The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
– Aristotle
As Ayn Rand pointed out in her excellent book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, we are all philosophers.
We all have a certain attitude towards life, we all have different hypotheses regarding Flying Spaghetti Monsters, and we all have a standard by which [...]

Earlier this evening, I stumbled on two videos which completely blew me away.
The first is a TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor. She’s a brain scientist who had a massive stroke and lived to tell the tale. In fact, she was fully aware of what was going on for some time after a blood vessel [...]

Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.
– George Lois
Since I started 30 sleeps, I’ve always imagined writing to be just one of several mediums through which I speak to the world. The written word can transport a serious payload, but there’s nothing quite like reaching out to [...]

While flying back home from Christmas vacation last night, I had a “Tollegasm” on the plane, after reading the following passage. The context of this quote is that Eckhart Tolle is explaining the apparent conflict between living in the moment and achieving big, hairy, audacious goals. How can you achieve greatness if your attention is [...]

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
– Henry David Thoreau
We often think of personal growth as being top-down. You start by asking yourself the Big Questions (TM), followed by [...]

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
– Bertrand Russell
A belief system is like an API for personal growth.
“API” is computer geek speak for Application Programming Interface. It refers to the set of abstractions on which a piece of software is built. Ruby on Rails, for example, provides an API atop [...]

If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition;
if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.
– Padmasambhava
You are not hard working. You are not lazy. You are not a World Champion. You are not an underdog. You are not a player. You are not hopeless with [...]

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
– Albert Einstein
I’m pretty geeky. I [...]