The Eccentric Realist

It's a no-brainer that the way we live nowadays is so different from our more primal days, so much that, were any of us taken back to those times, death would be more likely than survival. The same could be said about the reverse, but the lifestyle that humanity used to have was better suited for us. After all, we'd evolved around it. When speaking of illness, there are two factors to consider, the physical and the mental. If we're dealing with a hierarchy of needs, though, and there is a hierarchy for everything, then we see that, to survive, the physical must be taken care of first. 5: Lights on One of the main things that we lost with the arrival of civilization and technology is that of the natural cycle of the day, from campfires and torches to the screen on your cell phone. The world is getting brighter, and it's less expensive as we go along. Places which have never been lit are getting illuminated, and where there is light, it can shine far into t...

Fallacies exist in every way, shape, or form, including the cognitive, which is the type we're focusing on today. They shouldn't be confused with logical fallacies, which you can either use to fool your opponents or avoid it to be a more legitimate debater, rather, these are tricks that your mind plays on you. The mind is designed to make decisions as quickly as possible with the input that we have available. These mental shortcuts can be handy, especially in dire situations, but sometimes our mind just can't cope with different issues such as some overabundance of input, social pressure, or emotions. It's the same as stereotyping. Your mind needs to act quickly, but this can come at the expense of the best results from time to time.  Here are a few ways your mind can trick you.  5: Confirmation bias If you have some ideology or worldview, it's more than likely that you've fallen for this fallacy before. Facts are facts. Sometimes we can'...

A caveat, a lot of these horror stories are shared throughout Latin America and even back in Spain so some of these may have other versions in other countries. Seeing as we just lived a horror story in our game against Sweden, it seems only appropriate to share the ones we have. Horror is the gift that keeps on giving. Everyone has their own boogeyman to deal with, and some excellent storytellers, like Guillermo del Toro, have given the world a taste of what we can come up with given enough imagination. Here are a few of the stories that we've inherited from our strange past. 5: El Chupacabra That's a naked bear, but you get the idea We're starting off with a simple concept. This is one of the more famous tales, and there have been "sightings" all across the continent, including in the southern United States, and it's not uncommon to see news from even reliable networks concerning the possibility that it chose to attack a farm. This beast i...

Most people who try to lose weight will fail. It's my intention to help you be part of that small percentage of people who do get to succeed. Motivation, as I've mentioned in other posts, isn't what will get you through to losing weight, rather, discipline, which is more consistent. The problem with discipline is that it's like a muscle. Exert it too much, and it'll fail. The trick with dieting is that you have to organize yourself in a way that will help you need less discipline than usual when you're controlling what you eat. This can go from the types of foods you eat to how you eat them, and many other factors. Let's go through them.  5: Change your mindset Some people go on these extreme diets which involve restricting yourself for a week to the point of exhaustion, and after having lost a couple of pounds, usually water weight, they go back to eating like they used to, none the wiser. It's not unknown for some to compensate and actu...

Native Americans are a vastly diverse culture, despite many grouping them into one homogeneous group, and from the many tribes that have gotten to exist, we're bound to get some good stories. They're human, of course, so they have the same fears that we do, with a different way to express them. Here are some of their more interesting tales. 5: Kanontsistonties: The Flying Heads This one sounds almost likes something Junji Ito would have made up. These cannibalistic monsters came to exist because of a famine which wiped out most of a tribe. The young ones wanted to flee, but the elders were against the idea and would rather perish in their own land than leave it behind, so the young ones killed the old men. To dispose of their remains, they decided to decapitate the bodies and offer them to the gods for forgiveness, so they did, but one of the young chiefs entangled himself among the heads and drowned with them in the lake, and since then, the monsters appeared. As fo...

