Elizabeth Gilbert shares 11 ways to think smartly about creativity. Creativity is a tricky word. Consultants peddle it, brands promise it, we all strive for it, often without really knowing quite what “it” really is. Put simply, there’s a lot of snake oil around creativity. But now here’s author…

In the short history of the Internet, many have gone viral. But not many have done it twice. And even fewer have gone viral on both ends of the Web's emotional spectrum—hate and love. But I have. DIGITAL DECLINE, NOVEMBER 2011 I always wanted to be funny for a living. This whole "journalism" gig was…

Our first live event!! We explored the In Between with Alix, Hanna and several DC-based storytellers, who talked about charting their own path in a world of absolutes. For more information about our partners at Story District, visit their website: storydistrict.org . Below you can find videos of…

25 Songs 1 Sorry Justin Bieber Full Track 2 Say No to This The ‘Hamilton’ Cast Full Track 3 I Watched the Film... Sun Kil Moon Full Track 4 Get Away Syd Tha Kyd & The Internet Full Track 5 One Sunday Morning Wilco Full Track 6 ’06 Vince Staples Full Track 7 Hurtin’ (On the Bottle) Margo Price Full…

Two years later, Nathan and Katie, along with another Brigham Young couple named Doug and Paige Bischoff, founded Kinfolk , an $18 minimalist print quarterly that has become the go-to lifestyle magazine for a certain type of pour-over-loving millennial. Despite a relatively small circulation of…

This is the full text of a lecture delivered by Emily Bell last week at the University of Cambridge, where she is the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Media 2015–16 at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. An edited version of this speech has been published by Columbia…

Because of a Trappist monk, Apple computer displays look the way they do today. The monk was the Rev. Robert Palladino, who died on Feb. 26 at 83. A Roman Catholic priest who began his vocation in a monastic order, Father Palladino was also a world-renowned master of calligraphy . “Priest and…

Sherry Turkle has spent the past 30 years studying the psychology of the relationship between people and technology — how giant technological advances change our communities, our relationships, and even our inner selves. Her 2011 book " Alone Together " topped the charts for months, and created all…

TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health. You check it in the bathroom. You check it at the movies. You check it when you’re having dinner with your friends. But you wouldn’t say you’re addicted—and most experts would agree with you. “Only a small percentage of people qualify as addicted,” says Dr.…

Conrad Roy’s loved ones called him Coco. His grandfather was Conrad Sr.; his father was Conrad Jr., “Co” for short, so Coco was a good fit. He was thin but athletic, with brown hair that was often covered by a Red Sox hat; in high school he played baseball and rowed crew. He grew up in Mattapoisett,…

Practice makes perfect: Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell in Groundhog Day.Photograph: REX/Shutterstock C an a movie change your life? How about a comedy? How about Groundhog Day ? I believe that this wonderful film contains remarkable wisdom that can help you be happier and more fulfilled. There are…

I have tried to change how I look, since my ballet teacher kicked me out of class because I was too fat I have tried to change how much I can produce when in Business School, and tried the play hard and party hard lifestyle, just to end up on probation and almost kicked out I have fallen on my face,…

On The Media Blog Published in On The Media Blog by On The Media Download this audio Want to embed this player? Use the code below. More info . Email a Friend Welcome to Infomagical (John Hersey for Note to Self ) Jan 28, 2016 Our friends at Note to Self have just launched a new project called…

Backstage with Freddie: a personal account of the delicate work that kept the world’s biggest rock star happy By Peter Hince ‘ I can’t do it! I simply can’t go on! It’s no good — the show will just have to be cancelled!’ Freddie Mercury, the singer with rock band Queen, often expressed to his…

Photo: John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images This week, the Cut brings you True Romance: five days of stories about love as it’s actually lived. I’m an advice columnist, so sometimes people ask me about how they can “keep the romance alive” in their marriages. This stumps me a little…

P hyllis Moen, a sociologist who was widowed when her two children were young, has made a career studying the challenges of working full time while raising a family. She was an early voice calling for the government to provide paid maternity leave and offer benefits for part-time workers, but…

F or 11 years, June Jo Lee, an ethnographer, has been traveling the country, talking to Americans about how they eat. She has often been in offices, observing white-collar workers. In one interview, a 20-something administrative assistant at an architecture firm in Seattle told her, ‘‘I don’t think…

From Hieronymous Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights." I recently found the essay that I wrote as part of my application to divinity school six years and one spiritual lifetime ago. The power of the liturgy was the framework through which I confessed a faith that was unselfconscious in its candor…

Matthieu Ricard, the world's happiest man. Wikimedia Commons Who is the happiest man in the world? If you Google it, the name "Matthieu Ricard" pops up. Matthieu Ricard, 69, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally from France who has been called "the world's happiest man." That's because he…

Articles: Why I don’t want stuff 2016-02-16 About once a month, someone asks for my mailing address because they want to send me something.They liked something I wrote, and want to send me a gift in return.I’m very thankful, but have to say no.Here’s why. I live in a little pre-furnished apartment…

