Optimism is courage, if it's not naive.

It's nice to go home and fall into familiar patterns, with familiar people.

When things aren't familiar, or when you're in a new place or learning a new thing, it's certainly more exciting.

But novelty -- whether it produces anxiety, curiosity, fear, or hope -- is tiring.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell if you're tired, and if so, of what?

Even in the place you are most familiar with, your model of the world is not perfect, and things will not always go as you expect.

A question worth figuring out the answer to when things don't go as you expect is:

'Is it me, or is it the world?'

Sometimes this is not so easy to figure out, because things that happen are complicated, and it's difficult to assign responsibility to the objectively responsible agent (if there even is one).

That's why I like chess. You can be sure that it's not the world. (Where in this case the world is random chance.) In chess, nothing is random. The only two forces at play are your environment (your opponent) and you (you).

When you lose, you can be sure that either (A) you made a mistake or (B) your opponent outplayed you (something happened in the world such that it was impossible for you to accomplish what you wanted).

But wait, how do you determine whether it was (A) or (B) if you aren't sure?

You look at the computer generated moves, because deep reinforcement learning algorithms are better at chess than any human.

Too bad there isn't a chess engine for life.

I love spending time at home.

We got a picture of all 5 humans and all 5 pets.

And Lauren began her 3rd decade of life.

Winter in Beaufort, SC is not something that actually exists.

This is sped up. I didn't back into the water at 20 mph.

Evidence: the number of times I was able to sail (no wetsuit).

I like to sail because it isolates you, and then you have to think for yourself.

Perhaps the best solution to a current problem is not to cumbersomely grasp for new ideas from thin air.

The most famous Western renaissance of the 14^th century Europe (the renaissance) was about the rediscovery of objective scientific thought (something that’s actually quite new) in its Greek and Roman form.

The ideas of the renaissance weren’t new. (That’s why they call it a renaissance.)

They were actually really, really old, almost as old as we as a species can remember.

Yet, when they were rediscovered in a new light by renaissance thinkers, it had one of the most profound ameliorating effects on the human state, ever.