someone, but we also grieve when we lose a sense of place or time or self, a path we feel…

Probably Don’t

Social media is great for some purposes, but much of what the networks (or rather, the people running and managing them) want from me is…

Purpose

As a general policy, I try to do things purposefully rather than passively. "Purposeful" can mean different things, though, depending on what aspect of life…

Now and Next

In any discussion, there's a collection of intuitive, shared contextual understandings. If you're engaged in a conversation about labor rights, it's typically understood that you're…

Being Interested

Almost always, people we find interesting come across that way because they're interested in other things and people. Such interest often starts with a spark.…

Who Where How

I've got a birthday coming up this weekend: I'll be 37-years-old. Part of me believes I should mark the occasion with chin-stroking, navel-gazing, and other…

Bypassing Blockages

The benefits of traveling are myriad, and I'm an enthusiastic proponent of visiting even the nearby, the perceptually humdrum, the everyday and mundane-seeming because although…

Anatomy of a Project

Projects are encapsulated sequences of tasks, educational undertakings, and practices that I use when making stuff, refining things, and/or shifting from one set of norms…

Sleep

For a long time, I sucked at sleep. But a handful of years ago I started to wonder if I might be capable of learning…

Rebalancing Inputs

I spend a meaningful amount of time curating what I think of as my "inputs": data from informational sources (news and nonfiction), but also experiential…

Mini-Paradigms

A paradigm is a state of being; a status quo for a given moment in time. A paradigm shift is what happens when variables change…

Uncertainty

As humans, we're nudged by our biologies to wonder what's on the other side of every mountain and driven to push ever-outward in a million…

Bad Weather

I tend to believe the truism, "There's no bad weather, only unsuitable clothing." Many times I've found myself in the middle of storms, walking through…

Self-Defined

Adopted belief systems can be pernicious, because while we may justifiably assume the value-defining elements in our lives are our own—constructed from homemade blueprints and…

Small Refinements to Mundane Things

Most mornings, I make and drink two small mugfuls of black coffee. After trying dozens of different coffee-prep approaches, I landed on hand-grinding beans and…

Body of Work

Over the past handful of years I've thought a lot about not just my work, but the totality of the work I've ever done, am…

Claylike

One of the more reliable ways to ensure you have a good time when traveling is to commit to flexibility and improvisation, rather than becoming…

Self-Consciousness

A heightened awareness of what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how our actions and words and public personae might be interpreted by others…

Flagging Fear

Over the years I've learned to run toward foreboding feelings when I identify them. I've consistently found value in noting and confronting things that scare…

2021

Gently

We're living through a period of inconvenient, dangerous, uncomfortable upheavals. The variables shaping our lives are changing daily and many of us feel some combination…

Decouplement

I initially feel an unnerving isolation when I'm disconnected from the wider world. Such moments are often forced upon me by circumstance: when mid-flight over…

Other Useful Feelings

Happiness is good—I like feeling happy. But much of the time my internal state is more complex than one word can contain. Maybe I'm happy…

Please Buy Literally Everything

It's that time of year again—Please Buy Literally Everything season—and as such I've been thinking about consumption and marketing and all the other ingredients that…

Coasting and Flapping

Sometimes creation is like riding an air current: your arms are spread but you're coasting along with relative ease, tapping into a natural (if invisible)…

Intrinsics

I've spent most of the past 12 years reassessing and realigning. In essence, I've been trying to better understand myself and what I want out…

Every Day

I started a new podcast called I Will Read To You not long ago, which is exactly what it sounds like: just me reading a…

Opportunity

I've been thinking about opportunity a lot as I've revisited some old opportunities—those pursued and those set aside—and started in on the process of shuffling…

Documentation

What aspects of what I'm doing today will be meaningful ten years from now? Or rather, which components of what aspects of the many things…

Kairos

I have several mental models I use to generally keep moving in a desirable direction, despite (and sometimes fueled by) the vicissitudes of reality. One…

Time Is Weird

If you live to be 77-years-old (the average lifespan in the wealthy world), you will have lived about 4,000 weeks. That's...intimidating, isn't it? It's not…

Dabbling

The word "productivity" has its origins in the 19th century, back when industrialization and scaling-up everything was becoming the dominant approach to, and philosophy of…

Lifestyle Episodes

I'm in the process of rifling through old notes and photographs and terse, phone-shot videos, unearthing and examining contemporaneous media artifacts to remind myself of…

All My Weird Priorities

For what feels like ages, I've been trying to figure out how to unify my many and diverse projects into a more sensical whole, without…

Infinite Right Ways

Since mid-2020, I've been trying to figure out how to rearrange my disparate jumble of professional activities into something more cohesive and comprehensible. Many people…

Cycles

There are countless possible ways to measure and parcel-out our time, but one of the more practical ones, for my purposes, is that of "cycles."…

Expansiveness

In my experience, the more I learn about all the things, the easier it becomes to learn about any single, specific thing. My understanding of…

Doing What We’ve Always Done

These past few weeks I've been shoveling money into my third-hand, 2007 Prius to replace the hybrid battery and the ABS system—both of which have…

Infrastructure

When you travel, you have what's in your bag—a small portfolio of hopefully not-too-heavy infrastructural components—but beyond that you have to live off the land,…

I Have Everything I Need

At times, I find, it can be beneficial to use the promise of a purchase to prod oneself forward. I tend to do this with…

Self-Nudge

As someone who finds a great deal of fulfillment in travel, I don't enjoy being limited in that regard—in terms of legal limitations but also…

Box-Checking

There’s a difference between doing a thing and doing a thing well. “Well” measured against whatever it is you hope to achieve by performing a…

Boredom

My mind rebels against boredom. When I find myself lacking external stimulation, my knee-jerk response is to seek out some means of filling that void:…

Momentum

I sometimes delay getting started on big projects because I know that once I get going I’ll want to finish. I manage this dislike of…

Shoring Up

The rudiments of my home base here in Milwaukee are in place, and I’m beginning the process of formalizing and reinforcing the framework of what…

Establishment

There’s a method for exploration that I’ve found works pretty well for how I think, how I learn, and my relative energy and comfort levels…

Seasons

If you want to know how you’ve changed as a person, I suggest you consider moving. Over the past two weeks, I’ve had to establish…

Iterative Perfection

Since I started cooking a handful of years ago, making a big batch of curry and rice has become a minor tradition for me when…

Movement

I'm moving tomorrow. Or rather: I’m leaving my pandemic-era hunker location to move into a US-based apartment for a year, as was my plan back…

Red Thread

The term “red thread of fate” originates in Chinese folklore, referring to a bond between people who haven’t met, but who are destined to be…

Walking

With every step you take, it’s possible you might fall. That’s not pessimism, it’s the reality of being a perambulatory human being. Mathematical models have…

Am I That Me?

On a semi-regular basis, I go through a period where I question essentially everything I do and how I do those things in an attempt…

De-Cocooning

I've just returned from my first trip worthy of the label for over a year. For someone who’s accustomed to movement, all this holding still…

Craters

When I was younger—in my teens and early-20s—I always saw 35 as being the ideal age, because it was young enough not to be socially…

Experimental Stippling

I’m a big fan of personal experimentation. I find that regularly tweaking the variables that inform my thinking, shape my day, and feed my productive…

Continuum of Selves

I’m aware, as I make loose plans for my post-pandemic lifestyle, that I’m making these plans as a pandemic-immersed version of myself. This is both…

Exoskeletons

Ideally, the tools we use amplify our capabilities. I often visualize my tools as a sort of exoskeleton: an Iron Man suit, or the kind…

Input, Process, Output

Whatever our professions and however our lives are structured, our days are filled with inputs. These inputs are sensory by definition—sights, sounds, tactile sensations, tastes,…

Imagining the Mundane

A heuristic is a mental shortcut, and one of my most commonly used heuristics is to imagine the most boring, conventional, mundane version of something…

Beyond Why

It’s prudent to semi-regularly ask ourselves why we do various things, and why we do them the way we do them. This isn’t a complicated…

The Right Lessons

I don’t find regret to be particularly useful, though it’s sometimes difficult to avoid. Regret can play a role in productive reassessment, triggering the reflex…

Flaws

The stock market, if you learn about it and look very closely, makes little sense. There are good intentions behind it, and in the abstract…

