Friday philosophy

This is part of my weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

The engineer and the artist have the same mission.

Both are working to build something, whether it’s physical or a blueprint. What’s the difference? How each goes about their work.

Approaching the task from a pure technology standpoint, the engineer believes in doing things a specific way, which is the best way he knows. His strength is in understanding the best way of doing things. His opinion seems to be a fact at this point. At the same time, his weakness is being unable to look away from the path he believes is the best one. He does not want to try a different way of doing things.Read more

This is part of my weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

Friday the 13th is the most ridiculous superstition, ever.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the idea of Friday the 13th being an unlucky day is rather new. The first mention of it was 150 years ago in Gioachino Rossini’s 1869 biography. Many Italians feared both the day and the number, and Rossini happened to die on Friday, November 13, 1868. Of all the reasons listed for Friday the 13th being unlucky, none

Today is my birthday, on a Friday the 13th. I turned 1 on Friday the 13th. Among my friends I’m known as the guy with luck on his side. I’m not lucky in everything, but it seems if you involve me in a plan that needs a little extra luck, your odds just got a whole lot better.

In fact, I view 13 as a lucky number. Am I superstitious at all? Yes, and I think we all are in some way.

If we define superstitions as beliefs as ones not based on facts, rationality, or experience, what superstitious beliefs do you hold? Why do you hold them?Read more

This is part of my weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

The world would be black and white without quality.

According to Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, quality is the grey scale in our lives, and without it we could not notice anything. In this instance, quality refers to the aspects of something which allow you to analyze, categorize, and form an opinion. Without quality, there is no beginning or end, there are no edges or soft spots, no color, and thus you would not have any thoughts or emotions about the world around you.

Think about it for a moment. If there was no way of determining how good, bad, attractive, ugly, pleasing, or revolting something was, would you ever notice it? Without quality, the world does not exist.Read more

This is part of my weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

After the first round of the baseball playoffs this year, it became clear to me which team I was going to root for: whoever was playing the Yankees.

Bear with me. I’ve been a diehard Red Sox fan since I first began to understand baseball.

Loyalty is an interesting topic. We all have loyalties to certain people and companies for our own reasons. If you’re loyal to someone you’ll go out of your way to help, offer support, and spend time with them. Same with loyalty to a company, as you’ll go out of your way to support them and get others to check them out.Read more

This is the first post in a weekly series on how philosophy (personal beliefs) affect people’s perspective, and how you can this knowledge in life.

What would you rather do, work or play a game?

Some call problems “opportunities dressed up as work.” Who the heck wants to show up to WORK? You know what I mean; that kind of work you dread, the kind where you need a pot of coffee in your system just to move papers to a new area, after you already spent the first thirty-five minutes of the day bantering with your coworkers around the water cooler. That kind of work.

The game wins for me, always.

Games fit life well. Remember, there are different kinds of games. Not all have losers, though someone comes out ahead. The losers don’t have to be people (though sometimes they are). Take the concept of the game and expand it beyond pickup basketball, monopoly and poker. It’s all three of those and so much more.Read more