First Blog

To kids. Your life greatly depends on your earliest influencers and teachers, your parents. You'd better hope they’re good. To parents. Like many of us, your greatest contributions may be raising your kids. So, do a good job of it.

  Introduction. When dealing with ideas, patterns, intuition, and brainstorming, we need operations or rules not unlike those of arithmetic. The goal is not proof, a finished device, or a fait accompli , but rather a foundation for further investigation and study. In some cases, these operations may yield a proposition, that is, something capable of being proved. In this sense, they form a practical logic of intuition. The article concludes with a few select examples from a variety of venues. Setting. We are working with a given idea, problem, or project, or simply just thinking. Our aim is to discover pathways, patterns, or conceptual connections that may be useful. The following operations describe ways in which ideas and patterns can be generated, transformed, or refined. These also work toward understanding the imagination. Yet, this framework is distinguished from formal logic and proof. We are tempted to call them as “soft logic” because while nothing is proved, reasons...

Introduction. For centuries, the legal profession has been one of society’s most stable and respected institutions. Law prizes precision, logical reasoning, and fidelity to precedent. Lawyers are trained to analyze complex facts, apply abstract rules, and argue persuasively within rigid procedural frameworks. Yet today, the rapid advance of artificial intelligence raises a serious and unsettling question: is the legal profession approaching obsolescence or transformation? Artificial intelligence now performs many of the cognitive tasks once thought to be uniquely human. Modern AI systems can read and synthesize millions of pages of legal text, identify relevant precedents, detect inconsistencies, and generate structured legal arguments. When AI systems demonstrated the ability to pass bar examinations (GPT-4), it marked more than a technological milestone; it revealed that large portions of legal reasoning are pattern-based and computational in nature. But the true disruption lie...

A.   Influencers do not teach. They influence. Know the difference. B.   It is unwise to vest your happiness upon the misfortunes of others. C.   What the church is to religion, the library is to learning. 

A.     Flattery is the art of getting what you want without asking for it. B.     Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions. --- Winston Churchill.  C.     Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, and then blaming it on your opponent. *Note. A. is not original, but I can find no source. C. is an adaptation ala Groucho Marx.

  A.    Doubt is like a battery tester for truths. Use it often. B.   E xperience and knowledge are the handmaidens of understanding. For example, you may know plenty about love but never understand it until experienced. C.    To help another succeed qualifies as a legacy – and an unqualified generosity.

 

A.   When you build your house, you need not feel guilty about living in it. B.   Learn not for its utility, but for its delight. C.   Intuition does not grow from nothing. Experience and learning fertilize its beautiful flowers.

Introduction.  Much of life involves problem-solving of some sort. Many are routine, some take time, and others seem nearly impossible. The important fact is that we don’t solve them all, or, even worse, we offer ineffective or poor solutions. Most problem-solving books available suggest how to solve problems. In this brief essay, we discuss the barriers to solving a given problem. Here is a list of common "enemies" of problem-solving, also called the psychological, cognitive, and practical barriers that prevent us from effectively addressing and resolving them. These are drawn from psychological research and productivity insights. The List . Every problem solver should be aware of these barriers. Team leaders should monitor closely to prevent their team from falling for any of them, particularly #6 on confirmation bias and #8 about unnecessary constraints. 1.      Lack of Knowledge or Information: Without sufficient understanding or data about the...

  ODD THOUGHTS FOR FRIDAY (12/26/25), failure, rejection, love A.     ON FAILURE. At times, failure is life’s lesson that you may have knocked on the wrong door. Tough love? If not, do  consider revaluation, realignment, or reorientation.   B.     ON REJECTION. Does it motivate or defeat? Depends on you.   C.     ON LOVE. A form of faith, love believes, even against evidence. Can you love?

A.     “The human soul is a garden, ever at war with its own weeds.” --- Hieronymous Bosch, d. 1516, artist. B.     The depths of depravity have no bottom. C.     Things that nourish the soul: love, confidence, purpose, success, hope, and work.

A most interesting maxim reads, “Always fill your cup first. And allow the world to benefit from the overflow.” Yes, it’s not obvious what’s intended, but it could be recast in more pedestrian forms. 1.       Having met your own sufficiency, you can help meet that of others. 2.       Always know what you’re talking about. Then others will listen. 3.       People will always beat a path to excellence.                4.       Your ability to solve important problems will secure your job.   As a note, all of the great maxims, aphorisms, and sayings have the common property of multiple interpretations.