It’ll Do

I have a lot of very flawed systems and tools that I use on a daily basis. My calendar, for instance, serves as both a…

Limited Capacity

Sometimes, in some rare cases, I live up to my every expectation of myself; but almost always I fall short. This isn’t a self-criticism, it’s…

Taking A Moment

I forced myself to take ten minutes to think about difficult things, this morning. On a typical day, I set aside twenty minutes for quiet,…

Filter Failure

Distorted, mistaken, or outright false information is as common as oxygen in our modern, interconnected communication ecosystem. It should be no surprise, then, that we…

Next

Many ambitions require periods of soil-tilling and seed-planting if we want to make them a reality. Consistent habits can help us realize outcomes that outweigh…

2020

Plague-Adjusted

When catching up with friends and family, of late, I’ve found myself asking how they’re doing in plague-adjusted terms, rather than in an absolute sense.…

Weird Stuff Only

As you learn about a topic or achieve proficiency with a skill, it can become intimidating to utilize that skill or learn more about that…

Irritate & Inspire

I’m a big believer in the value of maintaining a beginner’s mindset. This concept can mean different things to different people, but to me, being…

Mental Real Estate

There’s a decent amount of evidence that geolocation—where we are any any given moment, physically—influences our state of mind. Our location in space can also…

Categorization

For just about any industry you can imagine, there exist semi-formal trend cycles that seem to be sort of accurate at least part of the…

Self-Knowledge

Perfect self-knowledge is a dot on the horizon that’s always in view but seldom seems to get any closer, no matter how rapid or ardent…

Cultivation

Growth is a process, not an act. Cultivation, too, is defined not by what we accomplish in any given moment, but how we iterate over…

Yeoman’s Work

Automation, outsourcing, and identifying and utilizing shortcuts are legitimate and—at times—marvelous means of achieving cumbersome goals. Some tasks can be unloaded onto software, triggered by…

Transience

Today’s circumstances won’t last forever. Who we are, the way we live, the things we do—they’re all impermanent. The transient nature of everything can be…

Repetition & Cessation

I’m not the best podcaster in the world, but I’ve produced nearly 250 episodes of one show and about 85 of another over the past…

Guiding Questions

What do I hope to achieve, here? Whether I’m traveling or holding still for a while, asking myself why I’m where I am and what…

Empowerment

I can’t prevent devastating storms, keep my local grocery store from selling out of my favorite product, or make someone else behave in a way…

Moderate & Modulate

These days, I make part of my living doing news analysis. In practice, this means spending a lot of time reading: the news, but also…

Manufactured Needs

I’ve been thinking about needs and where they come from, of late. In particular, how needs and wants differ, but also how that distinction doesn’t…

Meaning in the Missing

We don’t fully appreciate some things until they’re gone. We might intellectually know that we’d miss them, and may even recall a previous absence that…

Taking Notes

I’m not a consistent note-taker, in the sense that some people are very good about jotting down insights and quotes as they read or go…

Intention Filters

Before fully investing myself in a new undertaking, I attempt to whittle away flaws, identify weak points, and allow myself to consider setting the concept…

Mere Persistence

Strength, fortitude, gutsiness, grit, dynamism, determination, purposefulness, brilliance, courage; these are all wonderful traits to have, whether you’re hoping to accomplish a personal goal or…

Embraces & Barriers

If you find yourself in a dangerous environment, there are two primary paths you can take to reduce the potency of those dangers: you can…

Habit Pairs & Poka-Yokes

There’s a fair amount of effort required to instigate change in our lives, and maintaining change over time often requires additional mental effort. Some behavioral…

Modest Control

The degree to which we feel we’re in control of a situation can influence the way we feel about that situation. This is often true…

Updating Priors

In the world of statistical inference, a “prior” refers to the beliefs we have about a particular value before we have all the data. In…

Curated Inputs

I spend a significant amount of time each day parsing information. This informs my work, but it also informs my thinking. It requires a decent…

Tiny Investments

I feel and function much better when I have access to a giant drinking vessel. My current mega-chalice is a 30-ounce, stainless-steel, double-walled travel mug…

The Wait

Traversing the space between one location and another can be exciting, but it can also be agonizingly boring. Much of the superficial excitement we get…

Uncertainty

The unknown is uncomfortable, but exploring the unknown is fundamental to the human experience. We invent lenses that allow us to perceive incredibly small things,…

Returning to Why

Many of us, at some point in our lives, have reason to pause, take stock, and ask ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing, and…

Background Issues

Human beings are drawn to the unusual and sensational. It’s baked into how we process the world: something that seems to have changed, and which…

Habit, Ritual, Performance

The word “ritual” is derived from the word “rite,” which refers to a religious ceremony of some kind. Which makes sense, if you consider that…

Specification Gaming

Within the world of software development, the term “specification gaming” refers to a behavior that literally fulfills the requirements of a task without achieving the…

Obvious

What’s obvious to me isn’t necessarily obvious to you, and the same is true in reverse. After four years of design school and over a…

Now & Then

I’ve been trying to maintain a focal balance between what’s going on today, right now, in this moment, and what’ll happen next: where I’d like…

Inward Travel

I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a traveler during a period in which travel is not just ill-advised, but also less possible.…

Long-Term Thinking

There’s an organization called The Long Now Foundation that focuses on planting seeds for long-term thinking. Their most well-known project is the 10,000 Year Clock,…

Knowns & Unknowns

One of the most disconcerting aspects of living through a pandemic is the assortment of unknowns we face on a daily basis. How many infected?…

Meaningful

The other day I received an email from a student who attended a talk I gave at her school a few years ago. I remember…

Ask Colin: Waiting to Meet

Howdy Colin! So I’ve been talking to this girl that seems really cool, we met through IG and just kind of hit it off from…

Ask Colin: Making Plans

Hi Colin. Like everyone, or maybe just everyone I know, I’m feeling really stuck right now. I’ve been working a job, the first one I…

All The Other Things

The loss of peripheral perception—often called “tunnel vision”—is a common affliction faced by people in the midst of a disaster. It makes sense that if…

Ask Colin: Strange Careers

Colin, How do you make money? Sorry if that’s a weird or rude question, but I’ve read about how you travel the world and work…

Ask Colin: The Good Life

Colin, how do I live a good life? Everyone is telling me something different, and I feel like you might have some good perspective on…

Rethinking Everything

There’s a certain comfort in thinking about what we’ll all do when things get back to normal. I find myself retreating to that line of…

Ask Colin: Housemate Harmony

Hey Colin- So like a lot of people right now I’m at home all day with my housemate, and although we typically get along famously…

Ask Colin: Recalibrating

Colin, I find myself just really thrown off by everything that’s happening in the world right now. I’m struggling just to get out of bed…

Ask Colin: Purposeful

Hey Colin: I’m doing a lot better than many people I know right now. I work from home and I have great clients. What happens…

Pandemic Projects

The global status quo has been disrupted, local norms have been upended, and personal routines, habits, and goals have been unexpectedly shattered or understandably set…

Ask Colin: Making a Living as an Author

Hey Colin! I am not personally interested in writing, but I love reading and I am curious about the publishing world. I often wonder how…

Ask Colin: Making Investments

Hey Colin, I’m new to the world of being responsible with money, and I’m told it’s a good idea to start investing when you have…

Ask Colin: Coronavirus Anxiety

Colin, I’m freaking out about all of this coronavirus stuff, and it’s triggering my anxiety. I don’t know how worried I should actually be, and…

Ask Colin: Dressing Oneself

Hello Colin, I’m writing you because I’ve just been hired for a new job and after many years of working from home my wardrobe isn’t…

Ask Colin: Finding Oneself

Hello, Colin! My name is Nadir. I am originally from Algeria, but I live in the US now. Living in a new country has changed…

Ask Colin: Email Wrangling

Hello Colin, I read somewhere that you answer all of the emails you receive from your readers. My question is HOW? I don’t have any…

Ask Colin: Proselytizing

Hi Colin, I’ve recently gone vegan, and I’m trying to convince my family to go vegan, too, for the planet and because killing and consuming…

Stormy Seas

Change can arrive like a dropped bomb, converting your carefully constructed life into a pile of rubble in an instant. You look around, ears ringing,…

Ask Colin: Travel and COVID-19

Colin, I’ve been planning a trip to Moscow for months now, and was just about to start buying my tickets and make my accommodation reservations…

