Ben Cuan

good ideas emerge later in brainstorming because they are less obvious. If something seems obvious to you, it is probably obvious to others, and there are likely good reasons why incumbents remain unbeaten or the problem unsolved.

these days, I feel like I’m always being houndedby the urgency of the present. I am happy, but I could be happier. My life is rich, but it could be richer. My weeks have gotten increasingly regimented, each day a tightly packed grid of rainbow-colored calendar blocks. I want to have and do it all. If I don’t spend my days well, what will become of... See more

reating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success.

Speaking from personal experience, however, it feels clear that for our brains, the act of reading and reflecting on a book is not all that different from the act of writing one. In both cases, we are seeking out novel connections, combining existing concepts to produce new ones. So why do we think of the act of consuming, as opposed to producing,... See more