Experience

Belief

Critical Thinking and the Primacy Effect

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, April 17 2024

You will often hear people spout the virtues of critical thinking. Ironically, they can often be the people who are least likely to exhibit it themselves in certain situations. The reason is the Primacy Effect, or when you become biased toward the first explanation you hear about a topic and only then display critical thinking of information...

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Self

Consciousness as a Meta-Capability

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, April 3 2024

They call it “The Hard Problem” of consciousness; it is commonly described as, “What is it like to be a bat?” Effectively, how can you break down consciousness into a definable set of components so that you can both understand consciousness and identify life forms that have it. They test the problem with various thought experiments, such as if...

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Growth

On Challenge

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, March 6 2024

Everyone thinks they just want to live the easy life: being waited on hand and foot, eating junk food and playing video games all day, or living a life without work. People say they want that—no matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary: people who hit the lottery are often miserable or lose it all; animals sit around all day and eat...

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Ethics

Just This One Time

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 10 2024

I have read hundreds of books on psychology, philosophy, self-help, and success, so it’s not often anymore that something truly surprises me. I love looking at the world or an idea in a new way, though, so I am always looking for new insights and treasure the “lightbulb moment” when it happens. One day a few years ago, I decided to try a Wayne...

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Self

You Are NOT Your Experiences

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 6 2023

Everyone faces adversity, challenges, and trauma in life. For example, a soldier will see horrors that they wouldn’t wish upon anyone, and a star athlete will experience inevitable injuries that will prevent them from performing at their best. Many traumas are near-unavoidable, such as childhood trauma when you are under the custodianship of your...

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Growth

What Sports Can Tell You about Meaning

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, November 22 2023

Sports are one of the most popular activities for human connection. Millions—or even billions—will watch the most famous games in the world, such as the Super Bowl or World Cup. Yet, when you break it down, people are literally just watching a bunch of people run around a field trying to get a ball across a line or in a net. If there were...

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Growth

How Good Do You Want to Be? (How Much Do You Want to Grow?)

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, November 15 2023

One of the most important things in life is picking a direction and a destination. If growth is the point, then you need to determine what areas of your life you wish to improve and by how much. Since we all only have 24 hours per day, we have to choose how we spend that time to realize our dreams. In short, we need to determine how good we want...

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Choice

You Can Find Meaning in Whatever Happens to You

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, September 6 2023

Meaning is subjective; as such, you can decide that something has significance to you or decide that everything is stupid and meaningless. While this sounds like nothing in life really matters, it’s actually more positive than that. The best takeaway for your mental health and well-being is that you can take anything your life, find its meaning...

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Choice

Control Your Attention, Control Your Experience

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, June 21 2023

Magicians (also known as illusionists) are masters of manipulation of your attention. Anyone who has seen Penn and Teller’s act has been introduced to the science behind how they deceive you: they can make an object appear to have moved when it hasn’t; they can make it appear to be somewhere when it has actually moved; and they can make you focus...

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Growth

Change Yourself, Change the World

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, May 31 2023

The word “activist” has become pretty popular these days as both a profession and a way to virtue signal to everyone on social media that you are a good person who cares about others. Now, the cynics of the world will point out two things: This post isn’t going to point out specific causes and judge them nor is it going to rail against hypocrisy...

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