The other day, a friend who chooses to make art rather than work a conventional job presented his latest creation, a sculpture built from found objects coupled with a backstory that blended ancient mythology, Amish folklore, and sexual politics.* The reaction in some quarters was that he had “too much time on his hands” to […]
Whether it’s a cure for procrastination, a way to beat the stock market, a method for hacking your brain to achieve total clarity, or the one diet that will help you shed pounds without giving up your favorite coconut cream pie, there’s no lack of people will to offer you “the answer.” Yet why don’t […]
While it seems like a contradiction in terms, it takes a lot of hard work to achieve nothingness, as any zen master will attest. But now it’s not only wise Buddhists who value the art of doing nothing. The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg is offering you the opportunity to turn your back on […]
Recently, a friend of the SuperOptimist expressed concern that their memory was heading south. “I just finished this great book about New York last week. It’s called…uh…oh, my god, what’s the name of it…this is frightening…I can’t remember anything anymore!” They proceeded to recount how they had been forgetting the names of movies they’d recently […]
Whether you’re talking about free markets vs. government intervention, Peloton vs. Soulcycle, or who qualifies as the best rock band of all time, everyone seemingly has an opinion. Some more educated than others. Yet most people have no more idea what they’re talking about than your well-meaning friend who has the answers to all the […]
What do you mean, you don’t know who Charli D’Amelio is? She’s only the most popular personality on TikTok, with 131 million followers and counting! (The number changes constantly, there’s a live feed of the count here.) So what does Charli do to earn these followers? Dispense sound financial advice? Speak out against racial injustice? […]
There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned Hollywood mud-sling to get the juices flowing, as the latest Mickey Rourke-Robert De Niro dust-up proves. Rourke demonstrates his SuperOptimist bonafides by thinking he’s in the same league as Bobby D. This type of blind self-belief that flies in the face of the facts continues to serve him well. […]
A Muslim, a Catholic, an African American, a Jewish person, a Hispanic, a Wasp, a native American, a lesbian, an old woman, a gender-neutral person, a Chinese communist, a Russian oligarch, an Iranian mullah, a red state Republican and an Upper West Side Democrat walk into a bar…* First of all, have you smiled? Or […]
In the past six months, we’ve gone from world leaders saying there was no major threat from Wuhan to a rip-roaring pandemic. We’ve seen medical experts say that only the elderly and the immune-compromised were at risk, to learning of perfectly healthy people dying from the disease. We’ve been told that wearing a mask is […]
We could all use more luck in our lives, especially given the extreme events of the moment. So how do you persuade fortune to shine it’s toothy grin upon you going forward? Richard Wiseman, a British psychology professor at the University of Hartfordshire, examined the difference between self-professed lucky and unlucky people. He found that […]