Coby's Thought Blog

I recently got into a debate where a friend of mine argued that business and ethics had an inverse relationship. The optimist in me had to push back against this but he did bring up some good examples where being ethical bogs down a business’ bottom line and reduces profits. I would argue that ethical…

Self-improvement and self-love are two key elements of well-being. However, they may also conflict with one another. Self-improvement requires one to identify faults within oneself in order to improve them, while self-love encourages acceptance of these faults. Too much emphasis on self-improvement can lead to stress, burnout, and feelings of inadequacy, while too much emphasis…

I like the idea of a talent stack, which says that we should develop a set of complementary skills and abilities that, when combined, make us uniquely valuable. In today’s world, it’s unlikely we that can be the absolute best at any one given skill. Rather, what will make us uniquely effective is the combination…

I have recently become a passionate believer in the importance of getting sufficient quality sleep. This is a function of a bout of not being able to fall asleep after waking up in the middle of the night. I have finally managed to discover a strategy that has helped me get back on track sleep-wise.…

Ego Death takes place when one’s sense of self seems to fade away and their identity becomes merged with their perceptions as a result of either intensely successful meditation or psychedelic drugs. In its most intense, pure form, ego death can be described as a merging of consciousness with experience. Perhaps they have transcended their…

The Default Mode Network is the area of our brain that is active when we’re not doing anything and is typically associated with self-referential processing like introspection, daydreaming, and mind wandering. In the context of mindfulness, it explains why it’s so difficult to be present. Our attention, by default, is wandering and is not focused…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the implications of a “perfect” society would be in which there is no struggle. If AI manages to provide humanity with an existence where we don’t need to do anything, would humanity flourish? Or is there something about the inherent struggle of life that provides us with something…

I would argue that New Age Spirituality advocates for a form of Pantheism in which everything is energy and energy is God. Therefore, we are all God. I actually find this idea to be somewhat compelling. Everything is in fact energy and interconnected in that way. So if there is a God, that God is…

This distinction between interoceptive and exteroceptive perceptions is important in the context of mindfulness. Once we have managed to exit our heads and enter the beautiful realm of present perceptions, we experience interoceptive (perceptions of our bodies like heartbeat) and exteroceptive (perceptions of our surroundings like our five senses) perceptions. Making this distinction can help…

Using both divergent and convergent types of thinking are very important. Convergent thinking is the synthesis of the existing ideas that we have received from various sources. Divergent thinking is the creative process where we come up with novel ideas. Where does divergent thinking come from? Maybe it’s just extrapolation from convergent thinking or maybe…