Ask Colin: Eco-Friendly Art

I am an upcoming visual artists and graphic designer and in my studies I see how much material we waste and consume. The cost is…

Ask Colin: Starting a Podcast

Hi Colin, I've been following your work for a couple of years now and enjoy reading your blog! Recently it has been on my mind…

Ask Colin: Assessing a Rough Patch

I became a corrections officer because I wanted to help people and make a difference, I truly was passionate about the industry and believed it…

Ask Colin: Intertwingularity

Colin, I’m really into making music, and I’m not that good at it yet, but it’s my absolute favorite thing to do each day. I…

Ask Colin: How To Focus

I seriously just can’t focus on anything, and I feel like it’s keeping me from learning all the things I want to learn and doing…

Ask Colin: Starting a Small Business

Hey Colin, I’ve been working on a little side-project for a few years now, and I think I finally have a product (vegan cupcakes!) that…

Ask Colin: Day in the Life

Have you ever done/considered doing a 'day/week in the life of Colin' story? What I'd like to know is e.g. how much time you spend…

Ask Colin: Deciding Where to Travel

I know you’ve traveled a lot, and I truly want to travel, maybe full-time someday, too. The problem is I can’t decide where to go!…

Ask Colin: Public Speaking

I was able to make it out to see you at your Vancouver speaking event last year, and my partner and I really enjoyed it.…

Ask Colin: Buying a Home

Hi Colin, I am a planner. I value financial security. My wife and I, both in our mid 30’s, have worked our way up into…

Ask Colin: Lifelong Learning

I’ve been thinking about taking some classes at my local community college, or maybe some online courses, because I’ve found myself with some free time…

Ask Colin: Imaginary Friends

I feel like you’re this imaginary friend in my head who writes about things I’ve been thinking about and who tells me about interesting things…

Ask Colin: Perfection & Passion

How do I figure out who I am? I feel like I look around and everyone’s very much themselves, very certain about who they are…

Ask Colin: Writing a Book

I’ve been working on my first book off and on for years, and finally set it aside to start fresh on a new idea, as…

Ask Colin: Quarter-Life Crisis

Colin, How do I decide what to do with my life? I’m 24 and having a quarter-life crisis and what I’m doing now isn’t working.…

Ask Colin: Wonderful Maybes

Hi Colin, As a big fan of your podcast, various newsletters, and general thinking/perspectives, I wanted to ask a quick question. What questions do you…

Control

There’s a concept in psychology, locus of control, that refers to the degree of control we believe we have over our lives. The theory is…

Ask Colin: Generational Concerns

I have been thinking about this question a lot for the past few years as I’ve witnessed the Gen Zs reach adulthood. The social differences…

Ask Colin: Travel Tools

When you’re on the road, what do you do, food-wise? The biggest problem I’m seeing is that I’ll have to buy minimal cookwear and then…

Ask Colin: Starting a Blog

Hey Colin! I dropped you a line over a year ago about how I was leaving my stressful job for a less stressful job that…

Ask Colin: Network Effects

Hey Colin! I hope this finds you well. I am a follower of yours and also had the luck to listen at you, buy a…

Ask Colin: Work & Play

Hey Colin, I tend to turn everything I approach in life into a project and take the fun out of it. I am learning how…

Ask Colin: Prenups

Hi Colin, I'm in a relationship where my significant other earns substantially more than I do. He brought up a prenup and how assets would…

Ask Colin: Missed My Chance

Hey Colin, A little over 3 months ago I discovered minimalism, I watched the documentary, Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, I saw you…

2019

Resolutions

At some point amidst the hubbub of the next few weeks, muffled by the cacophony of marketing messages, social pressures, and self-imposed constrictions, limitations, pressures,…

Ask Colin: Language Learning

Do you have any tips or advice for a first time solo traveller going to another country with a totally different language? Sandi — Hey…

Notes to Self

I keep a little file on my computer where I write notes to myself about things I’ll likely need to be reminded of at some…

Ask Colin: Change & Simplicity

Dear Colin, I’m trying hard to cope with some pretty big changes, and I think that becoming more minimalistic will help me with that. What’s…

I Don’t Know

There are few more powerful phrases one can utter than "I don't know." Many societies disincentivize the admission of ignorance, equating it to stupidity or…

Ask Colin: Today & Tomorrow

What’s your advice for people on how to live their best life now? Regardless of where they are in life or what aspirations they have.…

Badass

I remember the moment, many years ago, when I realized I didn’t have to be a badass. There’s a pervasive myth within the world of…

Ask Colin: Repercussions

Colin, I’m more and more aware everyday that the planet is changing and that I’m contributing to that change in a negative way (i.e. the…

Empathy

The word "empathy" is, in its modern incarnation, typically used when we feel bad for someone or to express a sort of sympathy. We use…

Ask Colin: Missed Connections

For us, meeting people we liked and had a good time with and then losing track of them has been the hardest part of travel.…

Habits

What we do isn’t truly who we are, but it’s a suitable stand-in for many practical purposes. What we do is informed not just by…

Ask Colin: To Baby or Not to Baby

Hi Colin, I am a free-spirited travel-loving minimalist from Germany. I am in my mid-thirties now. For years I have been thinking a lot about…

Self-Care

Like so many things that have gone from artisanal to industrialized, self-care, as a concept, has become a bit diluted and at times misunderstood. A…

Ask Colin: Performance Anxiety

Hi Colin, I play in a couple of bands, and perform mostly on weekends, with the occasional weekday outing. These shows can come and go,…

Productive

There are countless justifiable ways to respond to a less-than-ideal situation. We can get angry. We can get anxious. We can get sad or vengeful…

Non-Partisan Thinking

The term “partisan” can refer equally to someone who believes in a particular ideology or cause very strongly, or someone who arms themselves and hides…

Perspective Triggers

There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach, my thinking becomes cloudy, my mood slumps, my energy levels deplete. For some reason or no reason I’m…

Heterodoxy

Some of the satisfaction we derive from new knowledge stems from that information's adherence to what we already knew. The world seems to be a…

Communication Methods

Successful communication is a multi-person effort. That’s true in the sense that it requires both (or all) people to be engaged, to be interested in…

Status Quo

I've taken the last few months off, in the sense that I've set aside most of the work that I typically do on a day-to-day…

Tiny Advantages

There was a time when I made a significant portion of my income by designing and building websites for clients. That collection of skills was…

No Need

What would you do if there was no need for you to do anything? This isn't a simple question to answer. It's also a question…

Ask Colin: Living & Investing

Hi Colin, I’m 23 years old, and want to leave my corporate job for a job with minimal responsibilities so I can make just enough…

Reflections

Our lives are reflections of our values. Said another way: the way we live demonstrates our priorities and beliefs. That's the optimal situation, at least.…

Ask Colin: Energy Imbalance

Dear Colin, My partner and I have been in a committed relationship for over two years now and he has been an excellent friend, communicator,…

Ask Colin: Golden Shackle Syndrome

Dear Colin, After eight difficult, grueling years of overpriced school and unfulfillment, I am about to graduate next month with a doctorate in pharmacy. The…

Ask Colin: Out of Place at Home

I am finally back home in Florida after 18 months of living and working in Shanghai and Bangkok. Now that I am home, I am…

Whatever Happens Next

I'm often asked where I envision myself, my career, my life in five years. But I don't have a good answer for this. Looking back…

Ask Colin: Singledom & Loneliness

Colin, Most of my twenties have been spent in a relationship of one kind or another, none of which have lead to fulfillment. For the…

Ask Colin: Guilt & Happiness

Dear Colin, Sigh. Big Sigh. I feel like the worst kind of person, and I’m searching everywhere for signs that I don’t have to feel…

Ask Colin: Influential Games

As a long time listener of your podcast, I’ve found (too) many interesting books to read as result of your suggestions. I understand that video…

Ask Colin: Different Way of Life

Hey Colin, I am from Mumbai, India and I will be finishing my masters in two months. My dream has always been to get a…

Ask Colin: Unconventional Setup

Hi Colin, My husband got a job in another city, and I am tied to our current city professionally as I am in the midst…

Comparative Value

It's not always easy to tell if the work you do, the way you spend your time, is a net value-add for the world. Part…

