Human progress is amazing. We’ve come from living in cages to building space rockets and a global communication network that allows two people on opposite ends of the planet to have a real time, visual conversation thanks to supercomputers that fit into our pockets. Many innovations were inevitable. If, for example, whoever invented the wheel…
The world is a stage and we’re all actors. No, wait, don’t leave. This is not a melodramatic teenager writing, it’s me. I’m talking about a theory by Erwing Goffman. According to the canadian sociologist we switch between different roles depending on who we’re interacting with. We know it intuitively: We’re not quite the same…
Do you have a Happy Place? A corner in your mind you can turn to when you feel stressed and overwhelmed, a place that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe it’s a spot in the real world that you like to think of, a beach or a forest, maybe it’s a person,…
I know I should get up, but it’s so nice and warm in my bed. I’ve slept for way too long and there are things I need to take care of. I know it won’t be so bad once I’m up. But not right now, ok? Five more minutes. The bed is actually my apartment…
It’s four in the morning and I’m lying wide awake. My thoughts are loud: How the hell am I already 36? How did I find excuses all these years for not doing anything in pursuit of my dreams? My optimistic past self was convinced that at this point in time I’d have some solo albums…
What makes you you? What are the characteristics that your friends would say are typical for you? If somebody had a way to measure all these and combine them, would they be able to derive a personality type that actually reflects your true self? Tests like the one on the popular website 16 Personalities claim…
In my early twenties, a friend and I had an idea: we would travel through Switzerland for a few days by train and write letters to our future selves and to our future each others. At the end of the trip we put our letters in a box and bury them somewhere. Five years later…