Curiosity Chronicle

Six weeks ago, I shared an embarrassing confession​ on my phone addiction.

It all began at my ​Think Week​ retreat in January, when I pondered a single question:
If you were the main character in a movie of your life, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now?
The answer, in this case, felt blindingly obvious:Get off the damn phone...

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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.

I feel like I need to say something...

Over the last few weeks, it seems like I can't go ten minutes without having a new "AI Doom" story hit my feed.
The extraordinary virality of the AI Doom narrative is notable. It spreads rapidly to every corner of the internet. It's shared, talked about, and clicked on, millions upon millions of times.

And as it turns out, cognitive science shows us why...

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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.

It's tempting to view the world in black and white.

Everyone wants you to do that. It's easier to do that. It's more comfortable to do that.

But the world is more complex than that.

Many of life's most powerful truths appear entirely contradictory on the surface.

They are paradoxes.

Seemingly absurd or self-contradictory ideas that, when investigated or explained, prove to be true.

Over the years, I've compiled a list of the paradoxes I've observed. The complex truths that govern our lives and defy our desire for the default comfort of black and white.

Here are 25 paradoxes that will change how you see the world...

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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.

Carlos Alcaraz is a tennis phenom.

The 22-year-old is the number one player in the world, having won 25 singles titles and 7 Grand Slams in his career. He is the youngest player in history to have completed the Career Grand Slam, winning all four major championships.

If you're a fan of the sport—or just spend enough time on the internet—you've undoubtedly seen clips of Carlos Alcaraz doing completely insane, ​Carlos Alcaraz-type things​.

He is truly a sight to behold.

But amidst the steady drip of clips of his incredible shots in tournaments, I recently came across a video of a very different side of him...

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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.

In the 19th century, a German mathematician named Carl Jacobi developed an interesting insight:

Many hard math problems become easier to solve when you flip them around and work backwards.

He famously preached to his students, "Man muss immer umkehren."

Translation: Invert, always invert.

As it turns out, this idea echoes across history, showing up in a variety of places before and after Jacobi...

•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.