Exile Lifestyle

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 to-do list and schedule of events. It’s fine for both purposes, but not great at…

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 a reality. And it’s one that I’ve learned to accept in the same way I…

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, undistracted thinking. I let my mind wander and do nothing at all, usually staring at…

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 inhale so much of it. This is true no matter who you are, what your…

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 the total aggregated inputs: our small, daily efforts transmogrify into more than the sum of…

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. I think this is only fair because, for many of us, this has not been…

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 topic. I was an art student when I arrived at university, and spent my first…

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 a beginner means the unabashed embrace of the unknown, the frustration of things you can…

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 stimulate our capacity to remember things. This effect is so potent that many champion memorizers…

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 time. Fashion is probably the most visual and well-known of these cycles, with garment-professionals planning…