Of cats and humans. — I remember this rare occurrence in an otherwise rather placid childhood: I was feeling dejected and misunderstood, brooding in my room who knows about what (which indicates the transcendence of the matter), when the cat walked in to check on me. As adults, we risk doubting that an animal could…

It isn’t any less so either. — It is easy to embrace freedom when everybody else behaves as you would like. The challenge comes when others use it to contradict some of our convictions. Then we begin to question whether we should set limits on other people’s liberties. We will tell ourselves that the decision isn’t about…

How can we know when a project is ready? How can we allow distractions in and still get stuff done? — A song is only finished when it is released. Once out there, it is the final product. Being public makes it definitive. Otherwise, the artist could tweak it endlessly, and so could the producer, and the mixing and mastering engineers. Often, the hardest part is to say something is ready…

When deception becomes the rule, honesty suddenly looks very stupid. — Recently, I have been reading about election fraud. The practice, as nefarious as it is, carries a passenger that often remains hidden until it is too late. This stealthy, almost undetectable presence is the virus that will remain, the bacteria responsible for the rotten system we will be left with…

Doing so is the first step toward having any decent ones. — Why is it so hard to let go of bad ideas? Firstly, the problem with ideas is that they can only be proven as right or wrong in retrospect. At the time of ideation, dreaming is free. …

But they must account for potential storms. — The weather cannot be our plan, but it must be part of it. While this assertion is stupidly evident, many people and organisations seemingly base their actions on such out-of-reach variables. From the business that expects its prospects to make tremendous efforts to become customers to the political movements that…

They own their mistakes and support each instead. — When we feel low and insecure, a natural response is to blame those around us for our shortcomings. The last thing an insecure person needs is more self-loathing, so seeking the blame in our immediate vicinity is a reflexive act of self-preservation. We might be failing in a particularly difficult…

And almost impossible without humility. — Learning to see where every mote of knowledge lives is an onerous quest. We can never have all the knowledge, but it would be a mistake to focus only on what we specialise in. Making sense of the world is more about discovering where the pieces meet and click together…

We cannot rationalise everything we do, but we can be intentional about the person we are when we make our choices. — In the popular video game Life Is Strange, the protagonist discovers she can rewind time. The power isn’t limitless but confined to the latest event. For instance, she may say something stupid she immediately regrets; luckily, with some mental effort, the entire scene reverses a couple of seconds so she…