Writings

There’s an quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes something like: If I had five hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. While it’s doubtful he actually said this, I find the implications of the quote to be useful, especially when it comes to thinking about self-development and self-care. There are countless tasks, challenges, and obstacles we navigate in our lives that involve just learning enough to get by....

Download Audio Blog It’s often pointed out that, in contrast to a majority of other religions and faith systems, the emphasis of the New Testament is what God has done for Humanity, instead of what Humanity needs to do for God. With rare exception, the idea of “striving” is basically not present in the exhortations of the Christian scriptures. Instead, the emphasis is on receiving the gift God has given, which no effort on our part could have accomplished....

I’ve been thinking about scarcity and abundance this week, and wanted to share some of those thoughts! To start, I’ve been slowly listening through Bible Project’s 15 hour course about Genesis 1. One thing I noticed come up a few times is the idea that, in the creation narrative on page 1 of the Bible, Elohim forms creation with a goal of setting up a place for humanity to thrive....

I don’t want to be a part of an “us” that makes a “them” of the world’s most vulnerable people. ~ John Green in Why Are Poor Countries Poor?

TL;DR: Those SMS authentication codes SUUUCK when you’re an expat who doesn’t always have access to the same phone number. TOTP is a fix to that, allowing you to access your accounts without needing to be able to receive SMS texts. The tutorial video below teaches what TOTP is, how it works, and how to use it. I use and recommend a paid Bitwarden plan for less than $1/month to manage my TOTP codes....

I just wanted to quickly highlight a really cool thing that happened in the world this week. Whether you know it or not, there’s a pretty decent chance you have come across something created by brothers John and Hank Green at some point. They are insanely prolific siblings, both having written several books, running several companies, building educational content that is being used around the world, and helping build medical infrastructure in impoverished countries like Sierra Leone… among many other things....

“You don’t need to catch up. You just need to show up.” ~ Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal

The Project 📹 A couple years ago I got connected with Andrew Case, the co-creator of Aleph with Beth, a YouTube channel with the goal of making top-quality Biblical Hebrew educational resources available to everyone who wants them. They’ve created hundreds of really well produced videos — lessons, practice stories, quizzes, songs, and more. Their videos are designed so that anyone, of (nearly) any age, with any educational, cultural, or linguistic background can learn Biblican Hebrew by watching and studying their videos....

I love personal websites and blogs. The idea of having a little chunk of the internet that is wholly yours, where you can post, and create, and make completely on your own terms is really cool to me. I’ve loved creating content that way the last few years. And I’m also finding that I really like consuming content from people who create that way. A blog on a personal website tends to feel so much more deep and well-thought-through than a Tweet, or Mastodon/microblog, or any other social media content....

I subscribe to a LOT of email newsletters. I haven’t counted specifically, but I’m guessing there are roughly 40-50 newsletters that I’m purposefully subscribed to and actually want to read (not just spammy marketing emails that I haven’t yet opted-out of, but actual, real content I’m interested to read and consume). Because I don’t consume traditional social media feeds, I’m left getting updates about stuff I care about from other sources....