Human Factors
I'm 37 and I watched my parents retire with everything they worked for
I used to think the hard part of retirement was the money. My parents proved me wrong without meaning to.
Psychology
Psychology suggests self-taught people may solve problems differently from most…
There's an odd question that turns up in cognitive psychology research, not often enough to be a settled field but enough to form a pattern: could learning outside the normal path shape how you approach certain kinds of problems?
Psychology
Psychology suggests people who constantly apologize for things that aren't their…
Someone bumped into me at the door. Sorry. The barista handed me the wrong drink.
Human Behaviour
I stopped initiating with my closest friends for four months just to see what would…
For four months I stopped reaching out to the people I considered closest, and what I learned wasn't that they didn't care — it was that they'd never noticed I was the one keeping us all connected.
Psychology
Psychology suggests people who browse social media but never post aren't…
There is a particular kind of social media user who barely registers in the public conversation, mostly because they barely produce one.
Space & Missions
Why the plutonium powering Voyager could fit in a milk carton, and how that tiny…
Picture a one-litre milk carton sitting on your kitchen counter. That is, in volume terms, roughly all the plutonium-238 dioxide fuel carried aboard each…
Human Behaviour
The happiest people I know aren’t the ones who think positively about everything…
For a while in my twenties, I was deep into the "think positive" thing. Affirmations on the mirror.
Human Behaviour
The hardest part of having few people who truly know you may not be loneliness
A friend said something to me a couple of years ago that I think about more than I'd like to admit.
Human Factors
People who can't quite remember the last time they felt genuinely happy aren't…
A friend said something to me a few months ago that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
Human Behaviour
People who constantly research self-improvement but never start aren’t necessarily…
I spent the better part of my twenties reading about how to live well. Books on habits, focus, meaning, discipline.
Human Behaviour
People who run every morning aren't always chasing fitness
It's 5:40am in Saigon. The city is just starting to stretch. The motorbikes are still rare, the food stalls are flicking on their fluorescent lights, and the…
Science & Engineering
The blogs that survived the AI shift weren't the ones with the best SEO or the…
The blogs that survived weren't the ones with the cleanest sites or the smartest content strategies — they were the ones whose writers had a specific, peculiar relationship with their subject that no model could simulate by accident.
Psychology
People who were deeply unhappy at work sometimes discover that retirement may not…
Ever met someone who counted down the days to retirement, only to find themselves lost and restless six months later?
Human Behaviour
Six things people who grew up lower middle class may do automatically as adults…
Class doesn't disappear with a paycheck. It hides in your hands, your fridge, and the way you flinch at a thirty-dollar lunch.
Psychology
There's a specific kind of loneliness that comes from outgrowing the life you…
You know that feeling when you look around at everything you've achieved and wonder why it feels so empty?
Human Behaviour
Acceptance can reduce the struggle with difficult feelings without making them…
Acceptance-based approaches encourage noticing difficult thoughts and feelings without immediately trying to eliminate them. They do not make every problem harmless or instantly rewire the brain.