Ask Colin: Value Systems

Dear Colin, I am at a point in my life where many of my friends are getting married, having kids, settling in to a career.…

Ask Colin: Types of Struggle

Hi Colin, I have a question that I have been wrestling with as a graduate student. I’m living 2,000 miles away from home, haven’t found…

Exposure

Every new experience we have is a camera with a light attached to it. That camera allows us to see a side of ourselves—an ultra-specific…

Ask Colin: Sustainable 9-to-5

How does one take the necessary steps to free oneself from the daily 9-5 and pursue the lifestyle of freedom while still having the ability…

Flexible Structures

This essay was originally published on my Patreon. I try not to get too caught up in ritual. I enjoy routine and predictability on a…

Ask Colin: Dance Card

Hi Colin, I hope you’re well. I’ve been a fan of your work for some time and attended your recent talk in Atlanta. I’ve been…

Ask Colin: Career Evaluation

I have been trying to find a broader context for making career and life choices. I am 58, so a lot of advice I hear…

High-Temperature Searches

I came across an interesting concept that touches on both neuroscience and artificial intelligence, recently. My first contact with this concept was in a book…

Ask Colin: Formative Books

Hi Colin, You are probably one of the most well-read influences of my life and to me it seems that a universal characteristic of great…

Success

Most of us possess a broad, subconsciously felt definition of success. This definition is compiled over the course of our lives, and iterated and updated…

Ask Colin: Making New Connections

I just graduated and moved to another state for my job. I didn’t move with anyone but my dog, left all of my closest friends…

Ask Colin: Me-Shaped Social Media

Hi Colin! Curious what your experience and thoughts are using social media and how they figure into your me-shaped universe. Best, Jen — Hey Jen!…

2018

Consumption

Buying things, owning things, consuming things isn't wrong or bad or unhealthy. Our tendency to rely on consumption for balance, for nourishment, for happiness, however,…

Thoughtful Pause

After learning anything, being exposed to new information, encountering art or any other type of cultural artifact, take a moment to yourself and quietly process…

Training

The saying "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life" has been (incorrectly) attributed to a…

Epistemic Humility

The word "epistemic" essentially means anything dealing with knowledge. Epistemic humility, then, is being humble with your assumptions about understanding. It's recognizing that you may…

Where You’ll Be

Our present perspective is limiting. It can also be deceptively harmful, at times. Yes, we're using the best information currently available, operating under assumptions derived…

Press-Worthy

To gain press for something that you're doing, to increase attention and have newspapers and blogs writing stories about it, that thing, that effort of…

Transcendence

Everyone's looking for some kind of transcendence. For some people religion fulfills that purpose. For others, it's a less-defined sense of spirituality, or other non-organized,…

Creative Triggers

It feels wonderful to publish something. It's an experience I first had way back in high school, when the web was still young and when,…

Liminality

A liminal moment is one in which you are in flux, in limbo. You're in the process of moving from one state of being to…

First Principles Lifestyle

In philosophy, "first principles" refer to something like foundational truths. They are assumptions we can safely make about the way of things, with all of…

Tiny Luxuries

With rare exceptions, I prepare every meal I eat. I've done this for almost two years, now. Being able to take the time, not just…

Envisioned

With as much detail and precision as possible, describe your ideal lifestyle. This is what I asked myself to do back in 2009, when I…

Eudaemonia

Most decisions we make can be traced back to our desire to be happy. But happiness is a fuzzy term, and is often—incorrectly, I would…

A Year of Growth

Today is my 33rd birthday, and to celebrate I'd like to take a moment to present some thoughts and heuristics that have served me well…

Big, Vague Goals

I like to set sprawling, ill-defined goals for myself, and then figure out how best to accomplish them along the way. This is a counter-intuitive…

Sewing Buttons

It was thrilling for me, the first time I sewed a button onto a shirt. I was sitting in a conference room, waiting for a…

Landscape Portraits

It can be difficult to balance the presumed prudence of digging deep into a particular field, a particular topic or profession, with the desire to…

Self-Reported

For about a month, I've been tracking my sleep habits using two different sensors. One of these sensors is tucked under my mattress, plugged into…

Tiny Upgrades

I started running again recently. Back in my college years I ran five to ten miles per day as part of my intercollegiate Ultimate Frisbee…

Flappability

There's something to be said for a Stoic response to difficult or uncomfortable situations. To be more specific, it's nice to be able to step…

Metacognitive Exercises

Why did I just do that? This is a question I try to ask myself regularly. Being conscious of the reasons behind our actions isn't…

Planning for the Fire

There's something wrong with the fire detection system in my apartment building. In the five months since I moved to Memphis, we've had probably twenty…

2017

Regular Revolutions

Milestones are valuable tools. They're endpoints that aren't real in the sense that a rock is real—there's no physical law stating that the approximate end…

Surface Tension

There's a superficial level to every discussion. If you follow this conceptual thread far enough, you'll find that language itself is just a coded analogy…

How You Get There

One of the major challenges we face as an increasingly interconnected, globe-straddling species, is in how we organize ourselves even as our traditional distinctions dissipate.…

Educational Balance

At two months old, babies understand the fundamentals of physics. Which isn't to say they could tell you the equations underpinning concepts like entropy or…

Made-Up Metrics

There's a difference between money made doing work that drains you and money made doing work that fills you with passion and joy. It's difficult…

This Is It

I was probably five or six years old the first time I thought I was going to die. The exact context of what happened is…

A Year Without Dating

If you've read my work for any amount of time, you probably know that I regularly and enthusiastically engage in lifestyle experiments. Which in practice…

Principles, Frameworks, and Policies

I aspire to always be learning, experiencing new things, and growing as a consequence. This is one of my guiding principles. I work on projects…

Why This Way?

One of the most important questions you can ask yourself, at any point in your life, is "Why?" A deluge of valuable realizations can dawn…

Weeklies

It's amazing how difficult it can be to instill regular doses of novelty into a rooted lifestyle. One of the more valuable aspects of traveling…

Stimulus & Action

I love rearranging my furniture. It still feels weird to own furniture, truth be told, but now that I have it, I'm an enthusiastic repositioner.…

Thumb Wrestling

This last year or so has been a period of change for me: a lot of new experiments, a lot of new perspectives, a lot…

Out of Time

There's a trick I use when I'm undertaking a project or process that's particularly onerous or tedious, but which I know is worth doing. I…

Conclusions

Something I've learned about myself over the years is that I'm not great at goodbyes. It's not that I find them difficult or onerous, but…

Exiles

I think my favorite of all the business models I've come up with over the years was the one underpinning a project called Exiles. Exiles…

Awareness

Our instincts are informed by our knowledge and experiences. This means that they’re flawed, but it also means they’re trainable.

Mediums

Our creative work is shaped by the mediums through which we transmit it. I'm using the word 'creative' in the sense of 'things that are…

Internal Consistency

When I was looking for an apartment here in Wichita, it was important to me that I find a home with good natural light. Lightbulbs,…

What Wrong Means

If I was smart, I would have more advertisers on my podcast. I've been using the same two for a while, and that has no…

Valuable Frictions

I've been living in Kansas for a little over seven months, and I'll be here for another four before leaving in pursuit of my next…

Political Omnivores

I host a podcast called Let's Know Things wherein I add context to what's happening in the news. I love the hell out of writing,…

Thoughts on Conflict

We live in contentious times, and discourse will only become more impassioned in the coming years. Political tremors are upending the status quo around the…

Ellipses

I've always believed in celebrating the accidental mispronunciation of a word rather than mocking or deriding it. Such accidents are usually an indication of the…

The Subjectivity of Time

Time has passed differently for me since I arrived in Kansas. That's not a statement about Kansas, but rather about how the way we live…

Aware

It's hard to know what to think sometimes. Perhaps the news seems unreliable, and you're not sure what sources to trust. Perhaps your own ideologies…

Glimpsing the Palette

In many different dimensions of my life right now, I feel that I'm stepping back from a painting I've long studied, having spent years trying…

2016

Habits

I’m writing a new nonfiction book, entitled Becoming Who We Need to Be, and though I don’t typically have any trouble spinning up into writing…

Revision

I've said before that going through the editing process for a book is like being beaten across the face with a hammer, only to realize…

Ideal Speech Situation

I came across the term ideal speech situation the other day, while doing research for a podcast episode. The core concept of this idea is…

Valuable Things

Possessions can make us happier, but only if we own the right things.

