The Inner Monologue

The phrase most of us grew up with — “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” — has been reduced into a warm cliché, the sort of thing you might say when someone copies your hairstyle, your phrasing, or your product design. It sounds like a compliment: don’t be upset, be honored, because your ideas…

Every society likes to flatter itself with the idea that humans are naturally good. We teach children that kindness is instinctive, that cooperation comes easily, that cruelty is an aberration. But history, psychology, and even biology tell a darker story. Humans are not naturally good. We are naturally self-interested—and when goodness stands in the way…

Here’s a hard truth polite society doesn’t want to admit: when you give people houses for free, many of them trash them. The paint peels, the windows crack, the garbage piles up, and the bathrooms rot. Taxpayers foot the bill for construction, then foot it again for repairs, then again when the whole mess has…

The Golden Age Before Regulation There was a time in America—before Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his alphabet soup of tyranny—when this nation truly soared. Banks collapsed with the regularity of fireworks on the Fourth of July, fortunes evaporated overnight, and the stock market resembled a roulette wheel tilted by God himself. This was the natural…

Shortages don’t just vanish when supply chains stabilize. They linger in memory, in headlines, and in dinner-table conversations. Once the public hears “we’re running out,” it takes years — sometimes decades — for that perception to fade, even if the shelves are restocked. These phantom shortages reveal how human psychology, media cycles, and uneven access…

We often like to believe that progress is effortless, that the luxuries of our present are a natural state of being. We turn on a light, stream a movie, order a meal that arrives at our door within the hour—and we imagine these conveniences as if they exist in a vacuum. But the truth is…

By definition, a problem is something with a solution—a puzzle to be cracked, an error to be fixed, a task to be completed. This mindset dominates modern thinking: everything is a problem, and therefore everything must have a solution. If only we think hard enough, spend enough money, build enough technology, or legislate enough rules,…

A modern high-end motorhome is stunning. Marble-look floors. Heated tile. Residential refrigerators. Washer/dryer. Multiplex wiring. Diesel pushers with 450–600 horsepower engines. Slide-outs that transform a bus into a small condo. It feels like mobility plus status plus comfort. You tell yourself: So you start browsing $500,000 to $750,000 coaches. And that’s when the math begins…

There is a quiet assumption in modern life that having an opinion is enough. You feel strongly. You speak passionately. You post frequently. You debate energetically. You vote accordingly. And that is supposed to count as thought. It does not. If you have an opinion—and you do—then you have a responsibility that goes beyond conversation,…

In every election cycle, voters are told that this one matters more than ever. The stakes are always described as existential, the rhetoric louder, the fear sharper. Yet amid the noise, many Americans end up voting based on habit, party loyalty, or the latest outrage rather than a clear understanding of which candidate actually supports…