I know I was told never to play in that enormous pile of dirt at the end of our street, but that’s where I found this filthy old quarter. So what shall I do with it?

I know my Dad would be thrilled to have his very own Chicago Daily Newspaper today -- June 11, 1952. There goes five cents. Mom deserves a whole roll of those assorted flavors of life savers. Another five cents. Little brother Bobby will jump for joy if I give him a shiny new rubber ball. But that will cost a dime. I can’t forget Grandma. I know she loves the little root beer barrels at the Penny Candy Store. I think I’ll get her four of those. That will leave me with one penny, and I know what I’ll do with that.

Dad promised that on the 4th of July, he will take us all to see the Buckingham Fountain in downtown Chicago. He said if you toss a coin into the fountain, you get to make a wish. Please don’t tell anyone. My wish will be to find another quarter.

BANG!

Shots fired.

Screams heard— ‘A-HA!’-

Sirens ringing in distance.

Blood splattered across the floor.

Dogs across the neighborhood all BARK~

The officers zip past many red lights.

BOOM—goes the dynamite- & the front door.

The helicopter, now, tries to catch someone running away.

Somebody keeps running until they end up in a crowd.

The officers lose track of the stranger and put out an APB.

#CORVUS.

(#HappyPoetryDay.)

All Rights Reserved.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=II4sfbrsdn4

Bob squinted his eyes, and stared at the blue sky. He took a moment to just simply relish his first long day off from work. Then he heard something like a bird like call coming from the distance. Soon its piercing turkey like cry echoed in the clear azul sky.

Bob quickly scanned his surroundings. He spotted a gathering of bamboos behind him. He decided to run and duck behind them.

But as soon as Bob did so, the bamboos, too, had made up their minds to not play some silly game of hide and (go) seek with Bob. They did not want to be the angry bird’s target.

Now Bob had to quickly come up with a different plan. He dived into the river, and swam deep into the frigid blue-ish waters.

In a matter of nanoseconds, something took a hold of his neck, and began to squeeze the life out of him. Bob’s body squirmed around in the water like a fish out of water.

An hour passed by, and all that was left of Bob was his skull that had been pushed by the river current, all the way back closer to where the bamboo had left Bob out to fend for himself not too long ago.

#CORVUS.

Fri., 21.03.2025

All Rights Reserved

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ2mpcrOWC4

Here’s the thing: most people don’t want truth. They want confirmation with whipped cream on top. They don’t want to test their beliefs against the void. They want cozy self-assurance wrapped in a weighted blanket of cherry-picked evidence. The null hypothesis? Never even heard of her.

And that’s the goddamn problem.

The null hypothesis, motherfucker. It’s the beating heart of real learning. It’s the assumption that your brilliant idea might actually be bullshit. That your gut instinct is just gas. That your political belief, your magical food allergy, your grand unifying theory about your ex being a narcissist—none of it means shit until you've tried, really tried, to prove yourself wrong. But who does that? Almost nobody.

Instead, we collect moments like magpies, shiny little anecdotes that fit our story. “See? I knew it.” You didn’t know jack. You believed and then retrofitted the past to match. It’s emotional interior decorating, not inquiry. You’ve got a hypothesis-shaped hole and you jam every convenient piece of life into it. Misremembered conversation? Fits. Coincidence? Counts. Contradictory evidence? Meh, must be an outlier. You’re not asking, "How could I be wrong?" You're yelling, "Let me be right louder."

True science—real, raw intellectual courage—starts by saying, "This might not be true."

Not as a passing thought, but as a daily ritual. That's the null hypothesis. It says: let’s assume there’s nothing here until there’s something. And if the evidence screams loud enough, only then do we entertain the idea that we’re onto something. But in life? We go the other way. We start with "I feel this is true," and then surround it with a moat of curated facts and opinion pieces and lived experiences until we can’t even hear ourselves think anymore.

It’s cowardly. It’s lazy. And worst of all, it’s human.

Look around: news cycles engineered for dopamine hits, “research” that’s just a blog with footnotes, social feeds where every comment section is a courtroom for the self-righteous. Everyone’s a genius, a sage, a misunderstood prophet. But no one’s doing the work. No one’s testing themselves against the silence. Because the null hypothesis isn’t sexy. It doesn’t sell. It doesn’t pat you on the back and whisper, “You were right all along.” It whispers, “What if you’re not?”

And that whisper—that doubt—that’s where learning starts. Not where it ends.

So next time you’re sure about something—about vaccines, about your partner, about your boss, about why you can’t sleep—pause. Ask the question science asks every goddamn day: “What if this isn’t true?”

Test it. Challenge it. Try to break it.

Be brave enough to lose your favorite belief.

And if it survives the fire?

Then maybe, just maybe, it's worth keeping.

But until then:

Null hypothesis, motherfucker.

Learn it. Live it. Or keep lying to yourself with style.

Behind the curtain

waits the wizard

using magic

for blatant lies

Pulling strings

pushed buttons

reflecting chaos

in troubled eyes

Malevolent thoughts

wanton actions

cause the truth

to amortize

Lies coalesce

forced delusions

continually prompt

their own demise

The truth will

set you free

so I’ve been told

when one complies

Fallacies die

as we see

that truthfulness

begins to aggrandize

Yet the curtain must

be pulled back

enabling the truth

to proselytize

I asked the CEO of a very successful, growing company if she would trade her life with anyone else. Without hesitation, she talked about the poor coffee farmer she observed while on a mission trip to Guatemala last week. “I would love to experience the joy that man expressed when talking about his life.” He was surrounded by his six kids and wife who needed daily care for her medical situation which is worsening. He invited me to come for a glass of water to his house, which was mainly built of sticks and cardboard and could not withstand the gentlest storm.

So what did he say that would make a billionaire want to trade places with him? Something about the love that consumes him from morning ’til night and the belief that eternal bliss is waiting for all of them.

when my heart beats

right next to yours

I witness the glee

of promise

my entire day folds right into

this fleeting moment

I continue to live

only for the next

dance of we