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So you wanna upgrade the old noggin, increase your thought power, turbo charge your CPU? Then go out and do things. Do things you’ve never done before. Do things you’ve never even imagined. Stuff that will shock and amaze your friends because it’s so novel and unexpected from you. This, my friend, is how you [...]

The number one murderer of truth is ideology. Ideology: we expect it in politics and religion, government and propaganda. We do not expect ideology in mathematics. Mathematics is supposed to be the one last refuge for absolute truth in a world battered by storms of confusion and uncertainty, right? At least that’s the standard soundbite. [...]

One of the things I’ve noticed from doing 30-day challenges is how many new things I come in contact with and learn about when I do them. Things which were previously never in my reality enter my reality, and my reality is expanded. Reality expansion is the process of encountering new things you never even [...]

Skills are specific things we know how to do, like how to make origami, how to weave, how to paint, and so on. They are generally things you learn by doing, rather than by reading about in abstract. Sure, you can gain knowledge about them by reading general theory, but you have to actually get [...]

Some information is more important than other information, but there’s no such thing as useless knowledge. No matter how obscure a piece of knowledge may be, it’s still useful. REFERENCE POINTS FOR THE MIND When we encounter a new situation, our mind tries to grapple with it and understand it by making connections with things [...]

An autodidact is a person who teaches himself or herself, using books or the internet or whatever other resources are available but not using a teacher or classroom. I’ve been autodidacting for much of my life, starting at least in the first year of junior high. They say necessity is the mother of invention, in [...]

You’re being chased by a horrible demon, through some surreal, hellish landscape. Suddenly your legs sink into a bog of quicksand and the demon’s closing in fast. Frantically, you look around for any exit. Suddenly you get the urge to glance at your digital watch. The numbers on the watch are spinning madly out of [...]

Lately I’ve felt like I really want to accomplish more with my time. Sort of like a growing pain, like my consciousness is trying to expand and it’s running up against barriers in the form of time and distraction. One thing I’ve noticed, is that as much as I love music, I’ve been listening to [...]

I frequent some forums where people are very serious about language learning techniques. Well, you kind of have to be, if you’re a westerner and trying to become fluent in something like Japanese! There are a number of issues that keep coming up, that people are bitterly divided over. Things like: Should I study English-to-TargetLanguage, [...]

They say people judge you on your vocabulary, and it’s true, but it’s misleading. People hear that saying and they translate it as, “need bigger words”. In fact, this is the basis for a whole industry of “increase your vocabulary” products. Truth is, it’s better to know less words, and know them well. Of course, [...]