Author Archive: Paul Epps

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. — Joseph Addison

Excerpts From President Obama’s Commencement Address at Morehouse College

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My whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn’t for my mother and me. I want to break that cycle — where a father’s not at home, where a father’s not helping to raise that son and daughter. I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man. . . . Growing up, I made quite a few [bad choices] myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency to make excuses for me not doing the right thing. We’ve got no time for excuses. In today’s hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil, many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did, all of them entering the global workforce alongside… Read more →

First World Problems

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When I get coffee from the break room, I try to cycle through the creamers — French Vanilla, Hazelnut and the regular Half & Half. Today I got coffee and I couldn’t remember where I left off in the cycle. I’m in a quandary . . . Read more →

More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Alternative Medicine Advocates

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Alternative medicine is not a real thing. You don’t have a choice between medicine and alternative medicine. You have a choice between medicine and Things That Have Not Been Proven to Work. Alternative medicine that works is called “medicine.” Some people tell me that regular doctors don’t know about alternative medicine because they don’t teach it in medical schools. They don’t teach it in medical schools? If I didn’t know anything about my job beyond what I learned in school 25 years ago, I’d be in bad shape. I’d be unemployable. If there are any doctors out there who’ve never learned anything outside of medical school, those are not the doctors you want to be going to. Read more →

Great Wealth Will Not Change Who I Am

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I never actually noticed it before, but the gas station where I buy sodas every morning has a sign out front showing the current jackpots for Powerball and Mega Millions. Both of the jackpots were three digits this morning (nine digits if you add six zeros for the millions) — one a little more than 200 and one a little less. Maybe that’s why I noticed them today, because there were so many digits. Or maybe it’s my destiny to win the lottery and the hand of fate turned my eyeballs to the jackpots. “I noticed the numbers out front,” I said to the clerk. “Give me a ticket for Powerball and Mega Millions.” “That’s a lot of millions,” he said. “It sure is. I’ll still stop by in the morning for sodas though.” Read more →

You Sat There All Your Life

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The taste of self-inflicted suffering, of an evening trashed in spite, brought curious satisfactions. Other people stopped being real enough to carry blame for how you felt. Only you and your refusal remained. And like self-pity, or like the blood that filled your mouth when a tooth was pulled — the salty ferric juices that you swallowed and allowed yourself to savor — refusal had a flavor for which a taste could be acquired. . . . And if you sat at the dinner table long enough, whether in punishment or in refusal or simply in boredom, you never stopped sitting there. Some part of you sat there all your life. — Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections Read more →

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. — George Bernard Shaw

You work your side of the street and I’ll work mine. — Frank Bullitt

Good News, Bad News

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Most days I park on Level 5 of the office parking structure because that’s where the open spaces are at the time I arrive.1 This morning I got a spot on Level 1! A guy was pulling out just as I was pulling in and I got the spot. 🙂 Unfortunately, when I went out for lunch, I walked up four levels out of habit and couldn’t find my car. 🙁 1There are actually a lot of open spaces on lower levels but they’re “reserved” for people who aren’t there, which is rubbish. If you’re really that important, you should be the first person in every morning and you can have any parking space you want. Related articles Parking: Tips for Finding the Best Space (allstate.com) Read more →

The Gettier Problem

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What does it mean to say that you “know” something is true? According to traditional philosophical thinking, you can be said to know that some proposition P is true if and only if: P is true. You believe that P is true. You are justified in believing that P is true. These three conditions jointly form the concept of justified true belief (JTB). As an example, let’s examine my claim that I know Paris is the capital of France. Unless an edict to the contrary has come down in the last few minutes, Paris is the capital of France, I believe that Paris is the capital of France, and I’m justified in believing that based on available evidence. So according to the concept of justified true belief, I know that Paris is the capital of France. Gettier Problems Here’s a thought experiment: Let’s say I wake up in the morning,… Read more →

Always Costly

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In democratic societies, there exists an urge to do something even when the goal is not precise, a sort of permanent fever that turns to innovations (which) are always costly. — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1831) Read more →

The Lightning-Bug and the Lightning

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This picture was taken just after I said to Mark Twain, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.” And Twain said, “That’s a good one! I’ve got to write that down!” Actually, the Twain statue is just inside the main entrance of Doe Library at UC Berkeley. I asked the nerdy-looking Asian girl at the front desk, “Who’s the guy on the bench?” She stared at me for a second. “Kidding,” I said. “At first, I thought it was Albert Einstein,” she said, “so it doesn’t surprise me when people don’t know.” Read more →

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