Nostalgia is a curious creature. It sneaks up on you in the most unexpected moments, like when you stumble upon an old action figure buried deep in the basement or hear a familiar theme song that instantly transports you back to a simpler time. I still feel great emotional attachment to cherished franchises from my…
Perhaps I have always been a bit too obsessed with round numbers, those symmetrical, whole figures that seem to promise completion, contentment, and ever-elusive satisfaction. I know I’m far from alone in being struck by this notion. In the online world, round numbers are extremely sought after, especially when they count followers, subscribers, or page…
I once journaled about a thought I once had on divine accidents. Specifically, I was pondering the circumstances of our births being a sort of “divine accident”. I don’t believe that this was my original idea. It was likely placed there by someone at an institution of “higher learning.” What exactly is a “divine accident?”…
In the twenty-first century, every waking moment for a content creator is calculated towards appeasing the ever-hungry beast known as the algorithm. What a time to be alive! Forget about tortured artists starving for the sake of the craft; now, we have hustlers fueled by energy drinks, furiously tapping out tweets at 2 AM, all…
In 2003, I wrote many short essays as part of a weekly homework assignment. One of these has hung around in my archives for many years, a more substantial piece called “Life is Not a Grade,” a whimsical yet insightful expedition into the notion that our existence cannot — and should not — be quantified…
Our human experience, this trek through Absurdia, is a complex and multidimensional journey. It’s full of both ephemeral and everlasting moments. Every memory we create, emotion we feel, and day we experience shapes us into the individuals that we are. Even when their effects appear lost to the passage of time, the residue and essence…
A society that normalizes bullying is no society at all. Yet in our grand age of progress, we’ve apparently decided that bullying suddenly isn’t that big of a problem. It’s as if we took all those anti-bullying campaigns from the early 2000s and collectively decided to toss them into the same memory hole where we…
When we think of adulting, we usually imagine the difficult things: paying bills, finding well-paying jobs, and settling down. But, in reality, adulting is much more about living your life to the fullest and making your dreams come true. It’s about making a difference in this world, whether it’s through charity work, starting your own…
The 2020’s have become the age of over-optimization for everything. While I respect people’s need for maximum efficiency, it’s quite possible to go too far. I’ve seen this be especially true in digital marketing, when people bow to the almighty search engine results to get new leads… only to be entirely unable to handle the…