Rootz's Blog

Here’s a list of the top 10 podcasts that make up a majority of my podcast-listening time, in no particular order. . .  Hello Internet To this show I owe my entire addiction to podcasts. Whether you know CGP Grey and Brady Haran or not (and I can’t tell you what an awful person you are if you don’t) this show is worth listening to, beginning to end. It’s entertaining and funny, and you’re bound to learn new things. My favorite aspect of the show is how, as you listen, you’ll invariably begin to take a side. Are you on the Haran side or the Grey side? More logical or more gut-led? More of a robot or caveman? And the culture around this show is incredible. I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it for any podcast ever. Radiolab 100% of the episodes turn out to be interesting and important. I don’t believe I’ve ever skipped an episode because of the content. This show is a classic. And the editing is amazing, for those of you who are interested in doing your o...

Finding the way through a place is all about continuation, not destination. It's not about knowing where you want to end up but instead knowing how to go from where you are to the next place you need to be in order to, eventually though not inevitably, reach your destination. You're in a strange town in a strange country. You have an address but no maps and no knowledge of the way the town is splayed out over the rough mountainous farmland surrounding you. You'd be able to recognize the place once you got to it by the address tacked to the stuccoed wall but not before. What do you do? Besides ask for help and a map, what could you possibly do? You could drive every street, looking for patterns in the foreign street names. Or you could give up. The point is, without reference points and a common language, without knowing what turn to take next and what landmark to mark next, finding your way through a place isn't so much an act of looking for something as it is an ...

(Quotes throughout are taken from this amazing article by Maria Popova.) “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I read this and started to think about balance. What’s the right balance between productivity/routine and presence/spontaneity? In defense of routines: “London maintained that every writer needed a technique, experience, and a philosophical position.” Lots of writers had/have routines. They are generally a very obsessive and superstitious bunch. (“I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have  superstition bout examining it too closely.” - Anne Tyler) I’m not necessarily a writer, but I am a college student, and the same things can be said of me as of many writers. The seclusion. The writer’s block. The seeming futility of the work. The routines in my life help me to overlook and overcome the dread of starting another day that is mostly like the last one and mostly filled with things I don’t feel like doing. Getting...

To keep a thorough to-do list, to be totally on top of the expectations placed on you, is to free your mind to reach its full potential. It gives your brain permission to explore, permission to wander when it wishes to, permission to operate at its highest capacity. Emptying your mind into a to-do list is like lubricating the gears on your bicycle. Everything moves faster and smoother. And you can go further. There's a reason a clear mind works better than a full one. Your brain isn't made to multitask. It's meant to specialize. It wants to focus and find a state of flow. It's your impatient, primitive being that wants to be constantly rewarded and distracted. So externalize the demands of life. Externalize the routine tasks, the boring stuff, the important stuff—everything—onto a to-do list, a daily checklist and/or a calendar. It's only after externalizing every worry and reminder that your brain will wake up, come up with ideas and learn to enjoy the moment...

In a capitalist society, what does it mean for a person to be free? Does it mean the ability to make one’s own choices? The chance to rise to the top? The chance to experience a life of no limits other than the ones placed on oneself? Before answering that, let’s consider a hypothetical slave society. In this society, freedom, to a salve, means to own one’s own life. Freedom, to the master, means the freedom to not be a slave, to instead own slaves who will make his money for him and do his hard labor. In this slave society, freedom does not exist without the notation of slavery. The members define freedom in terms of what it is not. In this case, it is not slavery. Similarly, in a feudalistic society, freedom would mean the freedom to own land and be protected without having to pay high taxes/rent on the things one produces. In a socialist society, freedom from society would mean to be able to own however much one wished, to be able to increase one's income by increasing one...

The first step is to recognize the absurdity of art. I’m sure everyone, on some level, can see how strange it is that humans attach so much meaning and value to things that seem useless and, sometimes, easily re-creatable. But after noticing how temporal and relativistic art is, recognize how it also permeates everything in our lives. It lives with us as furniture and paintings, it simmers within us as poetry and songs, it comes out of us in the form of writing and words. It surrounds us. Everything is art. And if everything is art, then art is everything. Next, don’t censor yourself. Don’t throw away the thoughts that pop into your head. The difference between the normal and the extraordinary is the same as the difference between the normal and the neurotic: a dash of crazy. Take yourself seriously. Don’t throw away even the ideas and questions that seem ordinary or inevitable. Figure out why things happen. Why you have those thoughts. What those thoughts mean. How you can expan...

Being a tutor isn’t as much about answering questions as it is about helping people ask questions. Figuring out the question is usually more difficult than finding the answer. Answers permeate our world, online and offline, and you will rarely come across a question that hasn’t been answered and documented at least once in the history of the human race. But questions? Everyone views the world differently. Everyone’s understanding has holes in different areas. So while most answers are pretty consistent across the world, questions vary almost infinitely. Knowing how to ask good questions is one of the most important life-skills you can acquire. If you don’t know how to ask questions, you’ll never get answers. And the more questions you ask, the more answers you get. The more answers you get, the more emboldened you are to ask even more questions. Questions lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to wisdom. Wisdom leads to a good life. The quality of your life is determined by the q...