Exile Lifestyle

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 us at least) to fall into what I like to call the “everlasting present.” This…

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 prefer—are foggy, multifaceted issues. Social matters, likewise, are muddled at best, and anyone who claims…

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 I’ve taken a somewhat unusual path (relative to what we might think of as the…

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 that psychological eddy by reframing how I’m thinking about the project, relationship, approach, outcome, or…

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 of earlier options (a somewhat better calendar, a project organizer with a more complex or…

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 an informed opinion about that” more often. Giving oneself permission to admit ignorance isn’t easy…

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 and tools. In this context, our boxes are the containers in which we put the…

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 heuristics I use when learning and thinking about these sorts of tools. What we’re talking…

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 attributes aren’t inherently in opposition: it’s possible to present complex concepts and topics in a…

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 ones. One aspect of habit-building that’s perhaps counterintuitive, but which I find to be powerful,…