cara

the person, comment, or moment that walks into a perfectly good vibe and kills it instantly.

everyone is laughing, having fun, enjoying the night.

then someone says, “actually…”

buzzkill.

image

one of those judges whose name is much less famous than the idea his ruling helped protect. in 1982, william overton struck down an arkansas law that required public schools to give creation science balanced treatment with evolution. what makes the decision especially interesting is that he did not just say creationism was religious. he tried to articulate what makes something science in the first place: it has to deal with the natural world, be testable, remain open to revision, and be falsifiable. a courtroom ended up becoming a surprisingly important place for defining the boundary between belief and scientific inquiry.

i think you should.

back in college, a group of our friends got into a really bad car crash. the mercedes rolled several times and was completely totaled.

there were five people in the car. only one of them ended up spending a few weeks in the hospital because he was not wearing a seat belt and got thrown out through the window.

the other four, including the people sitting in the back, were wearing theirs.

they walked away without so much as a bloody nose.

spending 18 years in the s&p 100 and then basically being told, “you’re not top 100 anymore,” is a pretty brutal slap in the face for nike.

the company was worth around $264 billion in 2021. now it is closer to $57 billion.

the interesting part is not that nike is disappearing. it is that one of the most recognizable sports brands in the world has lost some of its old dominance while hoka, on, adidas, and chinese brands have gained ground.

and nike is still nike. the swoosh is still one of the most recognizable logos on earth.

the problem is not brand awareness.

people just do not seem to have the same “if it is nike, i want it” mentality anymore.

so nike’s real challenge is not being recognized.

it is becoming the brand people actively choose again.

it was the coolest for years...

whatever went wrong, it happened sometime in the last 10 or 15 years.

no face id, no haptic feedback, and no earpiece speaker for regular phone calls.

so you are either on speakerphone in public like an asshole or carrying airpods everywhere.

1- breaking bad
2- the sopranos
3- mad men
4- game of thrones
5- six feet under

it's one of those brutal truths about human relationships that almost never fails: you can usually tell how someone feels about you by the quality of the time they give you and the number of excuses they make.

the first sign is that every conversation starts feeling like a one-sided tennis match. you're always the one reaching out, asking questions, trying to keep the conversation alive, while their replies never go beyond "yeah," "uh-huh," "cool," or "that's nice." every response is a dead end. they don't ask about your life, your thoughts, or how you're doing, because, simply put, they're not interested.

the second—and probably biggest—sign is the classic excuse: "i've just been so busy." more often than not, what that really means is, "i don't have time for you." people naturally make time for what matters to them. even the busiest person can usually find ten minutes for someone they genuinely care about. if you're always at the bottom of their priority list and every plan gets postponed or canceled, the message is usually pretty clear.

kissing a baby's big toe sticking out of a torn sock.

taking photos.

if we're going to think in terms of a single trait, i'd say clarity. man or woman, no difference, i love a clear person. because clarity brings naturalness, honesty, transparency, sincerity, humility, empathy, and genuineness along with it. just as a clear person won't bother with empty matters, in their relationships there's no inconsistency, scheming, or indecision either. a clear person is plain, simple, and natural. they're a genuine person, free of affected behavior and staged emotions.

apart from beverly hills and santa monica, a place with a lot of traffic and pretty bad.

no doubt, the human being is a finite creature, and their freedom is limited. this is not freedom from conditions, but the freedom to take a stand toward conditions. in the final analysis, the human being is a self-determining creature. a person does not simply exist; instead, they always decide the fate of their existence, what they will be in the next moment. one of the fundamental characteristics of human existence is the capacity to rise above conditions and grow beyond them. the human being has the capacity, whenever it is possible, to change the world and, when necessary, themselves for the better. yet freedom is not the last word. freedom is only part of the story and half the truth. freedom is nothing but the negative side of a phenomenon whose positive side is responsibility. in fact, unless it is lived in terms of responsibility, freedom is in danger of degenerating.

man's search for meaning, viktor frankl

gen z humor is a type of comedy that's intentionally weird, random, and sometimes makes almost no sense. instead of telling a normal joke with a setup and punchline, it leans into absurdity, irony, exaggeration, and internet culture. the joke is often that everyone acts like something completely ridiculous is perfectly normal.

example:

friend: "did you finish the assignment?"

you: "no, but the assignment finished me."

or:

teacher: "any questions before the test?"

student: "yeah... why is my gpa built like a crypto portfolio?"

or:

me: "i'm going to bed early tonight."

also me at 2:47 a.m.: watching a raccoon steal a costco-sized bag of dog food and thinking, "bro is on a side quest."

the easiest way to understand gen z humor is this: imagine your brain has 47 browser tabs open, one is playing music, two are frozen, and you have no idea where the sound is coming from. somehow, that's the joke.