I think this is a good case study in downsizing. I told myself this past year that I’d like to do one or two Lego projects, somewhere along the lines of finishing a mech I started building years ago and maybe building a house or two based on designs from the 1920s. Neither has happened. […]
Brief Thoughts on Busyness
Busyness is rarely just caused by our immediate necessary actions – busyness, I think, has an awful lot to do with the cognitive load that we place on ourselves. Having quit my job early this year, it’s never ceased to amaze me how I still feel busy on a regular basis, even though I have […]
Book Purge, 2022
As much as I love learning, I’ve had to accept that the vast majority of books have very little to offer, and this often won’t be clear until you’ve actually read some of them. Obviously, this is where libraries can save you a lot of money, but libraries increasingly focus on fiction books and very […]
In Defense of Evolution, Part 2
Several days after writing my first post on this topic, I started thinking about the things I wish I had included, so I figured I would write some of these out. I don’t have an overarching message, really, I’m just going to put these thoughts into sections. Reasons for Questioning Faith So much of searching […]
Incremental Wealth Building as an Alternative to Homeownership
Before the S&P 500 reached its all-time high back in January, I reached a milestone where my investments were technically paying my rent. I didn’t want to make too big a deal of this, as I knew that markets inevitably experience downturns, and it was also true that my rent was abnormally low, so it […]
In Defense of Evolution
One of the most controversial topics in the Christian church is evolution. It’s so controversial, in fact, that it’s even talked about less than abortion, and when it is, just like abortion, it is often spoken of with great hostility. But this has been strange for me, and hard at times, because…I’m an evolutionist. I’m […]
Food Part 1: The Economics of Emergency Food
Many years ago, my dad bought me a box of freeze-dried emergency meals. This box expired in 2019, and while I had planned to get rid of it in 2020, the pandemic convinced me to hold onto it a little longer. But it’s been several years now, and it got me researching emergency food. First […]
The Myth of the Eternal Beater Car
There is a general category of urban legend that features beater cars that simply never die. Many of these urban legends revolve around Hondas and Toyotas from the 1990s, even spawning the great “1999 Toyota Corolla – Fine AF” post on Craigslist. Many people have anecdotes of older cars seeming to last forever, or stories […]
The Importance of Owning Less
My parents moved out of state this past week. I wrote up a rather large rant on the subject, but after taking a few days to clear my thoughts, I decided to rewrite it into something maybe a little more useful. Nobody ever moves and thinks, “Wow, I’m glad I have all this stuff!” And […]
Tomes: Reflections on Knowledge and the Physicality of Books
I’ve found a few new YouTube channels to watch recently, mostly related to religion and mythology, and a few of these channels feature backdrops of shelves filled with books related to the subject matter. It feels slightly pretentious, but seems to be a common design choice. After all, if a channel is trying to be […]