Category: Articles
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How to make friends in the 21st century
My youngest brother just moved in to Warsaw, and asked me for advice on where to find new friends. Making friends as an adult isn’t easy in general, but he’s made it exceptionally hard for himself. Dropping out of college after 2 days or so, and having worked remotely for the last year, he’s successfully…
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Note to self: how to live with a slouchy potato
There’s something I must confess. I have a secret alter ego. Every now and then, the creative and passionate human being that I normally am turns into a slouchy potato. This doesn’t happen very often, but enough to become a nuisance. Slouchy potato doesn’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning, and doesn’t…
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Why we sleep
These days I’m reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, and it’s eye-opening on many levels. We all know that sleep is an important pillar of good health, but hardly anyone takes it seriously. Surviving on just 3-4 hours of sleep is something a lot of people pride themselves on, either as a proof of…
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Time spent at school is mostly time wasted
I recently wrote about how modern education is completely detached from the things it is supposed to teach, and how it’s most visible for foreign languages. I don’t think foreign languages are taught less effectively than, say, chemistry or literature. It’s just much easier to verify the results in real life. You can be a…
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Whatever you think is basic, it’s only basic to you
All the hairdressers I know cringe when they hear about my hair care routine. It’s rather non-existent: I wash my hair, apply a conditioner, brush it for 5 minutes, and that’s pretty much it. When it’s windy I might tie it up in a loose side braid so it doesn’t get all tangled up. I…
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Things you can learn from traditional folk music
You know what’s the least cool thing on Earth when you’re a teenager in Poland? Traditional folk music, that’s what. Only village grandmas would perform it when I was a kid, they sang in regional dialect which sounded weird and archaic, and the lyrics never made any sense. A rose grew in my garden, tell…
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Teaching children to walk, the safe and empowering way
I don’t remember how it’s like to learn how to walk. According to my parents, it was a painful process for everyone involved. I managed to master the art of getting up and gaining speed long before I was able to decelerate and sit safely back down. In result, for the first few weeks I…
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How to tell responsibility from people pleasing
My fiancé just wrote a great article about coding, responsibility, and how software development is mostly about managing egos of everyone involved. This made me think about my own relationship with responsibility, which has been so far quite complicated and confusing. I’m a highly sensitive person and an emotional sponge. Noticing other people’s emotions and…
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Amanda Palmer on grief and pain
Anthony was just laid out in his hospice bed. I sat there, and I looked at his dead body, and I thought, “Why are we told to be so afraid of this?” I just remember feeling like, “Wow! There’s no fear.” There’s this whole narrative about death and dead bodies, and it’s oh, so creepy,…
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To be afraid hardly means to be in danger
There’s so many things I haven’t done because of fear. There’s even more that I did after months or even years of procrastinating. Quitting an old job or starting a new one, asking someone out or breaking up, starting a new project or saying no to someone asking for a favor. At one point I…
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