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The Floodgates Open: WEEKEND Edition

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting links and summaries for my published work to this point. I begin with my short work for the Yale Daily News’ WEEKEND section, which appears Friday afternoons here.

Entries appear in reverse chronological order with a short preview. Topics include the Mayan apocalypse, the Republican primaries, the presidential election, lifting heavy objects, the little-known musicians of Alestorm, the better-known musician T-Pain, the best-known musician Adele, and shoes with toes on them.

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The Beginning

2012-02-14 19.02.03

Someone once told me that the best way for college students without appreciable skills to woo employers and attractive strangers was the creation of a special website to display their “interests” and “projects”.

Employers? Attractive strangers? This one’s for you!

 

Me

Aaron Gertler, age 19, Yale sophomore, Psychology major, journalist, “funny kid” (source: friends, enemies, both of my kindergarten teachers), erstwhile consultant, mentor to the youth.

Also a Renaissance man who doesn’t paint, sculpt or play the lute and who would be a terrible Renaissance man.

 

You

Bridgewater? McKinsey? Kiera Knightley? My girlfriend?

 

Interests 

Cognitive and behavioral science and how human beings really operate.

History people tend to forget and statistics they tend to ignore.

Metafiction and long-form journalism.

Electronic music of almost any form.

Happiness, with or without dark chocolate but preferably with.

Weightlifting, general fitness, and shoes with toes on them.

Self-improvement, problem-solving, and large-scale optimism.

 

Projects

Journalism, creative nonfiction, creative fiction, and derivative fiction, but not derivative journalism.

Design, coding, research academic and otherwise.

Whatever else keeps me adding notes to my iPhone when I should be sleeping.

 

Why “Learning All the Things?” (Note: Title later changed to “Alpha Gamma”)

Because what you don’t know can’t hurt you, and I’m a masochist.

Because the first step to wisdom, per Socrates, is knowing that we know nothing, but the second step is doing something about it.

Because I don’t like being tricked by people who know things I don’t, and I’d like to stop those people from tricking others.

Because the world becomes more interesting the more you know about it.

Because learning all the things is impossible and will only lead to more questions besides, and as we’ve already established, I’m a masochist.

 

Sounds marvelous! How can I contact you about any of the topics above, or anything else that’s been running through my head?

I can be reached via email!

I also have a Twitter!

Or you can post a comment to this very website! I love messages from strangers, especially when they are human beings and/or computers who can pass a Turing Test and are not trying to sell me things.