The practice of philosophy is a way of life that results from falling in love with questions—the great mythic questions that can never be given definitive answers.

Human life is a journey whose end is not in sight. Searching, longing and questioning is in our DNA. Who we are and what we will become is determined by the questions that animate us, and by those we…

Man, I really hate tests. They ask things that weren't even in the book and ask questions in ways that make zero sense. Especially those definitions that state exactly what the word means so you select true and it was false... how does that happen? These tests were created by idiots.

I'm taking intro to business at the moment.  They asked a question about Gap's form of competition of casual clothing in the marketplace. I thought about it and there are an endless amount of makers in…

The Good Life and the Fully Functioning Person.

Note

These passages are from On Becoming a Person, a collection of essays by Carl Rogers published in 1961.

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I have gradually come to one negative conclusion about the good life. It seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in my estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted or fulfilled or actualized. To use…

I've come to the realization that I'm plagued heavily by the concept of time.  Point blank I operate from a timeless place in my mind but when little nuances of time ticking away show up or rear it's ugly head in my life, it throws me off a little.  I get to the point of wanting to smash the clock off the wall, knowingly perfectly well how irrational and pointless that is.  I don't like the 8 hour workday, the 8 hours of sleep we should try to average, and the fact of feeling like there…

Do you have kids?  Or can you borrow some nieces or nephews?  Or do you just want to have a new party trick?

I sometimes do science experiments or demonstrations with my daughters.  One of our favorites was making fiber optics out of gelatin.  Want to know how?

Here goes. 

When we tried the gelatin fiber optics experiment from the Discovery/3M Young Scientist Challenge, it hardly…

I came across this site today by googling random statements to see what came up that I could identify with.  Initially I put in "I feel alone in this world full of people" and immediately pulled up all kinds of depression links and "talk you off the ledge" type information.  Then I put in more detailed statements regarding intelligence and how it isolates you.  My background is competely blue colar, middle class, midwest upbringing with every bit of a wonderful childhood yet statistically…

Life is so much fun lately discovering the limits of my own mind.  It's amazing what aspects of life intelligence can affect and make better when you can learn so quickly.  My aunt told me one time, "I'd rather be dumb and happy than intelligent and miserable."  I looked at her puzzled and said, "What?  I'm happier because of my intelligence."  It's given me an ability to have a deeper understanding of life and people, and as a result made me drastically more…

I might forget how to be sad.

If only there was some sort of manual for gifted living and on how to make the right decisions.  Lately, as I focus so much on building my career, I feel as if I've become far less intellectual than I used to be. Since we as a gifted population, sometimes tend to associate the intellectual interests as the only source of mental stimulation, it has me feeling slightly less gifted.  

By the time I've finished working and then clock out to obsess over my music career, the last thing I…

Reprinted from my personal blog, way before they closed down Borders, which has made me immensely sad because that was my home away from home.  It got replaced with a unnecessary electronic big box store. 

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I was pleasantly surprised last Saturday when I went to my favorite indoor place to be – the local Borders bookshop. (Coffee AND books…what’s not to love?)

I once complained (somewhat bitterly) that I find…

It’s been so long since I worked in forensic DNA, but I do keep up to date.  Occasionally, I get to give lectures to schools.  I gave one lecture to a class of first year biology students at a university before, but I still prefer giving lectures to elementary school kids.  It’s so much more fun.

The forensic DNA presentation I gave for my daughter's fourth grade GT class went very well, despite low lighting, overhead projector difficulties from time to time and a bad hair…

I have a fun new hobby using mixed-media techniques to make mini works of art.  At 2" by 3", these are playing card sized collages and they are fun to make and trade with other artists.

I thought I'd share a great link and some of my own artist trading cards I recently made.

http://www.altered-art.net/make-artist-trading-cards-2.html

These are great to try if you would like to get into art but are…

I'm glad to have come across this site. Your stories are very similar to mine and that isn't something I can say too often. This encourages me greatly, and I hope to talk with you guys in-depth later on. 

A little about me:

• Placed in my school's gt class around 1st grade. 
• Went through another round of testing at 17 
• An existential depression grips me. 

I hope I can learn from you what you guys have to say. It would be nice talking with…

I am not exactly sure what to talk about on my first post, so I guess I will go for the topic on my mind as of late.

As I strive my hardest to achieve the impossible all on my own, it constantly reminds me of the isolation I feel.  No one has ever stood by my side and encouraged me or told me I could do good things.  I was 18 years old when the first adult looked me in the eye and said, "I believe in you."  It was my vocal coach at the time and she would tell me nearly every lesson,…

I’m supposed to be cleaning my room. Well, it’s clean/de-cluttered, only I need to find places to put the things I took out, like kids’ toys, kids’ books, and laundry and lost socks and bins of articles and kids project ideas and craft things I’m planning.

In my decluttering, I came across an exciting find: a really fascinating biography of Nikola Tesla, a brilliant mechanical and electrical engineer and inventor (most notably…

Preface:  While this might seem like I'm whining, or I expect anyone to 'fix' this problem for me, I don't.  I'm just sharing some thoughts as I struggle, like many highly sensitive, gifted individuals, to navigate through life.  Perhaps you can relate, perhaps not. 

I take some wisdom from Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian lyricist and novelist.

Each human being has been granted two qualities: power and gift. Power drives a person to meet his/her destiny, his gift obliges…

I have a monumental task I’ve been avoiding forever: deciding what to do with the remnants of my past history.  All of Martin's ch-ch-ch-changes have me thinking about making some vast sweeping changes in my own life.

In a dusty corner of my basement, I have about 7 large plastic boxes of old college and laboratory-related papers I haven’t been able to go through since I quit my former 12 year career in the biotech field to raise my daughters myself after juggling two daughters and an…

Some of my favorite snapshots of my local urban jungle.

I hope you enjoy the visual tour.

Illinois Institute of Technology

Buckingham Fountain

The Hancock building…