The Deca Century Club: Your Happy Pill for a Smarter, Stronger Mind Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that today, you received undeniable confirmation of your intelligence. You were awarded an advanced degree from one of the world’s most prestigious institutions. A hundred people—friends, mentors, even total strangers—came up to you, shaking your hand, telling you how brilliant you are. You received awards, accolades, and validation, all affirming that you are, in fact, a genius. How would that change the way you see yourself? Now, let’s say that later that same day, someone approaches you with bad news. They say, “Hey, we made a mistake. Something you did went wrong.” How would you react? You’d probably take it in stride. You’d think, “That’s fine. I’m actually a brilliant person. Mistakes happen. I’ll fix the process, analyze what went wrong, and make sure it never happens again.” That’s what smart, resourceful people do. And since you just spent the whole day being remind...
The Bells of Behaviorism and the Power of Associations Note: While the experiences and perspectives are my own, I used AI to help draft and refine this article. It was a crisp New York day, and I was on a Big Apple bus tour, soaking in the sights. Our guide was the kind of person who made every story feel like a personal anecdote, weaving humor and charm into every fact he shared. At some point, I asked him what he did before becoming a guide. “I used to work in advertising,” he replied. That answer triggered a thought. As someone who’s read a lot about psychology, I immediately thought of John Broadus Watson, the father of behaviorism, who famously transitioned from academia to advertising. Without thinking, I asked, “Did you ever meet Watson?” The guide laughed and said, “I didn’t meet him, but my aunt worked with him.” He called Watson “weird” and moved on to his next story. My wife wasn’t convinced. “Why would he know about some random psychologist who worked in adver...
The Changing Role of the Writer in the Age of AI: Dedicated to My Mom Note: I used AI to help draft and refine this article. My mom, an amazing woman, once took a statistics analysis course that left her traumatized. She hated it. And while this anecdote might seem mundane, it illustrates something larger: the struggle of adapting to evolving tools and technologies. What my mom went through—manually crunching numbers, using rulers, and calculating by hand—was the norm. Everyone did it that way. But as we move into an era shaped by artificial intelligence, the story isn’t about nostalgia for the old methods; it’s about recognizing how the tools of the present reshape the way we think, work, and create. There’s an old saying: “A work of art is never completed, it is merely abandoned.” This idea resonates deeply with the creative process—especially writing. Consider the worker who turns in a project to their supervisor. The supervisor examines it and says, “This is good, but these p...
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