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Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses. You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again. It’s always reassuring to know that you’re still here, still safe. That nothing strange has happened, not really. It’s good to be a child again, for a little while, and to fear — not governments, not regulations, not infidelities or accountants or distant wars, but ghosts and such things that don’t exist, and even if they do, can do nothing to hurt us.

- Neil Gaiman

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[C]hildhood boredom is a special kind of boredom. It is a boredom full of dreams, a sort of projection into another place, into another reality. In adulthood boredom is made of repetition, it is the continuation of something from which we are no longer expecting any surprise.

Italo Calvino in The Art of Fiction No. 130

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Post by Farnam Street.

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via Twitter http://bit.ly/Ru8mfS

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“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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“It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook. If it’s only about passion, sometimes you’ll be good and sometimes you won’t. You’ve got to come in every day with a strong desire. With passion, if you see the first asparagus of the springtime and you become passionate about it, so much the better, but three weeks later, when you’ve seen that asparagus every day now, passions have subsided. What’s going to make you treat the asparagus the same? It’s the desire.”

- Thomas Keller

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John Maeda's book, The Laws of Simplicity, proposes ten laws for simplifying complex systems in business and life. Think of it as simplicity 101.

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Steve Pavlina , author of Personal Development for Smart People, offers 66 personal development hacks for smart people.

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Some general guidelines for good conversation.

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The Last Bookshop imagines a future where physical books have died out. 

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Just as a careful journalist runs the veracity of a scoop by as many reliable sources as possible, he or she should interview as many experts as possible before reporting on a scientific claim. The point is not necessarily to interview an opponent of the study, or to present “both sides” of the story, but rather to talk to independent scholars get their views and troubleshoot as much as possible. The experts might very well endorse the study, but even then they are likely to add more nuance and caveats. … Just as is the case with so many other beats, science journalism has to adhere to the rules of solid reporting and respect the need for skepticism. And this skepticism should not be exercised for the sake of manufacturing controversy—two sides clashing for the sake of getting attention—but for the sake of conveying to readers a sense of uncertainty, which is central to the scientific process. The point is not that all articles are fatally flawed, but that many newsworthy studies are coupled with press releases that, quite naturally, downplay uncertainty.

How journalists should cover science and the art of expressing uncertainty.

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"Appearances Matter - Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are. Only rarely do people look into them, and many are satisfied with appearances. It isn’t enough to be right if your face looks malicious and wrong."

An example from The Art of Worldly Wisdom

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The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.

Freeman Dyson

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There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.

Hemingway

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How to Work More Efficiently

The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones. That's something worth keeping in mind when you make decisions. One framework that naturally incorporates that is the Eisenhower Matrix

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Stories are the way in which we teach moral lessons, keep an audience engaged in what we're saying, and convince others to pursue a course of action.