The first lecture in our series on the book of Job deals with us--and our presuppositions. Dr. Chou addresses 10 common misconceptions which I found helpful to regrind my textual "lenses," a very valuable and necessary first step before we approach the text.
Read moreJob Lecture Series from Dr. Abner Chou
Over the next few weeks I will be posting the lecture notes from a class Dr. Chou teaches at The Master’s College on the book of Job. I’ve found the lectures extremely helpful, so I’m going back through them and copying down the relevant notes. I will publish one lecture per day on the blog, with each lecture being about 1,000 words. That should be a great 5 minute “devotional” for you as we go through the 34-ish lectures.
Read moreWorkflow: This is How We Get Things Done
In order to achieve mastery of a topic you must first achieve mastery over your tools. In this series I will break down the core tools necessary for an academic to do his or her work so that maybe you can learn from my experience and come away with a better grip of what tools are out there and how best to use them.
Read more∞ In Defense of Difficulty
"A culture filled with smooth and familiar consumptions produces in people rigid mental habits... They know what they know, and they expect to find it reinforced when they turn a page or click on a screen. Difficulty annoys them, and, having become accustomed to so much pabulum served up by a pandering and invertebrate media, they experience difficulty not just as “difficult,” but as insult."
Read moreLearning to Think 2: 5 Steps to Thinking Your Way out of a Paper Bag
Most of the time we “think” we are thinking without thinking about it. Our default setting is to sit in the sand and draw on a paper sack with a crayon, oblivious to the drafting table, .05mm pencil, and precise instruments right beside us.
Read moreLearning to Think 1: Reclaiming Your Mind from The Google
Most people hate to be alone, they hate quietness and stillness, and most of all, they hate to think. There never was a person born who didn't hate the thought of deep thinking. But, as great minds soon find out, it is extremely rewarding.
Read moreLessons from Sherlock Holmes on How to Think, or The Mind Palace
We need people who can think their way out of a paper bag. Religion has been accused (and most of the time, rightly so) of giving brain-dead people lies couched in pleasing rhetoric. But that is not the sole fault of religion, that is the fault of evil people using religion to their gain.
Read moreInformation Architecture: Organizing Chaos
We have a problem. We are drowning in data. We are anxious, and we spend most of our downtime glued to streams of information (from Twitter, Facebook, TV, games, etc.). We absolutely consume data, and yet as soon as we step away, we wonder why we're even alive. It's as if our basic, fundamental humanity is propped up by digital data streams.
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