Blog
Brooks Writes Stories: How Did It Go in 2025?
Happy New Year. Since 2017, I have submitted and tracked my fiction writing, and posted annual updates (here are the notes from 2023 and 2024). How did it go with my short stories in 2025?
In 2025, I submitted versions and ...
Life on Earth is Complex: Conversations with a Friend
Introduction
My late friend Danny Hamsley once told me, “The web of life on Earth is complex.” Danny and I often discussed the challenges of being human and raising children, long before I married or had children of my own. Danny ...
Clear Priorities and Weekly Plans: Shake and Bake!
Introduction
I have been thinking about processes, habits, and routines after, once again, incinerating hours of my life watching videos online. Two situations account for most of why or when I get offtrack and surrender my ...
Feeding Chickens with Filmmaker Loren Mendell
Years ago, my younger brother, Loren, and I traveled to Uruguay to study Spanish and eat grilled meat. Our return home included a troublesome and frustrating connection in a regional Brazilian airport.
Previously, Loren had worked at ...
When is New Information Important?
How important is new information? How do we know? Often, we don’t, according to a study in a September 2024 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Professors Eben Lazarus, Ned Augenblick, and Michael Thaler found evidence in ...
The Joy of Knowing the Speed of Light and Math of Tennis
Did you know that the Earth is round? As a kid, I would flip through a set of Charlie Brown Encyclopedias and memorize facts about our planet. Did you know the circumference around the equator is 24,901 miles? Did you know the speed ...
Three Thoughts on Thursday about Thinking
T-H-I-N-K
Often, it’s not until years later, after you’ve had a chance to manage or motivate people, lead a project, start a business, or navigate a challenging series of events that you recognize the power and impact of lessons ...
Creative Work and Role Models
I can basically do one round of creative work each day. Maybe two. No more. The attention, capacity, and focus required to write, research, and develop ideas are limited to a few hours daily, especially when life includes a spouse, ...
Managing Trees, Managing People: Nothing is Independent
As a kid, I learned that the “knee bone connected to the thigh bone” thanks to the School House Rock song “Them Not So Dry Bones.” The lyrics remind us how things “really fit” and “it’s a framework… holding you together.” This idea, ...
We are Lucky: Observations on Dishwashers and Cherry Pickers
How to Load a Dishwasher
Take a break from fixing the world via social media to consider the art of loading silverware into a dishwasher. Dishwasher manufacturers recommend putting knives point down and spoons and forks tongs up ...
Bad Dates, Cookie Lies, and Waking in Ukraine
Years before getting married, I went on a date to a forgotten restaurant for an unremarkable meal. However, I remember the moment when my companion was rude and dismissive to our waitress, and thinking, “nope, this is not going to ...
Perspectives on Risk: Transparency and Competence
Introduction
When it comes to managing positive and negative risks, I think in terms of “transparency” and “competence.” Many risks are relative, and we have the abilities to enhance resilience, mitigate unwanted exposures, and ...
No results found.