Blog

Storytelling and Analysis

Posted on April 25, 2020

Ever since high school, literary analysis has both bewitched and baffled me. In English, we’d read through a short story, or a play, or watch a movie, and then our sharp-as-a-tack English teacher Ms. Mosca would give us a one liner that completely blew our minds with its depth and wisdom. I would get so frustrated when she did that because I didn’t have the same knack for it. Because coming up with pearls of wisdom from every single textRead More→

Day 2 of my Dr. Henry Fundraiser

Posted on April 20, 2020

So it’s not really day two in real life, it’s more like day two of progress. In reality it’s more like day 20. Two of the four artists I reached out to are now on board – now we’re working out the fine processes and how it works, etc. I don’t think I should wait for TeeHatch to send me my t-shirt. It’ll come within 5 days. I’ll take a chance and launch the website anyways. If worst comes toRead More→

There’s No Such Thing as “Good” Writing

Posted on April 19, 2020

“You need to be a good writer in order to succeed!” “His writing is just better than hers!” “Good writing is something which can serve you throughout your life.” Or so they said. I went to university in order to learn what this mythical thing of “good writing” was. I was told that once I had it, the world would open up to me and I would be a powerful person. More or less. Steven Pinker said it had toRead More→

A Solution to a Canadian Crisis in Politeness

Posted on April 18, 2020

When I’m about to pass someone outside, I have only a moment to calculate what I should do. Should I look at them and risk them looking away from my smile? Or should I look forward and pretend they’re not there? When I was growing up in Calgary, you would always smile and say hello to people who were walking past you. They would always do the same back. But when I moved to Kelowna, I found that people didn’tRead More→

Day 1 of my Dr. Henry Fundraiser

Posted on April 17, 2020

The team at Crash inspired me to “learn out loud.” So I’ve decided to blog my attempt to run a fundraiser. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that Dr. Bonnie Henry was a kick-ass communicator – someone who was calm, clear, and knowledgeable, but also someone who cared deeply about the people she worked with and BC’s citizens. I had also noticed that in Alberta, a PhD student from Calgary had run a successful t-shirtRead More→

Guns, Shootings, and Moral Outrage

Posted on April 16, 2020

There have been multiple mass shootings in the United States, and every time, gun control rises to the forefront of the debate in the United States. In this blog post, I’ll lay out my own opinion on gun control, however ignorant it may be, and then point out what other people are doing, which is using massacres to push forward their own political opinions, irrespective of whether they will help or not (white terrorism, male radicalization, broken homes, etc.). Here’sRead More→

How Tasha Meys Monetized Her Lifestyle

Posted on April 16, 2020

These are my notes from her appearance on Nat Chat (a great podcast). If you want a proper answer to the question posed in the title, I’d head over to his podcast and listen to his answer. The thing about Nat’s work though is that it stands the test of time – I’ve probably gone through his podcasts three times over by now. So I figured that I should write down notes on them after listening to them so thatRead More→

Quick Blog

Posted on April 14, 2020

Here’s some good news: I just handed in my PPE thesis. Total: 17 185 words, 45 pages double spaced, 11 415 meant for writing. Lesson: don’t write about subjects that you’re not passionate about. Further topics for exploration now: copyright and intellectual protection law. I need to really do some research on this soon, but I think that we think too much that our ideas are my own and that I therefore own them. Naaahh. They’re non-rivalrous and non-scarce, soRead More→

Growing away from Jordan Peterson

Posted on April 12, 2020

If you’ve known me in the past, you’d know I was a yuuuuge Jordan Peterson fan. He taught me such a wealth of information about the world that I would’ve been eons behind in time had I not watched his videos. That being said, I’ve come to realize that his philosophy of life has its weaknesses, specifically the part where he thinks you should force yourself to do things that you don’t want to do and his general like ofRead More→

How to Filter Out Time-Wasting Books

Posted on April 9, 2020

This filter doesn’t apply to reading for pleasure or for curiosity. I’m referring to the mounds of business and self-help books out there which say that they can help you with ______. The secret to filtering out the bad books is to only read the ones that have been written by practitioners. That’s it. In most cases, this means that you should avoid reading books written by academics, unless you want to become an academic. But why does this work?Read More→

April 7th, 2020

Posted on April 8, 2020

I’m counting the days until I’m done school. I have five more hurdles to overcome, and then I’ll be DONE! I’ll be FREE! There’s my 9000 word PPE thesis, which I’ve mostly finished already, and my Philosophy of Law essay, which I do not think will be difficult. Then there are my three final exams: Epistemology, Philosophy of Law, and Ancient Philosophy. My last exam is on the 27th. Will I go to grad school? It’s very unlikely. I’ve beenRead More→

Behind Keemokazi’s Humour

Posted on April 7, 2020

Keemokazi’s tiktok is the FUNNIEST channel I’ve watched on TikTok. If you haven’t binged watched all of his clips, please do so now. I’ve done it at least twice. But the real star of the video? His short-tempered, fire-tongued Arab mother. Kareem’s most successful videos follow a pattern. First, Kareem shocks mom. Then, she’s enraged, along with an inevitable “I’NA A NA ABOUK” (which means ‘curse your father’ in Arabic). Both LOVE the pranks Despite the appearance of shock andRead More→

Why Affirming in Agreement Stultifies Understanding

Posted on April 6, 2020

I was listening to an informative podcast today called Marketing Jam. The guest was Chris Wagner (a founder of BananaTag), and the host was Darian Kovacs (a marketer and successful podcaster, by all appearances). Darian was asking Chris good questions, and Chris was answering well too. But later in the podcast, one response stood out for me. It wasn’t the content, but rather what the host did while listening to Chris’ response. Let me be the first to point outRead More→

Notes from Antifragile

Posted on March 31, 2020

I shall reread Antifragile, except this time I will spend more time meditating on each chapter. The first time I read it, I went through it too quickly, such that I did not integrate the information into my life. Now, the world has punished me for failing to do so. Taleb’s concept of “Antifragility” is exactly what I, and we, needed 3 months ago, need today, and will need for the future. Prologue: Antifragility is the hydra – something thatRead More→

COVID-19 III

Posted on March 29, 2020

A lot has changed since the last blog post I wrote. First and foremost, there’s good news. Modelling suggests that BC’s social distancing attempts are actually flattening the curve (!😊😃!), and that BC’s hospitals are “reasonably prepared” for a surge in people sick from COVID-19. Hooray for BC! We’re doing well. Our efforts are working. Second, the Liberal government made a power grab which would have given Bill Morneau the power to raise or lower any taxes he wished forRead More→