That Seems Interesting

The metrics we use to define success are just as vital as the steps we take to become successful.

Awareness

I have a policy about being aware. This doesn't mean being expert, or even having an above-average education about any particular thing. But I find…

Hands-Free

On this week's episode of Let's Know Things we talk about the burgeoning hands-free audio movement, the technologies that are depending on and amplifying this…

The Price of Things

How much would you pay to never have to wake up to an alarm? Think about it for a second, then actually try to put…

Colossal & Connected

On this week's episode of Let's Know Things, we talk about great big events, the interconnectedness of everything, and why it’s so difficult for us…

Sipping from the Fire Hose

I'm convinced that half of my fairly rugged immune system is the result of traveling to many different climates and biomes, and the other half…

Population

It's boggling how much information we have access to today, and yet how misinformed we can be about so many things. Part of the issue…

Lifestyle for One

My apartment smells of sautéed onions and fresh-minced garlic. I love the smell. Not everyone would, but I do. I also tend to fill my…

Intentional Milestones

Something that I took for granted while on the road was the number of milestones that were built into my life. I'd arrive in a…

Turning Sideways

It's possible to seem impressive from one angle, but to be incredibly flat from every other possible viewpoint.

Pace & Goals

Of all the things that a change in one's lifestyle can bring, a new pace is one of the more difficult to accept.

Look Away

On this week’s episode of Let’s Know Things, we touch on the idea of shunning, then deep-dive into empiricism versus faith, trust and journalism, and…

Non-Human Intelligence

On the most recent episode of my podcast, Let's Know Things, we discuss intelligence, and in particular the types of intelligence we find outside of our own species.

Vacant and Beige

It's easy to imagine potential in empty spaces. Less easy to imagine are the possibilities for spaces that are filled, badly.

Minimum Viable Home

Take the time to live with the fundamentals before filling your space with things you think you're supposed to have.

Circular Food

I don't have the reflexes for this.

Kansas

I'm moving to Kansas. Let me tell you why.

Expectations

Sometimes it's better to fix our expectations, rather than whatever it is that's failing to live up to them.

Shoulds & Ares

The conflict between short-term thinking and long-term thinking can be heated and adversarial.

Knowing False Things

The half-life of mistruths is long, but there are ways to protect oneself from them in the first place.

Unhoned Opinions

Many of our opinions are inherited, not developed. The more we hone them, the more they align with who we actually are.

Discussing the Freedom of Speech

On the first episode of my podcast, Let's Know Things, we talk free speech, where it's going, how it's being applied, and what it means.

Covert Factors

There are covert additions being added to our subconscious math all the time, and though we can only control very few of them, those that we can, we should.

Stop Smile Marvel

It is possible to grapple your fear reflexes away from your lizard-brain, you just have to train yourself to do it and instill a new response pattern.

Playing Games

When the game you're playing is no longer fulfilling, you have the option of standing up and finding another one.

Unmarketable Thoughts

Approached correctly, success can be something you enjoy as you grow, rather than as a final destination.

Common Ground

The idea of common moral ground isn't impossible, but it's also not easy an idea to accept.

Balanced Opposites

It's difficult coping with people who believe different things than you, but it can be valuable finding the good in what they do and respecting them for it.

Bend Yourself or Bend the World

The desire to improve oneself is a wonderful thing, but it's easy to become less capable if you depend on crutches rather than building up your own resiliency.

Platforms as Catalysts

Trendy technologies and methods of communication can seem threatening, but when approached correctly they can help us reach new, expressive heights.

Clear Communication as a Habit

Clear communication is key to expressing oneself and enjoying life. But our definition of communication is often very limited.

I Don’t Have To

We don't have to be caricatures to be successful and fulfilled.

The Math

Any lifestyle is within reach. We just have to balance the books. Do the math. In a lot of cases, this means tallying up our…

2015

Missed Connections

The following is an excerpt from Come Back Frayed. Boracay is a weird place to be single. I’m reminded of this as a server at…

More Sense in Motion

I make more sense in motion, while experiencing new things and being forced off-balance. An excerpt from my new book, Come Back Frayed.

Set Your Defaults

We have so many powers we don't utilize. Taking the time to figure out your needs, and how you might meet them, is an exercise very much worth your time.

Societies and Biomes

A rugged ecosystem requires diversity. Without that diversity, any system, large or small, becomes fragile.

Big Picturing

Money is wonderful, so long as you know why you want it.

Practical Philosophy

Many of our philosophies are labels and nothing more. Practical philosophy requires that we pay attention to our everyday actions.

Baseline

Set rational baselines so that you can be happy regardless of your circumstances, and all of life's extras become enjoyable luxuries.

Scale

The more you know, the more you're capable of enjoying.

It’s Easy

It's easy to reinforce bias. It's difficult to present ideas to those who are predisposed to be biased against them.

The One

The concept of 'The One' is harmful to our relationships, and keeps us from recognizing our own value.

Iceberging

We're all infinitely complex individuals, and that makes the order in which we tell stories about ourselves all the more important.

Stuff-Focus

Focusing on stuff, whether the accumulation or reduction of it, is missing the point of minimalism and simplicity.

Cabins

Cabins represent a simple life, but you needn't live in one to enjoy the same benefits.

Thirty

We're all trying to figure out how best to spend our time.

Appropriation

As we appropriate, we are appropriated.

Air

Air is both valuable and valueless, much like anything we might create.

Fuel

Even if your goals are humble, it's a good idea to know what fuels you.

Rework or Retreat

If your life is unfulfilling, there are two main paths toward change to consider.

Real Life

Travel is not the only way to expose yourself to new ideas and perspectives.

Outrage

Outrage feels good, but very seldom does it change anything.

Free Speech and Labels

Freedom of speech is only really active when someone is saying something you don’t agree with.

The Passage of Time

We all have the same number of hours to make use of each day, but some people spend them more effectively and healthily than others.

2014

The Cost of Things

We seldom consider the true cost of things when making a purchase.

Subtlety

Concrete concepts are easy to understand and quite popular, but they often lack the valuable subtlety of less certain ideas and advice.

Ambassadorship

You are an ambassador for your beliefs, whether you choose to be or not.

Getting Lost

One of the better ways to find yourself is to get lost.

Calibrate for Travel

Travel is seen as a pie-in-the-sky dream for many people. With a shift in perspective, though, it's less dream and more reality.

Expert Sleepist

There's more value in learning to sleep than learning to play tennis better.

Stack for Serendipity

You can't force serendipity, but you can stack the deck in favor of it.

Somethingness

Whitespace is a luxury, not a sacrifice.

Philosophical Fluidity

We define ourselves by our tastes, which can be limiting if we ignore aspects of life as part of that self-definition.

On Message

The stories we tell, and how we tell them, are what distinguish us from our peers.

Not Our Histories

Conflict is so common that we take it for granted. We shouldn't.

Outdated Limitations

We all play within the confines of technological limitations, but many of us fail to realize when those limitations are self-imposed.

Universality

A shared cup of coffee is one of the many universal signs of friendship.

Significance

There's a big difference between personal significance and practical significance.

Relevance

There's so much to learn, but much of it remains invisible until it's perceived as being relevant to our lives.

Instincts

Our instincts can help us glean more than we consciously understand, but only if we train them to do so.

Wonderment

There's plenty out there to marvel over. If you're not amazed, you might be standing in the wrong place.

Because I Want To

You've got a finite number of years to play with: you might as well do great work for the duration.

The Deep End

The shallow end is an easy place to be, but growth is found in the deep end.

Anthropological Default

We define ourselves by our likes, but would be better off as anthropologists.

Boxes

Pre-build labels are boxes we strain to fit inside. We should be building our own boxes.

Fortunate

I'm a fortunate man.

Be the Machete

There's a confidence that comes with blazing trails.

Watching the Periphery

Watching other, related industries can help you make massive jumps within your own.

Set the Goal, Enjoy the Journey

A malleable framework of where you are and where you're going can help you enjoy, and get the most from, the space between.

The Authority of Experience

There's a big difference between understanding something through research and understanding through direct experience.

Good People

Life is a game, be careful who you play with.

Tasks and Work

The work you do is different from, but informed by, the tasks you perform.

