Meditation

10 Days of Silence: Vipassana Meditation Revisited

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10 Days of Silence: Vipassana Meditation Revisited This isn’t like my other posts. Trying to explain terms that are in nature pre-symbolic is tough. A lot of what I experienced at my meditation retreat is not yet easily put into words, for words do not do justice to the sweeping stress that was put on my body and psyche during yet another 10 days in silence. If you don’t know what a 10-day meditation retreat consists of, I recommend you go read my pieces on Vipassana before venturing any further […]

Reading

“The Order of Things” Book Review: By Mitch Nickerson

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Here I’m going to give a brief overview of a rather puzzling book, The Order of Things, or as titled in French “Les Mots et Les Choses”. Michel Foucault left us this work in 1966 which established himself as one of the great French thinkers of the twentieth century and added to the many structuralist works of the era. However, in order to dive in, it is necessary that we have an understanding of the term “episteme”. Foucault uses the term “episteme” as a way to describe the very structure […]

Habits

Stop Being Busy: Three Distinctions Between The Busy And Productive

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Stop Being Busy: Three Distinctions Between The Busy And Productive “Busy is a decision.” – Debbie Millman James is a college student who prides himself on his busy schedule. From the moment he wakes up in the morning, to the moment his head hits the pillow, James is constantly working. Lecture, clubs, his job, or homework, James is in a constant state of doing. Jessica—also a college student—sleeps in on the weekends and yet, strangely enough, attends lecture, clubs, her job, and does her homework all the while enjoying her […]

52 in 52 Book Summaries

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

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Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer Print The Essence Journalist Joshua Foer chunks the art of memory into a palatable narrative discussing his journey from memory chump to US memory champion. Memory isn’t a trait that we are natural endowed with, it is a skill that we all have the ability to acquire and cultivate. If we emulate how mental athletes have acquired the art of memorizing—taking advantage of spacial memory—nothing limits our capacities to develop memory skills. Moonwalking with Einstein Summary Journal […]

Habits

Respecting the Plan: Develop Planning Parsimony

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Respecting the Plan: Develop Planning Parsimony The last few day have been a challenge. I have been traveling to Delhi, India for over 24 hours—from Philadelphia Pennsylvania to New York, to Kiev Ukriane to New Delhi. It has certainly been a journey. I am excited to have arrived in India and have spent my first day in the city of New Delhi from wandering street corners to experiencing my first tuk tuk with someone I only met today. We walked along the allies of Delhi, navigating a labyrinth of culture […]

52 in 52 Book Summaries

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

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Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath Print The Essence Made to Stick helps us understand why we are better at remembering some ideas over others. Not only that, the Heath brothers also provide us with the tools to make our own ideas stickier. Much of what we know suffers from the curse that only knowing it can cause; we are trapped in our own understanding. By taking caution against the curse of knowledge and applying the SUCCES to our ideas, we all […]

Travel

Nomad Mindset: Mentally Preparing for Travel

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Nomad Mindset: Mentally Preparing for Travel. Podcasts, books, blogs, and of course the cherished advice of travelers I have met thus far have all had commonalities.; they warned me of the great travel fallacy. This fallacy holds that changing your backdrop will somehow change you has a person. This could not be any more wrong. For leaving an environment does not solely alter the entirety of your being. You cannot stop being the habit patterns and associations you have embraced for years just by packing up and leaving—there is no […]

52 in 52 Book Summaries

I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman

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I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined) by Chuck Klosterman Print The Essence Cultural critic Chuck Klosterman addresses the veil of ignorance surrounding how people affect society. Using our unintuitive fascination with villainy, Chuck picks apart how we sway towards specific categorical qualities when distinguishing good and evil. He does so by using famous figures all throughout history—mostly modern—that we may have considered ‘evil’ and provides a perspective of the theme in a new light—one less bias by status quo. What’s good and bad is not as […]

Failure

Rejection: 3 Lessons From My Graduate Application Process

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Rejection: 3 Lessons From My Graduate Application Process In the last few months, I have experienced one of the largest upsets in my plan for building the skills needed to make a difference in this world. But before we can get to that it is important that you know what keeps me up at night. I want to study decision sciences. Developing a stronger empirical understanding of how people make choices and using that information to structure decision environments is my thing. I think we can take advantage of human […]

52 in 52 Book Summaries

Book Summary: You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh

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You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh Print The Essence Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, distills the core Buddhist teachings and practices all in under 200 pages. Observing the presence of everything in this world is only ever truly recognized when we first become present of ourselves. Thich Nhat Hanh stresses the importance of mindfulness as the main instrument at our disposal in the art of living and provides us with techniques for cultivating mindfulness in our own lives. All the while he […]