Let’s be honest, yellow lights: no one really cares about you. If an alien came to our planet and observed you, he would think your yellow light meant “DRIVE FASTER! CROSS THAT INTERSECTION NOW! SCREW PEDESTRIANS!” You’re like the mom of ten…
“Ah, man. I have to drive for 40 minutes every day to work now.” Correction: you get to drive for 40 minutes every day. Seriously. You get to command a fine-tuned, precision driving instrument at blinding speeds faster than almost any form of…
“Hindsight is 20/20.” That’s what the guy who blindly stumbles into every bad mistake learns from birth. To some extent, he’s right. Post-mortem deconstruction of a choice is far easier than deconstruction in the moment. Still, with just a bit…
Don’t read this if you haven’t seen at least the full first season of Game of Thrones. You’ll be completely spoiled. “Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf…
Major spoilers for Wonder Woman ahead! —– Some movies are good to watch once. Others are evergreen. Tonight I watched the 2017 film Wonder Woman for the second time. It’s one of the latter. I loved Wonder Woman the first time I saw it. I’m not…
Moss-hung oaks lift ancient heads To greet his passing bier Herons bow their graceful necks And farewell liege-lord dear No noise of gulls in salty air And otters kneel ashore Marsh grass parts to make the way For gloried, aged riverlord Their fathers’ fathers…
You’re a lucky person if you had a grandfather to help raise you. Grandparents can teach you things your own parents can’t. It’s a special gift for a kid to get the gift of 50 years of master from someone. That was…
Conflict isn’t hard to find. You can’t swing a cat without hitting some kind of disagreement between two people or groups of people. Same applies to digital cats. Presumably those would be the kind you would swing on the internet (¯\_(ツ)_/¯),…
Today my grandfather died. I’m still processing what it means to live in a world without him. But there’s one thought that gives me extraordinary satisfaction: he ended so well. He was 90 years old. In his life, this man…
Let’s say you’re 19 years old. Your entire experience so far has been in reporting to other people and learning the very basics of marketing. Then let’s say your entire team gets laid off. Then let’s up the ante and…
It’s easy to make acquaintances in the modern world. New connections are just a few taps away on any mobile device. That’s an amazing thing. Sincerity and depth in relationships with other young people is harder to get at.…
Marketers, we all know direct mail is dying. Open rates are falling, conversion is falling, and eyeballs are moving away from our 10% off coupons to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. This might discourage other professions. But we’re marketers. When a medium is…
Some marriages are good enough to make you want to drive into a hurricane to witness them. One year ago it was my brother and his wife’s wedding which took me to a Charleston, SC under a state of emergency for Hurricane…
Is it better to be a cynic or an idealist? Should you give up on dreams or pursue them? Is the universe fundamentally friendly or hostile to happiness? Maybe you don’t have to choose. Cynicism is right in throwing down our…
I grew up in the country, and I imagined I would hate city life. That was before I moved to Atlanta. Cities have a lot going for them. I’ve been here for three years, and I’ve only scratched the surface of…
We have a lot of preconceptions about what wisdom looks like. To most of us, a “wise” person looks old, appears serious and/or serene, and says weighty things from time to time. They deliberate over decisions. We have many stories of…
One of my greatest fears in life is to be thought lazy. Ironically, it’s one of the main risks I have to run to actually do my job right. I have the task of managing a small department in a…
I like to avoid labels. They’re simplistic, they carry a lot of invisible baggage and connotations when people hear them, they enforce groupthink, and they tend to shut down conversation. But now, for the sake of this blog post, I’m…
What kind of art is worth your time? What makes something superlative or beautiful? Everyone asks these questions because everyone gives their time and attention to some kind of art or entertainment every day. Movies, magazines, books, podcasts, plays, television…
One of my favorite things in the world is engaging with strangers. It’s almost a competitive sport for me. So much of our lives is spent passing by people who for all we know are interesting, passionate, good people we should have…
Dear old office, You delightful old scamp. I’m going to miss you. Today the BitPay team that’s called you home for more than three years is moving on to (hopefully) greener pastures in Alpharetta. I’ll not forget, you though. As Shakespeare’s King…
If you’ve had a Spotify account for more than a week, you’ve probably come to take it for granted that you can play just about any song ever recorded with a click of a button, anywhere you have WiFi or cell…
In 1881, American writer Ambrose Bierce began work on a series of short satirical definitions eventually published together as The Devil’s Dictionary. If you’ve never read the entries, you’re in for a sarcastic, cynical treat. See how he defined “dictionary.”…
Are you lazy? Shiftless? Unmotivated? Do you spend all day clicking on links with cat pictures? Most writers on virtue spend all of their time berating you. According to them, you’re morally bankrupt – the last kind of people to…
Love fiddles, flutes, and bagpipes? Did you watch Braveheart and get a hankering to move to Scotland? If so, you’re probably already a casual fan of Scottish folk music – or at least music inspired by Scottish folk styles. The…
“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” – An old spin on old, stupid anti-curiosity adage I’ve written before about how curiosity can be a source of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. More commonly, it can just be…
This week I came across a popular Reddit thread exploring how Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin created his fictional land of Westeros. It looks remarkably like England. Landmass shape isn’t the only thing Martin borrowed from the British Isles. The…
Which philosophical questions really matter? If you’re like me, you’ve spent hours, days, and weeks pondering a thorny philosophical problem or two at some point in your life. But with a field as vast as philosophy, how can you ever…
When is the last time you knowingly did something wrong? If you’re being honest, it was probably in the last 24 hours. But there were probably some other things going on at the same time. You were probably tired. You…
Tonight was a rare social outing for my very busy startup company’s team. We all climbed into a bus and drove to the nearby Braves stadium for a baseball game on this late summer night. We’re a hardworking, serious bunch. When…