“Remember: you are master of your own destiny, digger of your own rut. Destiny can be altered. Ruts are filled all the time. If you lay in yours too long, someone will bury you in it.” ~Pat Mestern Fortitude. Backbone. Gumption. Grit. Mettle. All too often our abundant privilege and soothing creature comforts rob us of these vital aspects of character. We grow soft, weighed down by extreme convenience, uncontrolled contentedness, and a cultural conditioning that brainwashes u

“The question is not whether we will be extremists or not, but what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice.” ~MLK Jr. What is an anarcho-fallibilist? Anarcho means anarchy, which simply means no masters no rulers. Fallibilism is implied in the sciences and basically means no certainty. An anarcho-fallibilist, therefore, is simply an individual who has no

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” ~Einstein Questions are like can-openers for the brain; or box-flatteners for the mind. They help us slip between the prison bars of our conclusions. They prevent circular logic and tautological reasoning. They get is out of our own way. Self-inflicted questions are next-level questions—questions on steroids. They are ruthless. They dig deep. They strike roots. T

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” ~Voltaire What is a red herring? It’s a diversion intended to distract attention from the real issue. It’s an abstract issue having only surface relevance to the original issue. It’s used to mislead. Governing this precept, it stands to reason that the concept of God is itself a red herring. Indeed. God is perhaps the greatest red herring of all time. The ultimate distraction. So, if God is the red herring distracti

“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” ~Rumi Tired of living on dead patterns? Drowning in a hand-me-down value system that simply doesn’t work for these quickly changing times? Comfort zone so tiny that it’s become a bleak zone? Life passing you by with a whoosh? Then it’s time to jumpstart the idle engine of your existence. It’s time to defibrillate the dead body of your soul. It’s time to shock the system. Here are seven inexhaustible (please make

“You ask, ‘what is Zen?’ I answer, ‘Zen is that which makes you ask the question.’ Because the answer is where the question arises. The answer is the questioner himself.” ~Daisetz Suzuki Zen is ultimately undefinable. It’s paradoxical. It’s a feeling; a meditation on opposites and interconnectedness intermittently. It’s a bridge between the unanswerable question and the unknowable answer. Even more cryptic: it’s No-mind meditating the mind into mindfulness. No matter what Zen

“Creativity isn’t a trait; it’s a discipline. Those who say they are not creative are often those who are averse to the hard work of transforming a good idea into something truly magnificent.” ~Bredon Burchard Engaging the spirit of creativity is less about the unique idea you have come up with and more about how much trial and error you put into bringing it to life. We all have the initial idea, but we don’t all see it through. We all have the initial spark, but we don’t all

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” ~Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art The term scapegoat is usually used in the negative. For the purposes of this article, we will use it in the positive. Yes, scapegoating can be a positive thing. It just depends on what (not who) you are setting up as the scapegoat. If your scapegoat is hypothetical, then it can be a powerful motivational tool toward leveraging c