Samuel Engelen's Blog, page 4

This Too Shall Pass

Over the last two weeks or so, my six month old son got his first cold, started teething and was generally in a really bad mood. He would cry our ears off at night and during the day he wouldn’t smile once. Even the weather turned sour and we spent most of our time inside [...]

Where is my mind?

”Where is my mind? Way out in the water, see it swimming.” — Pixies We humans have an excruciatingly ambiguous relationship with what we call ‘our mind’. On one hand, we identify with it, we value it immensely and we’re absolutely terrified of losing it, but on the other hand we make light of it [...]

The Meditator

It’s 4:21 p.m. He turns off his cell phone and puts it down neatly on his desk, so it lines up with the edges of the wood. He shuts down his laptop and closes the screen. The laptop is placed almost perfectly in the middle of the desk—as perfectly as the human eye could possibly [...]

Good Versus Evil

For thousands of years philosophers and scholars have been debating whether man is inherently good or inherently evil. Really convincing cases have been made for either side.

But this assumes good and evil are two different camps divided by a line in the middle. We start in either one of these camps, and according to the choices we make in life we stay in our camp or move across the line to the other side.

What camp we’re in is usually decided by other people. For example, people would always s...

Believe nothing

When I was eighteen years old, I read a book called The Structure of Delight by Nelson Zink.

It was sort of an eye-opener for me, as it affirmed what I had always suspected – and it did so with interesting images and metaphors.

There was a tribe in the book that essentially didn’t believe anything.

Yet they recognized that certain beliefs could be useful in certain situations and as such, they adopted and discarded beliefs according to their current goals. This puts beliefs in a completely new a...

The Meaning Of Life

Usually it’s a philosophical question.

Balding men in corduroy suits smoking pipes in smokey lounges, questioning why they’re on this planet in a battle of theories.

Some people turn it into a religious question.

The meaning of life becomes a concept like kindness, or obeying some strict dogma to qualify for something better.

Others look for it in art and creativity.

The expression of their own tormented psyche or the off-beat reinterpretation of naturally occurring events.

Or that strange thing k...

Everything Is Bigger In Texas

I’ve been living in Texas for two months now, I thought it was about time I wrote something about it.

First off, almost everyone I’ve met has been very friendly and you’re greeted with smiles and howdies everywhere you go.

That said, Texas is a very strange place for a minimalist to find himself, as you can probably imagine.

What they say is true; everything is bigger in Texas. The roads, the cars, the guns, the houses, the food, the bellies and the butts.

On one hand, it makes it harder to live...

Vigilante Day

I’ve been so busy writing my novel, I completely forgot to write any articles.

After getting a bit stuck, I managed to break through my writer’s block and kept writing for quite a while. I’ve learned some new lessons and I think my writing’s improving. But it still takes a lot of hard work.

So, I thought I’d just do a quick promo for my short story Vigilante Day.

It’s my debut in the publishing world, so it might be a bit rough around the edges, but it has already gotten a bunch of positive rev...

A Few Lessons On Writing A Novel

I’ve been working on a novel for about three weeks now. I’m about 17,000 words in as I write this. I would be further, but over the past few days I’ve deleted a few thousand words.

I deleted those words because they weren’t true. I was losing track for a bit, losing touch. This is the first time I’m writing a work of fiction of this length and I’m learning as I go along.

I thought it might be helpful to list some of the lessons I’ve learned so far.

Occasionally read your work out loud

Reading you...

The Value Of Personal Experience

Today I read an article about the value (or lack thereof) of diamonds.

I’ve never liked diamonds, I simply didn’t see what the big deal was. Clean glass also glitters. Big whoop.

As it turns out, diamonds really aren’t that valuable. They’re not rare, their value does not increase or withstand inflation and, until about 1938 they had no special significant meaning.

That’s the year when a company called De Beers hired an advertising company, which started a hugely successful marketing campaign th...