Paulo Seabra

The great philosopher of our time, and maybe of all time too, Norman Gene Macdonald, was fond of having his disciple ask comedians of all stripes where they get their ideas from. It ain't much of a question because nobody knows exactly how to answer it, or if they know they might not be so inclined to tell for many a-reason, a neat one of them being that a thing is often ruined by finding out where it came from. Ibn Taymiyyah considers how creatures who travel through the passage of urine twice should, by virtue of exactly that, be denied any form of pride and arrogance. But that's another story... For now I feel I might as well wallow in pride and arrogance for a lil' while, because the reason for this meandering piece is that I recently took a class I thought might be cool if only the teacher played it in a way that allowed us crazy kids to show off our work and exchange ideas. I often thought, and deliberately told people as some kind of proof, that if the teacher fumble...

I was just watching some random clips of The Sopranos, as I every so often do, and I came across one of my all-time favorite scenes. It's season one, Tony gets picked up by Christopher who arrives late and after a string of recent screw-ups. Tony chastises him in his typical Tony way, but then Christopher opens up and they have something of a rare moment. And this moment is very relevant, maybe one of the most important moments in the entire show, especially as it pertains to the more psychological aspects of it, because it's the first moment where Tony and Christopher talk about depression. And the way it's phrased by Christopher, the way a relatively uneducated man verbalizes his innermost feelings, it's just so poignant and full of depth that I've come to steal the phrase and use it myself when describing what it truly is like to feel depressed – It is to constantly struggle when facing the regularness of life. “Can I try and explain here?... I don't know, T...

Some things are a matter of duty, some things are a matter of principle. Sometimes in life you need to burn the bridges and burn the ships, and then carry on in whatever path you've chosen. Indeed, sometimes two fierce rivals will hate each other but still deeply respect each other, while they may truly love a friend and yet not really respect him. Similarly, a student may love a teacher he doesn't respect, and may respect a teacher he absolutely hates, depending on how cool or how strict the teacher is. This is because for one reason or another, and maybe for reasons that are even a little irrational, we tend to see conviction as an inherently admirable thing, whether or not we are forced to. Then again, it is a strange thing to admire because some men of conviction have done truly wicked things in the same measure as some other men of conviction have done great things. It might as well be a double-edged sword, but whatever the case may be, the fact remains that conviction is ...

I know one or two things. Sadly, neither of them are about happiness, so I gotta give it my best shot here and hope I come even remotely close to something neat. Then again everyone wants happiness, regardless of how it is actually defined, and so everyone thinks about it and therefore has some fairly universal ideas of what it really is. For now I have three ideas that I hope to go into some detail about, even if presently I'm not too sure of what I'll say. I do know this though – if happiness really exists, then it is ever-fleeting. One minute you have a lot of it, the next minute it's all gone and replaced by a piano hanging over your head. For that reason, my takes on happiness might be fairly practical, or at least practical happiness is the only kind I ever had access to in my life, that is, at least assuming it's not the only kind of happiness that exists... Whatever the proper truth may be, of one thing I am safely convinced – happiness is not a spiritual, ether...

I think about these things a lot – coincidence, destiny, luck, all of it. Or maybe I don't think about them all that much but they do come up every once in a while. The weird thing is though, when they do come up, they do so with quite a bit of force. As such it's tempting to think synchronicity really is real, and that all these little details and little moments in our path were placed there specifically for us, kinda like a helpful NPC in a video game, either giving us a nudge towards the right direction or heralding the coming of a great advent, whatever the case may be. Other times though, moments of synchronicity don't seem to mean anything at all, or at least nothing serious comes out of them, and so whatever meaning they do have, it's hard to tell if it is truly there and we just need to find it, or if whatever meaning we do find is nothing more than a made-up thing. In that sense, I suppose, a theory that can't be proven wrong isn't a very good one, and ...

I'm something of an art casual, so I don't really know much about it, but I do know I always liked Vincent Van Gogh. I'm also something of an MMA casual, so I don't really know much about it, but I do know I always liked Conor McGregor, and I especially always liked his famous quote about the aforementioned painter. In many ways to follow MMA, or perhaps any individual sport, is quite an interesting thing in that you find it is much more dynamic than any team sport. Following entire teams all throughout the years or even decades is starkly different than following individual fighters throughout what is often a rocky career in a rocky sport, in which time alone stands undefeated. Thus, in many ways to follow a fighter's career is more like following an artist – sometimes you like him a lot, other times less so, sometimes he's in his prime, other times he stumbles a little bit. And then when you look back at the fighter's entire career, from beginning to end, ...