Download and stream Julien Baker on Audiotree Live -- http://smarturl.it/AT-Julien-Baker YouTube playlist: http://bit.ly/1VHpcX4 Visit the band's website: http://bit.ly/1mdIaZe -- Subscribe to Audiotreetv: http://bit.ly/1LLy4ur Watch more sessions, music videos, and live performances at:…

HÜMMEL, Germany — IN the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. “These trees are friends,” he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a…

Image courtesy of smaakit.co.za Some countries let you sleep. Others wake you up. For the traveler, there are three kinds of countries. There are the clockwork countries like England and Germany, where everything is so organized that nothing can go seriously wrong; where you can go as a tourist and…

Owning an island is the quintessential “I’ve arrived” declaration, but many among the well-heeled are arriving through an alternate route: They’re renting. Farhad Vladi, president of Vladi Private Islands, a brokerage firm, has rented Frégate Island in Seychelles to Bill Gates, the co-founder of…

I am woken by a loud commotion. It's 1996, and I'm ten years old, two years older than my brother, Randy. He is banging on the wall our rooms share— BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! —and screaming, "I'M SO STUPID! I WANT TO DIE!" Our mother, Feryn, runs into his room and I follow close behind. Amber hair matted…

A friend of mine convinced me to start contributing to this site. In short order, I’ve discovered that I’m old, as you can see by the picture to the left of this sentence. I have my own teeth and hair, I don’t use a cane, I go to the gym regularly for 30–40 minutes of aerobics and 15 or 20 minutes…

Durham, N.C. — ON a Thursday morning a few months ago, I got a call from my doctor’s assistant telling me that I have Stage 4 cancer. The stomach cramps I was suffering from were not caused by a faulty gallbladder, but by a massive tumor. I am 35. I did the things you might expect of someone whose…

Do you have a big creative project in store? Do you lie awake sometimes, thinking about what might go into it, what the characters or environment might look like, how it will touch the audience in a whole new way? Do you imagine what it will feel like to have this project under your belt, and what…

The lead singer reveals the mad musical science powering the band’s unforgettable videos and fresh new album Even if people don’t know the band’s name, somewhere north of 75 million of those people know “the guys from the treadmill video.” And that’s a creative cross Damian Kulash and his OK Go…

If you do the math, becoming an entrepreneur is insane. The odds of success are tiny; failure is almost guaranteed. To make the leap, you have to be fearless. Or so I thought. I spent the past three years working on a book, Originals , about the people who champion new ideas to drive creativity and…

(Photo: Bev Sykes/Flickr) Why Keeping a Daily Journal Could Change Your Life “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” ― J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan…

Documentary E.J. McLeavey-Fisher 6 minutes The Dogist Filled with images of (what else!) beautiful dogs, this short documentary about Instagram canine photographer Elias Weiss Friedman aka The Dogist (1.8M followers!) also goes deep on the nature of creation in the digital age.

Look Catalog Even if you’ve never heard of ‘deep work’ before, you’re immediately familiar with the concept. It’s that place of intense concentration and cognitive focus where real progress is made—on whatever it is that we happen to do , be it writing or thinking or designing or creating. Producing…

I’m 29 years old, and I’ve been on Snapchat for about a year now. I post fairly often (usually on my Story), and I get a decent amount of engagement from my friends. Quite honestly, up until Thanksgiving, I thought I was pretty good at Snapchat. Then I watched my little sister on Snapchat. This is…

THEY learn to read at age 2, play Bach at 4, breeze through calculus at 6, and speak foreign languages fluently by 8. Their classmates shudder with envy; their parents rejoice at winning the lottery. But to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, their careers tend to end not with a bang, but with a whimper.…

I was recently quoted as saying , “I don’t give a shit” if Instagram has more users than Twitter. If you read the article you’ll note there’s a big “if” before my not giving of said shit. As quoted: If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it’s pretty significant.…

There’s a fun game I like to play in a group of trusted friends called “Controversial Opinion.” The rules are simple: Don’t talk about what was shared during Controversial Opinion afterward and you aren’t allowed to “argue” — only to ask questions about why that person feels that way. Opinions can…

DO some people have a special talent for serendipity? And if so, why? In 2008, an inventor named Steve Hollinger lobbed a digital camera across his studio toward a pile of pillows. “I wasn’t trying to make an invention,” he said. “I was just playing.” As his camera flew, it recorded what most of us…

Author Ann Morgan invites book lovers to follow her on a literary journey through 196 countries. “I’d always thought that I was well-traveled,” says writer Ann Morgan (TED Talk: My year reading a book from every country in the world ), but “actually, when I looked at my bookshelves, they told a very…

Among the annals of national anthems as a prelude to sporting events, few have topped the one delivered by Whitney Houston before Super Bowl XXV in 1991 in Tampa. A woman, her incredible voice and the bare minimum of extraneous notes. Her rendition came at a particularly patriotic time, just after…