May 2018 - nik.art

Life Is Full of Cosmic Jokes

May 31, 2018August 10, 2023 Nik

Someone once asked Neil deGrasse Tyson what the most fascinating thing about the universe was. As if having prepared for the question his entire life, he launched into a full-blown speech:

“The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy ions in their core. Under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems. Stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.”

Wow. That’s quite the image to hold in your head. And how impressive the cocktail of life just one planet, our planet, has mixed from these ingredients:

And while we, the species of humans, have come out on the very top of this tree, we’re still just a branch. A tiny splinter of the universe. The genetic difference between the smartest monkeys, chimps, and humans is 1.2%. That’s why they and our toddlers still share many behaviors. So when asked about the possibility of alien existence, Tyson imagines the same gap:

“If aliens came and they had only that much more intelligence than us — the gap that is between us and chimps, and we have DNA in common — if they were only that, they could enslave the entire earth and we wouldn’t even know it. Maybe that has already happened. And we are living our lives as though we are expressing the free will of the human species, yet we are nothing more than an ant farm. On their shelf. So we are their entertainment. Not even worthy of investigation beyond what we look like in their terrarium.”

It’s funny, isn’t it? This contradiction. We are the pinnacle of evolution, and yet, we know next to nothing about the context we’ve been dropped into.

I may not wear a lab coat at work, but I’m a little bit of a scientist myself. Every day, I try to parse a small fragment of that context and make sense of life. Through writing, especially over the past year, I’ve discovered there are many ways this grand, cosmic contradiction is baked into life itself.

Here are 12 of the biggest jokes the universe plays on us.

Why Is “The Road Not Taken” One of the Most Famous Poems of All Time?

May 30, 2018February 28, 2024 Nik

I’m sure you recognize this fragment:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It’s from The Road Not Taken, written by Robert Frost in 1916, one of the most popular poems of all time. People read, talk about, and teach it in schools all around the world to this day. But in order to survive for over 100 years, the poem couldn’t just be popular.

It also needed enemies.

How To Thoroughly Screw Up Your Life

May 23, 2018August 9, 2024 Nik

When I was 9, we were at a lake. There were ducks walking around.

I fed some of them and more and more ducks flocked towards me. It was a blast.

Eventually, however, they backed me into a corner, right up against a tree. I fell over.

Needless to say, I was angry at the ducks. I had scraped my elbow.

I now realize I should have been angry at myself. Because this story is a metaphor. A recipe for disaster. Whenever it plays out in life, it works to a tee. And it’s not just me.

A Letter to Rational People

May 22, 2018August 9, 2024 Nik

Hercule Poirot stands on the balcony, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Atop the clock tower in Jaffa, Israel, the greatest detective in the world stares into the distance. It is 1934.

Still baffled by how the Belgian gentleman with the big mustache solved the case of the missing relic, the captain of the police can’t help himself but stare.

“It’s just…how did you know it was him, sir? From just a tiny crack on the wall.”

“I have the advantage…I can only see the world as it should be. And when it is not, the imperfection stands out like the nose in the middle of a face. It…it makes most of life unbearable. But it is useful in the detection of crime.”

There are a lot of Hercule Poirots here on the web. Wonderful, rational people. It’s one of the reasons why I love this place. We may not all be detectives by profession, but we’re just as curious, just as righteous, just as skeptical of everything that, in a balanced world, shouldn’t be.

It’s why we read and write about justice, about equality, about fairness. About getting along, living better, and being kind. But sometimes we come up short.

This is a letter to everyone facing those times. A letter to rational people.

The World Needs You To Love Reading

May 19, 2018June 19, 2024 Nik

One of the few clear memories I have of my childhood is the moment I learned to read. There were red, plastic letters spread all across the floor. Their backs were magnetic, so you could attach them to a blackboard, order them, and try to make sense of things.

Sitting in the middle of the chaos, suddenly, everything clicked. I felt my heart beating faster. A door to a new world was open. I got up and ran through the house. “Mom! Mom! I can read! I can read!”

I was six years old. Lucky me, I had six months left before I started school.

“So many books, so little time.” ― Frank Zappa

The Wonderful Thing About Broken Promises

May 18, 2018August 9, 2024 Nik

One of the most important things to remember about other people is this:

They won’t.

Your school teacher says she’ll take the class for ice cream. But she won’t.

The store clerk says he’ll gladly refund you if the shoes don’t fit. But he won’t.

Your old acquaintance says she’ll text you when she’s in town. But she won’t.

The guy handing out loans says he’ll see what he can do for you. But he won’t.

Your classmate says she’ll send you her essay when she’s done. But she won’t.

The professor says he’ll only use class material for the exam. But he won’t.

Your waitress says she’ll be right back with your drink. But she won’t.

Your date says they’ll call you. But they won’t.

How To Leverage Your Survival Instinct in the Modern World

May 17, 2018June 19, 2024 Nik

When your phone rings and it’s work, your first thought is “what did I do wrong?” Within a split second, your mind races from “I screwed up” to “I’ll be fired” to “I will be homeless” to “I’m going to die.”

We treat even the tiniest of stressors as potential death threats because we always have. It’s the survival instinct that got us here. But today our instant-anxiety-button is ruining our lives. We simulate the worst future we can imagine to then decide whether we take flight or fight.

But there’s something else here. Right when your brain starts processing that it’s your boss’s number on the screen, you freeze. Ex-FBI agent and body language expert Joe Navarro explains:

“One purpose of the freeze response is to avoid detection by dangerous predators or in dangerous situations. A second purpose is to give the threatened individual the opportunity to assess the situation and determine the best course of action to take.”

Public Speaking for the Rest of Us

May 8, 2018June 19, 2024 Nik

The man above is Ray Dalio, giving a TED talk. In 1975, Ray founded his own investment company, Bridgewater Associates, out of his apartment. 43 years later, it is the largest hedge fund in the world, with over $160 billion assets under management. Ray built this company from zero to leading over 1,700 employees and became a billionaire in the process; one of the 100 richest people in the world.

And yet, about 30 seconds into the talk, we can spot something that doesn’t fit that description at all.

Imagination Is the God of Change

May 4, 2018August 9, 2024 Nik

Cobb puts his sunglasses into his jacket’s inner pocket.

“So, Arthur keeps telling me it can’t be done.”

Eames can’t hide a smile, playing with the peanuts in his hands.

“Hmmm, Arthur…You still work with that stick-in-the-mud?”

“He’s good at what he does, right?”

“Oh, he’s the best. He has no imagination.”

“Not like you.”

“Listen, if you’re gonna perform inception you need imagination.”

Who’s Cobb? What’s with the sunglasses? Who’s Arthur? And Eames? Why is he eating peanuts? And what the hell is inception?

Even if you recognize the fragment above, you don’t have complete answers to these questions. Except you do. Because whatever inception is, if it requires imagination, it means you need ideas. Creativity. Curiosity, and, of course, the will to believe a new version of the truth. You have all those things. And you can use them to fill in the gaps.

Inception is a task of the mind. And how you use it makes all the difference.

Month: May 2018