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 back at college, and don’t have any immediate family in the state. I’ve made 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! One important thing to remember about social media is that it’s not inherently good or…
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, can be. Or at the very least, it can be antagonistic to our personal goals…
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 what you’ve just intellectually imbibed. This heuristic—to pause and think after taking something in—serves multiple…
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 variety of people over the years. But regardless of who originally coined the phrase, it…
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 not know something—may not know a great many things—and that this is natural and okay.…
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 from the most up-to-date sensory input and internal processing. But that may mean nothing a…
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 yours, needs to be framed in a press-worthy way. What this typically means is demonstrating…
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, faith-based practice. For still others, the exploration of the physical universe scratches this itch—science, math,…
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, despite having access to basic computer production software, my journalism class still taught the not-yet-phased-out…