Who They’re For

Negative feedback is only negative if you allow it to be.

Telling Stories

Fiction, narrative nonfiction, and nonfiction are all excellent ways of communicating. But you want to use different methods for communicating different things to different people.

Bridges

Writing is like building a bridge between people.

Defining a Name

A name can be a valuable thing, so long as you invest in it.

Trialogue

An excerpt from my new book, Trialogue.

Master Student

My mastery of the English language has improved dramatically since I started traveling. I'm primarily interacting with non-native speakers, so I spend most of my…

Ordovician

The first chapter excerpted from my new book, a time-traveling adventure called Ordovician.

Never Again

The most important benefit of working for yourself is the knowledge that you have absolute control over your work.

2013

Finite but Flexible

We all have access to the same amount of time, and what we do with that time defines our priorities.

Mean Universe

An excerpt from my short fiction collection, Mean Universe.

Lenses

We all see the world through lenses. Recognizing that is important in developing as a person.

Intentional Luddite

Extremes in approach to technology are fine, so long as you're making your decisions intentionally.

Negotiate Your Life

Knowing how to negotiate, and what is negotiable, is vital. And not just in business.

Let’s Assume

Let's assume other people are not assholes.

Exponential Experience

The sooner you start focusing on personal development and the more focused you are on living a full life, the more you'll benefit from all such efforts.

Reset to Zero

Reseting to zero can give you the same clarity as minimalism, but with far less effort.

Head-Pats

There's nothing inherently wrong about growing up with pre-build standards. But at some point you're going to have to put them aside and build your own.

The Original Social Network

It's easy to misuse the internet, but if approached correctly, the net can be a resource as vast as the world itself.

Great Party

An excerpt from the short story collection about death and dying, So This Is How I Go.

Safety Nets

Society offers up myriad safety nets for those who adhere to social standards, but it can be incredibly rewarding to fall out of lockstep nonetheless.

Higher Concerns

Higher concerns aren't just for the rich or elderly.

I Hate Marketing

Marketing isn't inherently bad, but I truly dislike it.

Holding Down the Fort

We all have different priorities and needs. Only by respecting the needs of others — while meeting our own — can we achieve our full potential.

Takeoffs and Touchdowns

Soar and explore, but be careful to round out your view with plenty of land-based viewing, as well.

Inherited Silver

Give compliments based on effort, not inherited traits or trinkets.

A Creative Act

Business is a creative act, and art can be a means of economic sustainability.

Coffee with the Other Man

The first story in my short story collection about relationships, Coffee with the Other Man.

Mastery is a Double-Edged Sword

Mastery is a double-edged sword in that it allows you to share what you know, but also limits your ability to ask questions.

This is What I Do

The path between you and what you want out of life isn't a straight or even one, but with the right attitude, you can make the journey part of what you do.

I’ll Never Know

Perspective is important, not to better understand others, but to better understand how others see you.

Tethers and Change

Changing course can be difficult, especially when you're in the moment.

No Promises

It's best to set correct expectations in establishing long-term relationships.

There Will Always Be More

There will always be more of everything you need, if you take the time to notice.

Dog

An excerpt from my short story collection, '7 or 8 More Ways to End the World.'

Business Is

Business is creation, just as creation can be business.

On Appreciation

Explore and appreciate, rather than disregarding and discriminating.

Calling All Telegraphers

Technologies and business models change, and the best thing to do is change with them, and instigate change yourself.

Photo of a Sunset

There's a place for beauty in art, and ideally it's a place that supports meaning.

Habitats

Habits are powerful, and can be either negative or positive influences on your life, depending on whether or not you have control of them.

Omnihustle

Avoid creating for the sake of creation. Instead, build channels through which to share your work, and give yourself the ability to experiment more as a result.

The New Tattoo

Sometimes a lack of expression can say more than an intentionally designed and applied one.

My Life on the Floor

The routine of discomfort and pain can be as familiar as a hometown long unvisited.

Outrageous Ambition

Big ideas are cumbersome, but carrying their weight can be very worthwhile in the end.

One Size Fits All

One size fits all: great for socks, bad for beliefs.

Ways and Means

They vehicle we use to deliver a message can be just as important as the message itself.

Magpie Fight

I love magpies. They're sturdy-looking birds, and some of them can use tools. If you approach most other birds, or even just pass by them…

Unlabelable

Aspire to be frustratingly unlabelable.

Hats

It's okay to label and sort the world, just be careful to apply very specific labels, and write them in pencil.

Trappings

It's better to show who you are through your actions than through titles you apply to yourself.

Dollars and Sense

Dollars are one way to measure success, but even better is using sense.

The Right Hands

The wrong tools in the right hands is far better than the opposite. Quote from my new book, Act Accordingly. Update: April 7, 2017 In…

Monkey Butlers

Becoming self-reliant isn't easy, and it's an ongoing journey no matter how far along the path you get.

The Cake

I am not the labels applied to me. I am me.

Meandering

Asking yourself uncomfortable questions may keep you from speeding recklessly toward your goals, but it also ensures your goals are the correct ones.

More Than You Need

Picture Hemingway. Or Thoreau. Or Virginia Woolf. The idea is to get in your head the image of an author; someone from before the computer.…

The Internet of Things

This piece was originally featured in Let's Know Things, a free, irregularly published email in which I discuss a topic and do my best to…

Opportunity Costs

There's no avoiding opportunity costs, but you can make them bear more fruit, for you, and for others.

Bootstrapping Art

One needn't choose between financial and creative fulfillment, so long as one considers carefully the work they do to pay the rent.

Harmonious Independence

Relationships should not be about sacrifices — they should be about mutual support, admiration, and harmonious independence.

Coffee

I don't like coffee, but I will make myself appreciate it. For personal growth.

Social Contracts

There are pros and cons to laws and social contracts, but how you deal with them is up to you.

Intentional Titles

A title acquired accidentally isn't nearly as valuable as one earned by choices you've made.

Afraid of Fear

Fear can be scary, but it's worth holding up to the light and examining so you can move on with your life.

Bureaucracy

You may not be able to reconcile everything you're ever done, but you can cut out the obviously unnecessary from your philosophy.

Costs of Living

Where you spend your money makes all the difference in what you get for it.

Bending

Bending allows us to see from another perspective, adding flexibility to something that could otherwise be very brittle.

We All Dance

We all dance to different music, but the more moves we know, the more we get out of life.

Responsibility

If you want to accomplish big things, you have to make yourself into the kind of person who can do so.

Most Things

You'll never know everything. And that's for the best.

Where Wonder Begins

Wonder and awe is only increased the more we learn about the world around us.

Every Day is New Year’s

Positive change is worth striving for. Don't put it off — or force it — because it is, or isn't, the proper day of the year for new beginnings.

2012

Things Remembered

Memory is a filing system for a lifetime of 'nows' — don't miss the opportunity to fill it with good data.

Success & Society

There is much to be said about economic disparity and how the classes impact each other, but the most vital topic is the conflict between them.

Negative Drawing

It's not just what you add that makes a person, it's also what you take away.

Normalcy

Normal is a word with different meanings based on who you are. But it's also something that changes any time you delve into the abnormal.

Extreme Support

Although it can be good to offer support or healthy criticism, straying too far toward either extreme can result in very negative consequences.

Know Why You Buy

Money can buy happiness, you just need to know where to spend it.

Worthless Philosophies

There are an infinite number of valid philosophies to choose from, but none are yours unless you practice them.

Talking Animals

When big decisions need to be made, endless debating and idea polarization are probably the worst possible tools for coming up with the most ideal solution.

Empty Brands

Most information we receive is saturated with bias. Keep that in mind and make better decisions.

Loyalty or Happiness

Loyalty is considered to be a noble trait to possess, but it may simply maintain the status quo at the expense of personal happiness.

Not Capitalism

Capitalism is a common scapegoat for the world's economic woes, but in most cases we're aiming our disdain at the wrong target.

Offenseless

The best way to shut down a discussion and make sure no one walks away with anything valuable is to become offended.

The Problem with Elected Leadership

Many of the problems with have with politicians stem from the fact that we vote for candidates based on non-leadership-related attributes.

Purposeful Debates

Most debates are little more than parallel speeches at unreceptive audiences. It could be otherwise, if we decided to make it so.

