I like to set aside time at least once a week to work on something creative, computer stuff excluded. It’s my arts and crafts time. I can pick something from pinterest to mimic or start another journal or make cards for certain holidays. It’s not about creating something that I can show off or learning a skill. Instead, the time is a sort of mental reset, kind of like meditation or napping. See, when you first learn a skill, it takes a lot of conscious effort. You try to dissect the technique and compartmentalize each of the motions until you master each one separately. This is a low degree of competency: you can do it, but it’s mentally taxing. After a while, the process becomes repetitive and second-hand, and you start losing the conscious component. The sensory perception information starts… more →

One of our most bizarre social stigmas is against the trumpeting of good deeds. We are taught from birth that real charity shouldn’t bring attention to itself, that selflessness is somehow better when it passes undiscovered to all but oneself. But in a society of open-minded individuals, this paradigm may honestly be one thing holding back progress. This ideal which is taught across cultures and religions1 did apply at one time in the past when the world was not as connected as it is now. The advent of globalization has done wonders to the standards of the First World, primarily that an individual need no longer live walled in by the limitations of social and governmental precedents. The communities we build online transcend these historical boundaries and cultivate a generation of people in which Indians and Pakistanis can laugh and play together.… more →