Language. Not entirely unique to humanity. Though we share the non-verbal with the rest of the animal kingdom, the ability to communicate precise thoughts through spoken or written words is unique to us. It's thought that some of the deepest thoughts by the greatest philosophers couldn't be fully expressed to us because there just weren't any words to express it, a terrible tragedy, to say the least. If you're not going to learn another language, which you should, then at least you can get an edge on your psyche with these emotions that just can't be put to a single word in English. 10: Sehnsucht "The inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what"; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one's home. If that's what the Germans coined, then the answer probably isn't over there. Although you can translate this word as simply "longing", or more literally to "long addiction,...

Losing weight won't solve all of your problems. It certainly helps to be skinny and sad rather than fat and sad, so there's that. Besides the countless health benefits that you may receive because of this lifestyle change, though, there are a few that are negative, or if somehow positive, can carry negative connotations. Your butt will hurt You're probably used to sitting around on any hard surface without much trouble, and that's good and all, but it's not so fine when you lose your cushion down there. Suddenly, you're going to need more comfortable seating options because that rock just won't do it anymore and you'll be hurting your tailbone, so carry a pillow.  You'll get colder This is excellent for making it through the summer. Make sure to drink some water, though, as it can still be pretty brutal on your hydration. When winter comes, you'll have to buy a good jacket to get through it because your insulating c...

Sun Tzu's The Art of War is one of the earliest examples of a genius sharing his thoughts to the world through the written form. More than that, though, it's still a book that can help you out, if you know how to apply its lessons to your own life, as not all in war is about war. 7: Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak Although projecting your strength can be useful for certain situations, it's better to be ambiguous about it. If you wonder how the Soviet Union managed to make it through the Cold War without being destroyed, it's because they managed to convince the United States that they were a powerful military force, stalling long enough to develop a nuclear program.  For the flip side, appearing weak when you are strong will make your enemies underprepared for any confrontation you may have. It's better to be humble about what you can and can't do.  6: Know the enemy, and know yourself The actual quote is ...

Some of you don't have weight to lose. Rather, you're interested in finding some way to avoid gaining weight. Folks always say that you're going to gain weight as the years go by and your body gets slower, but that doesn't have to be true. You can't generate energy out of a void, though, so there's nobody but yourself to blame. Here are a few things that could make you fat. 5: Genetics Before any of you calorie purists lynch me, hear me out. Think about your height for a second. The taller you are, the more calories you'll need to subsist because of the greater amount of mass you need to maintain. There are also hundreds of metabolic processes to take into account. Some bodies are just better at burning energy. That's not to say that you're going to depend completely on this, though, but it's totally feasible that a difference of 100 or 200 calories per day that could be attributed just to metabolism would add up in a year. Jus...

Writing is a great art, in the sense that all you really need is a place to put down your ideas. Sometimes the execution is bad, though, and though you might be the next Shakespeare, you're coming across as the next Dan Brown. With that in mind, it should always be in your best interest to refine your skills. Here's how. 5: Using the passive voice This one is big enough to merit its own post. Does the subject in your sentence perform the action, or is the action performed upon it? Although there is a lot that is affected by this aspect in itself, the way to fix it is pretty simple. Here are a few examples. Passive : It is believed by Mexicans that ghosts can speak with us. Active : Mexicans believe that ghosts can speak with us. Passive : I was bitten by the puppy. Active : The puppy bit me. The passive voice can be useful every once in a while, most of all if you want to keep the emphasis in the action, or if the actor is unknown. Otherwise, you ris...

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is, if not one of the greatest thinkers of our time, one of the more notorious. He's a professor of psychology from the University of Toronto, currently on a world tour for his book: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos , which is based off a popular response he gave on a Quora question about the most valuable things everyone should know . Years later, after becoming a Youtube sensation, he decided to refine his answer into 12 rules which can help anybody lead a happy, wholesome life. The book is currently a #1 Amazon national and international bestseller, so at the very least, his ideas are being heard around the world. Since his explanations tend to delve deep into Jungian psychology, Nietzsche's philosophy and biblical references, we're going through each of them in a simple, more digestible manner. 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back This one's pretty straightforward. Posture can affect biological processes that ...