Essay: "Humility in the face of randomness"

Most people, it seems to me, are obsessed with talent.  They look at someone successful, assume that person is successful for a reason, and work backwards (identifying the exceptional qualities that person has, or the exceptional things they did, that led to that person becoming exceptionally successful).  But is that initial assumption correct?  Are people really successful for a reason?

I have always believed that the differences between people are not as big as we think they are (click here for a great quote on this) and I have always chocked up my own successes and failures, and the successes and failures of others, to randomness, or to factors that have nothing to do with the matter at hand, rather than my skill and intelligence.

Essay: "Keeping it Real"

It seems to me that people, especially our generation, are very preoccupied with "authenticity."  You best see this when people go on vacation.  You'll take a trip to Rome or Paris and you'll be looking around for for a restaurant to go to, and you'll think to yourself: "I don't want to go to some tourist joint, I want to go get real Italian/French food.  I want to eat where the locals eat.  I want to get something authentic."

Which begs the question: if you are a tourist, isn't going to a tourist restaurant the authentic thing to do?  Isn't going to a local restaurant sort of a poseur move?

Essay: "In Defence of Baseball"

I'm not going to look up the stats, but I understand that they're pretty grim: young people aren't as interested in baseball as they are in other sports.  The reason for this is pretty straightforward - baseball is fucking boring.  I love baseball, I was raised on it, it's probably my number one team sport (although my passion is on a slow burn these days until the Blue Jays look like they have a chance of making the playoffs) but even I'm aware of it, especially early in the season, when I'm adjusting from the frantic pace of the NBA and NHL playoffs or the structured mayhem of the NFL.  I'll be sitting there, enjoying a 5-3 win in April over the Kansas City Royals, while the pitcher and the catcher are leisurely talking to each other, and I'll think to myself: man.  This game is boring.

Essay: "Being Ignorant the Hard Way"

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than he was before. He is full of murderous resentment for people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." - Kurt Vonnegut

Essay: "The Stupidest Myth in the World"

The death of Amy Winehouse  made headlines, but it didn't exactly sweep the social media landscape the way other, seemingly more trivial events, have done recently.  Whether you liked her style of music or not, Winehouse was exceptionally talented.  Her voice was unmistakable, of course, but her songs were very well put together too, and had an intense raw honesty that you don't see very much in popular music.

Essay: "Social Media and the Panopticon"

I was not particularly surprised by the riots after Vancouver lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  That kind of thing is nothing new, but you wouldn't know it from all the tut-tutting.  I think the spread of digitical cameras and social media made the stupidity and destruction of the riots hit home in a new way, much the same way that the photograph brought home the horrors of the American Civil war.

Essay: "Video Game James"

It's easy to forget, these days, how much people used to love Lebron James. I'm too lazy to look up the study, but the spread between those who looked on him favourably and those who disliked him was enormous for such a prominent athlete. Of course, that's all gone now, thanks to the way he publicly screwed around with Cleveland last year.