You Are a Weapon

Without equal parts sharpening and cutting, any weapon becomes dull and useless. Balance is vital in becoming the most capable instrument you can be.

Common Sense

Common sense is essential for day-to-day decisions, but can be incredibly harmful if applied to questions of right and wrong.

Confidence Is

Confidence is worth having, but requires constant maintenance.

Breakup Parties

Relationships aren't easy, though perhaps even harder is ending one that isn't working. If done right, a breakup party can be just what the doctor ordered.

Opening Windows

Technology has given us an unparalleled ability to share knowledge, but has also allowed us to close ourselves off from new ideas like never before.

The Absolute Best Shirt Ever

Anyone with ideas is prone to making bold statements, and it's fine to explore these ideas, so long as we keep them in context.

Be Meditative

Meditating is an excellent habit to get into, but being meditative is an even more valuable lifestyle choice.

Armed for Tea

It's important to accept new people and ideas graciously, and it's just as vital to accept those who don't with the same friendly determination.

Measuring Measurement

Most of the measurements we take in school, work, and life in general don't tell us the whole story. In fact, what they tell us is perhaps the least valuable part of the story possible.

Two Humilities

There are two types of humility: one of them practical and invigorating, while the other kills ambition and personal satisfaction.

Ceilings and Floors

Setting a high ceiling for oneself is important, but just as important is making sure your floors are low.

A Light

Maintaining middling expectations allows you to enjoy the best the world has to offer, while also making it through rough patches without complaint or concern.

Preaching to Other Choirs

It's not enough to be remarkable if you want to make change. You have to be remarkable in a way that those whose minds you want to change will respect.

Untapped Resources

We've all got access to untapped resources, and their future is determined by whether or not we decide to look for them or not.

Today

A day can be momentous or forgettable, and both possibilities can be beneficial if viewed correctly.

Impressive Pigeons

All goals are achievable, though not always in the way (or through the means) we had originally planned for.

We Live in a Time

There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, but there's plenty of amazing mixed in there, too. Focusing on that may just make you proud to be human.

Cost of Entry

Having more years to live can be meaningless if you don't spend them well. Likewise, comfort is just watered down happiness if you fail to use it as a launchpad for the pursuit of something better.

Let’s Incubate Businesses, Not Just Startups

Incubators are great, but focusing on startups to the detriment of businesses that don't require investment is harmful to the long-term survival of entrepreneurship and the economy as a whole.

Doing the Time Warp, Again and Again

How we perceive time is important for personal development, but setting up a life without discomfort or time warps could be harmful to one's long-term happiness.

What Wouldn’t You Do?

Asking yourself the right questions can mean the difference between happiness and a staggeringly standard lifestyle.

Committing to No Commitments

Setting a limit on the duration of commitments is a great way to keep yourself evolving, but also to avoid getting locked into something you'll regret later.

You Should See My Car

A Car Guy without a car is just a Guy. What's important is making sure that when you're just a Guy, you're still epic.

Finishing Things

Finishing can be just as difficult as starting, especially when new habits have to be developed to cope with the changes that come with completion.

Doors that Open for You

Opening doors — to yourself or to your city — is a great way to get people who otherwise would walk right by to take a look inside.

Silly Question

Being in transit can be as much of an adventure as living somewhere and experiencing local cultures.

Coping with Unlimited

Now that we have a nearly unlimited capacity to distribute knowledge, we need new methods of managing knowledge so we can make use of that capacity.

2011

Nineteen Stories

Sometimes the best stories are distanced, simple, and not your own.

A Righter Way

There's something to be said for mastery, but the path that leads there can have more twists and turns and offshoots than most people will tell you.

My Six Life Focuses

The six focuses that keep me moving and motivated (and happy) are deceptively simple.

My Brain Rickshaw

Refining my own mental metaphor for myself and how I work.

Competing Contexts

Context can be everything, yet a strong context in a given situation is hard to achieve, and requires more than just research and discussion.

Riding Ducks and Chicken Internet

Reflections on Kolkata, a walk around the neighborhood, enthusiastic construction workers, Easter Island and my first encounter with the Chicken Internet.

Lewd Conduct and the Law in Kolkata

A night on the town in Kolkata turns into a lesson about dealing with bureaucracy and bribery in a country of paperwork.

Hang Me Up to Dry

The realities of my laundry situation don't quite meet up with my ambitions while on the road.

Accept Your Exceptions

Being the exception is limiting in some ways, but liberating in others.

Mind Adapters, Not Mind Converters

It may seem like understanding another culture requires a radical change of personality, but all it really requires is the right state of mind.

Passport-Sized Time Machines

Rumination on the stories that passport photos can tell about where you were and what you were doing at a certain point and time in your life.

Cursed and Accomplished in Kolkata

The tale of my trials and tribulations I experienced my first two weeks in Kolkata, India, and what they mean for the rest of the 4 months I'll be living here.

Revenge Paninis

In which I'm stopped, rerouted, denied sleep, forced to chase my bag around an airport and offered a panini in exchange for my silence.

There Was a Time

There was a time when ignorance was understandable. But not today.

Social Games Gamers Play

Video games are suddenly mainstream, and that's giving rise to a generation influenced by games in a big way.

Friends with Fans

An overview of what it's like to have friends with fans and a quick exploration of how I think you avoid watering down your message while continuing to expand your reach.

I’m Totally Holding Back

Sometimes holding back and not jumping headfirst into difficulty is the hardest thing you can do.

Horizon Therapy

Sometimes all you need to achieve clarity is a calm moment and a good view.

The Things We Know We Can’t Know

There are things we can know and things we can't know; it's important to understand the difference and which should be focused on.

On Not Sucking As Much

It may not be the victory you wanted, but celebrating intermittently along the way can help you reach your goals with your sanity intact.

7 Days, 7 New Skills

Time for a new experiment, and this time I'll try to learn a new skill every day for a week.

Extreme Lifestyle Experiments: My TEDx Talk

My TEDx Phnom Penh talk on Extreme Lifestyle Experiments and how they can help you gain the perspective you need to approach problems from a different angle.

The Life of a Wandering Fool

Continuously putting yourself in unfamiliar situations and feeling like an idiot is an incredibly effective way to become better informed.

I Am Not the Center of the Universe

Minimalism is not the be-all, end-all, but it is a great way to remove yourself from the philosophical equation to get to the heart of what matters to you.

Flash Your Country Gang Sign

Simple gestures can mean the world to someone in unfamiliar territory while costing you very little or nothing.

Easily the Best Book Ever Written

Life is the most complex and interesting storyline ever, and seeing it as such makes everyday experiences more exciting and achievement more accessible.

So I Do

It's great to want, but change can only happen if you DO.

Iceland

Getting ready for my next home-base country, Iceland!

Moving Between Moments

Life is a series of moments, and you can control how and when you change to a new one (and what that new one looks like).

2010

Living an Iterative Life

Dividing your time into segments and living an iterative life can greatly increase the rate of your personal evolution and the pleasure you take in living.

I Build

If you are a builder, creating is a compulsion, not a choice. Giving in to that need can greatly increase your life and the lives of others.

More Free Time

Work is not keeping you from happiness, but having to do work you don't enjoy is. Don't be afraid of work you enjoy.

Screw Top 100 Lists and Citizen Kane

It's tempting to assume that movies on the top 100 lists are the best of the best, but in reality they are just antiques waiting to be cleared out to make room for new material.

The Bomb in My Apartment

A shift in laws and standards while traveling can force you to deep dive into your personal ethics and reevaluate your priorities.

Don’t Build Walls, Get Naked

It's natural to want to defend yourself against the trials and tribulations of the world, but if you allow yourself to face these issues head-on, you'll be able to deal with them more easily in the future.

Happiness and Dragonfruit

Stopping and taking time to be happy may sound like a waste for ambitious types, but by skipping it, you're kind of missing the point.

Minimalism Explained

Minimalism is an oft-misunderstood philosophy, and it shouldn't be confused with 'just getting rid of stuff.' If you do Minimalism right, though, it's likely you'll want to streamline your life, and your possessions.

All 55 Things I Own

A gallery of all 55 things I currently own after 2 weeks in Bangkok.

Beards Versus Snake Oil

While traveling, it can sometimes pay to go disguised as someone that you're not for a few days.

