224! Optimism

How do you approach reclaiming or disavowing your creative outputs that you don't love? This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about Smithee-ing, TV edits, résumé writing, Spike Jonze, sportsball, and the DC Universe. They don’t talk about Cordwainer Bird. references "God of Wine" Alan Smithee on IMDB Spike Jonze Charles Barkley The Room Spread your wings 

How good is hi-res for our imagination? This week, Aaron and Jess talk about smoothing, the boundless powers of creativity, Smell-O-Phone/Vision, imagination reconstruction, gaming, and nurturing our sense of play. They don’t talk about NHL 98 on Sega Genesis. references The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister Why It's SO Hard to Find a Game You ACTUALLY Like Harvard Business Review: How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity Everything Everywhere All At Once - Hot Dog Fingers Scene The Simpsons - 1950's Super Panavision 70 A Minecraft Movie 

How do we make people feel seen? This week, Joey, Jess, and Aaron talk about the burden of eyes, privacy, showing, acknowledging, surprise parties, and social anxieties. They don’t talk about the Talking Heads. references Dreaming about Cranberries, sans muffin. Revisiting Critical Nonsense 302! Thought Bottling Critical Incident Stress Debriefing: Helpful, Harmful, or Neither? Observer Principle Hidden Brain Podcast: Relationships 2.0: The Price of Disconnection 

How are we processing uncertainty differently? This week, Joey and Jess talk about Punxsutawney Phil, tariffs, the meme recession, Jason Bourne, Edmonton, and Sam Cooke. They don’t talk about the bleak and endless hopelessness of it all. references Corrections Department: There's air in between you and I (even if we're not seventeen) Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson "A Change Is Gonna Come" Corrections Department: The eleven studio albums Sam Cooke recorded and released before his death in 1964 

When do we tool or not tool? This week, Jess and Joey talk about rules aversion, AI, devil hamsters, banana slicers, tool expertise, and simplicity. They don’t talk about gaffer tape. references Inc.: After a Tragedy, a Year of Magical Thinking for Sylvain Arc welding 

What do you think makes us spoiled? This week, Jess, Joey, and Aaron talk about The Lululemon Index, air travel, gender-based differences, hard work, Warren Buffett, and shrooms. They don’t offer any spoiler alerts. references The Mycelium Network 

Bonus episode: A takeover! Aaron shares his latest edition from SYLVAIN’s Progress Report newsletter: To Follow or Not to Follow.For more from SYLVAIN's Progress Report, see progressbysylvain.co.

How should we start bottling things up? This week, Joey and Jess talk about undesired thoughts, Nietzsche, folk wisdom, Marie Kondo, baggage, and forgetting. They don’t talk about the Young "Black" Teenagers. references perseverate Improving mental health by training the suppression of unwanted thoughts 

When did we start calling it hibernation and when did hibernating start being a thing? This week, Jess and Joey talk about lux, vitamin D, dopamine, socialization, Groundhog's Day, and disgust thresholds. They don’t talk about the late, great Roy Ayers. references You need more lux. 

This week, Jess, Aaron, and Joey celebrate 300(!) episodes of Critical Nonsense by revisiting random episodes. They talked about 121! The Coming-Out Gauntlet and Thick Conversations, 75! Top 3 Things Not to Do in Quarantine, with Clarissa Pharr, 170! Weirder Inspiration, and 158! Buttresses, Tethers, and Grunts. They don’t talk about the Rota Fortunae. references Step Brothers Wheelz of Steel Till the Wheels Fall Off Wood Wheel Wheels of Confusion Keep On Movin' Here's Where the Story Ends