Add Seaweed to Your Brand

It's important to have strong core brand values, but it's equally important to be able to bend when trying to share those values with others.

Dishonest Branding, Coke and Vitaminwater

In the wake of a lawsuit over Coke's branding of their popular vitaminwater products, dishonest branding is discussed and reasons are given to brand truthfully.

Expectations and Experiences

Our cultural expectations color our experiences, which can impact our futures in ways that are hard to imagine.

Flocks of Bloggers

Bloggers tend to have very different relationships with each other than non-bloggers.

Fence Tape and Cow Brains

Are there fences in your life that are self-imposed, rather than being true barriers?

Hookahs, Babies, and One Crazy Author

Realizing that you have changed your priorities can be scary and exciting at the same time, especially when you figure out that they've shifted after the fact.

Don’t Build Your Own Boxes

Why I didn't go bungee jumping and sat at a coffeehouse ruminating instead, and why you might consider doing the same.

Politicians, Here’s How To Win

A modest proposal for a new way to run political campaigns against the backdrop of a backwoods New Zealand farmer's market.

Tall Poppy Syndrome and the Jealousies

There is one big hurdle other than Internet infrastructure that could hamstring New Zealand's effort to become a dominant player in international business, and this hurdle has a cute name: Tall Poppy Syndrome.

My Quarter-Century Crisis (of Awesomeness)

I've come to understand that for my 25th birthday I'm supposed to go a little crazy, completely rearrange my life, change careers, take up new hobbies, end relationships, dramatically change my priorities and generally turn into a whirlwind of drastic activity, shocking friends and family with my sheer audacity and lack of respect for the rules.

The Business of Throwing People from Planes

I was coerced into going skydiving while I was spending a weekend in Queenstown quite recently, and though the jumping out of a plane thing was a pleasure, the branding of modern skydiving companies is somehow even more impressive.

Drink to Life

Good writers know that to give the reader a full sensory experience, you must stimulate each of their senses.

Every Day in Lima is the Best Day Ever

I'm walking down yet another wrought-iron gate-lined block. It looks exactly the same as the one before it. No wait, the spikes at the top of the gate are a little pointier on this block, and the rust is a slightly different hue.

I’m a Man of Many Experiments

Part of why I started traveling was so that I would be able to go through personal evolutions more quickly.

All 51 Things I Own

One of the most popular posts ever here on Exile Lifestyle was All 72 Things I Own, wherein I took a photo of each and every object I owned in the world and was shocked to find that I had only 72 items.

Exercises in Social Incorrectness

There are many invisible but very important social rules that keep the streets clean, the lights on, and you and your neighbors alive day-to-day.

The Middle Class

I - like a solid portion of my audience in all likelihood - come from a middle class family. Seldom have I felt like anything in the world was out of my grasp, and I generally assume that if I want to do something, there will be a way to do it if I'm willing to work hard enough.

For Real, I’m Going to Die on This Bus

It's the final day of my 72-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Lima, and the seats around me have turned into a strip mall, my fellow passengers into skeptical (but willing) customers.

Guys, This Bus Sucks

The bus is late. This shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. As a clunky green giant pulls up, looking a bit like a dilapidated, heavily curtained refrigerator from the 70's, the contrast between my ride and the other, sparkly, shiny, clean and friendly Argentine buses is clear.

Making a Modern Medici

The Renaissance was a time of great intellectual and artistic prosperity; many people were pulled out of the mud and darkness of the Middle Ages and shown a bright, shiny, new future - one of endless possibilities.

2009

The Bar at the End of the World

I'm on my third beer, this one is green. It's the local specialty; so local in fact that it's named after the bar I'm sitting in. 'Dublin,' the label proudly reads. Made by Beagle, the brand I've been drinking since I've been here. Dublin is the only place in town where you can find other people this time of night, any day of the week.

All 72 Things I Own

As a minimalist, it's important that my possessions do not own me and that what I do own serves multiple purposes, is high-quality and as sustainable as possible.

Stalking

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I have a history of stalking.

Sentimentality is the Enemy of Evolution

I was having a conversation over orange juice with one of the handful of English expats I've met since I moved to Buenos Aires, and the topic of sentimentality came up. It went something like this:

The Fine Art of Diving Into Traffic

I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 days ago and after a solid 18 hours on various flights between Miami, Mexico City and Santiago, I was ready to crash into anything soft and bed-like I could find. My wits were a bit scrambled, and though I was conscious enough to not get taken (too much) by the taxi driver who carted me from the airport to the downtown area, I still wasn't ready for what I would see immediately upon exiting the vehicle.

Missouri

As I write this I'm on a shuttle between Columbia, Missouri and St. Louis, looking out the window, listening to Yelle and typing away on my tiny little netbook.

How to Throw a Shred Party

Most parties are about getting together with friends, eating and drinking until you're waddling around the room, and creating new memories. But what if you're trying to bring about change? What if you want to move forward and let go of all the things that are anchoring you to the past?

How to Be a Consultant

When little kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, they usually pick something that seems exciting or heroic. If they had their way, janitors, office clerks and yard care workers would be grossly under-represented (while we would have an abundance of astronauts, firefighters, fashion designers and Presidents of the United States).

Goodbye LA: You Suck and I’ll Miss You

As I write this I'm sitting along the periphery of the waiting area for Gate 35 at LAX airport, my worldly belongings nearly identifiable as they bulge and poke and scramble to find a way out of the carry-on bag they are piled into like refugees.

How to Throw a Breakup Party

The first question that I would usually get from people when I initially started telling them about Exile Lifestyle was "When will you be coming back?" The second question was invariably "Is your girlfriend coming along with you?"

Reclaiming a Scarcity Mentality

As I write this, I'm waiting for a half-dozen people to show up at my apartment so they can cart off my furniture. One lady wants my bedroom set, a younger gentleman is interested in one of my three office desks, and a couple of college students want to take a look at my one remaining bookcase.

Take an Unplanned Vacation

Today I woke up in Mesa, Arizona, went for a quick swim, ate remarkably-accurate New York-style pizza in a Southwestern town with a population of around 200, drove to the Grand Canyon, slipped on my Vibram Five Fingers and hiked a bit, slowly made my way to a Route 66 town called Williams where I downed a Blue Moon, listened to some live, twangy oldies music (sung by a mountain man), then watched Jurassic Park while relaxing in a cheapish hotel room with too many beds.

Limit Yourself to Expand Your Mind

Weve all been in situations that have been less than ideal. Your job might suck or your roommates might be a burden on your mind and your wallet. You may feel stuck in a mire of crummy college classes or weighed down by your sycophantic 'friends.'

Park Further Away

As someone who reads a whole lot, I'm constantly discovering that there are very few new ideas, and most of the ones that claim to be are really just derivative of old ones with a new label slapped on them.

Learn 1 Thing from Everyone You Meet

File this under 'weird things that Colin does for fun at parties.' In addition to playing the Meet New People game (which I'll cover in the near future), I make it a point to learn at least one completely new fact from each person I talk to when I'm out networking (also: at a friend's birthday party, attending a museum opening or really anything else where I come into contact with people). The facts don't have to relate to anything in particular and can run the gamut from something you'd learn in a textbook to something you'd learn on prime time television to something you'd learn on the streets.

Nostalgia for Fun and Profit

One of my favorite assignments in design school involved going through my old class work and re-appropriating something I had done before into something new. I took old photographs and turned them into new album covers. A once-glorious illustration became a newly-glorious social poster. A really-quite-bad infographic became a really-quite-funny t-shirt. The idea of reaching back into your near- or distant-past for inspiration can be taken beyond scrapping old projects for new raw materials. Case in point: I'm in the process of selling off everything I own, and my trusty old guitar is sitting in the middle of my living room (which has become Purgatory for my items in transition).

Your 20 Minutes of Awesome

If you're anything at all like me, your time is very valuable to you. You only have 24 hours in a day and ostensibly only a portion of those hours are yours to use for productive things, so you do your best to make the most of them, cut out the chaff and increase your output the best you can. Needless to say, this kind of mindset is not conducive to breaks, naps, lollygagging or friends (just kidding on that last one….or am I!?). But despite my own and your propensity for productivity, I want to propose a non-intuitive method for increasing effectiveness, alertness and mental health. I call it Your 20 Minutes of Awesome, and I want to tell you why you should utilize this method every single day.