People who can construct things including art, music or writing find fulfillment and joy in their creations. However, those who can’t, or believe they can’t, tend to use the same energy, but to destroy things.
How can we help redirect people who are destructive into constructive pursuits?
Perhaps if this became a ‘thing,’ the world would be free from bullies, crooked politicians and undesirable people. Maybe helping everyone become constructive would even end warfare.
My toddler asked me where babies come from. I said, “The stork brings them.” He replied, “Then who brings the stork?” I’m not ready for this level of philosophical inquiry at 7 AM.
I used to have a clean house, a full night’s sleep, and disposable income. Then I had kids. Now I have character-building experiences and sticky everything.
My 4-year-old announced she’s running away from home. I helped her pack. She made it to the end of the driveway before coming back for snacks.
Before kids: “I’ll never let my child have tantrums in public.” After kids: Bribing my screaming toddler with candy in the grocery store while other parents nod in solidarity.
My teenager asked for money for the movies. I said, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” He replied, “Then why do banks have branches?”
Parenting is basically a constant cycle of “Don’t touch that,” “Put that down,” and “Where did you find that?”
My 5-year-old lost a tooth and expected money from the tooth fairy. I forgot, so in the morning I told him the tooth fairy was having supply chain issues.
Teaching your child to ride a bike is like giving them the gift of independence. Teaching them to drive is like giving them the keys to your anxiety disorder.
My toddler has mastered the art of selective hearing. She can’t hear me calling her name from across the room, but she can hear a candy wrapper opening from three houses away.
I thought terrible twos were bad until I discovered threenagers exist. They have all the attitude of a teenager with none of the reasoning skills.
My child asked why adults get to stay up late. I explained we don’t get to; we have to. There’s a difference between privilege and punishment.
The fastest way to get your kids’ attention is to sit down and look comfortable. Suddenly they need water, snacks, and help with seventeen different things.
My 6-year-old asked if he could have ice cream for breakfast. I said no. He asked if he could have frozen yogurt. The negotiation skills are strong with this one.
Parenting hack: If you want your kids to eat something, just start eating it yourself and tell them it’s not for children. Reverse psychology at its finest.
I asked my teenager to clean their room. They said it’s their “creative space.” I said creativity doesn’t require old pizza boxes and dirty socks as artistic elements.
My toddler has two volumes: mute when I need them to answer me, and jet engine when I need them to be quiet.
The most unrealistic part of movies isn’t the explosions or car chases—it’s parents having uninterrupted phone conversations while their kids play quietly in the background.
My child can lose their shoes between the car and the front door, but they can remember every toy they’ve ever owned and its exact location from three years ago.
Bedtime stories have evolved from “Once upon a time” to “If you get out of bed one more time…” The fairy tales are definitely darker now.
My teenager told me I don’t understand them. I agreed. I don’t understand how they can survive on three hours of sleep and energy drinks, but here we are.
The most dangerous phrase in parenting is “It’s quiet… too quiet.” That’s when you know someone is either asleep or destroying something valuable.
My child asked if we could get a pet. I pointed out that we already have children, which are basically pets that eventually learn to talk back and borrow money.
I told my kids that when I was their age, we didn’t have smartphones. They looked at me with the same pity usually reserved for historical tragedy documentaries.
The hardest part about raising kids isn’t the sleepless nights or the tantrums – it’s pretending to be excited about their 47th drawing of a stick figure family.
Parenting has taught me that children are basically tiny drunk adults: they stumble around, make poor decisions, cry for no reason, and need constant supervision to avoid injury. The main difference is that drunk adults eventually sober up.
My kids wanted to know what it’s like to be a parent, so I woke them up at 3 a.m. to tell them my sock was missing.
Parenting is 80% asking your kid where they put their shoes and 20% stepping on the shoes they said were gone.
Parenting: Where you buy organic kale, then watch it rot in the fridge while your kid eats spaghetti with their hands under the table.
You think you’re patient until you try to buckle a toddler into a car seat while they’re holding a stick they found.
No one is more determined than a child who’s been told it’s bedtime and suddenly remembers they have 14 urgent questions about whales.
Nothing builds character like trying to explain taxes to a teenager who just discovered minimum wage.
My 4-year-old wanted to know if dinosaurs invented cars. Honestly? I’m too tired to fact-check that.
“Enjoy every moment!” they said. I assume they didn’t mean the moment I found yogurt on the cat.
My kid brought me a pretend cup of tea. I drank it and she said, “That was poison.” I’m sleeping with one eye open now.
My daughter said she doesn’t like broccoli, but she loves green trees. Guess who’s eating “tree nuggets” tonight?
Parenting is discovering a banana peel in the bathtub and realizing you’re too tired to ask why.
A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.
My wife asked me, “Did you even hear what I just said?” I said, “Of course. It was a fascinating story, and the main character, who bears a striking resemblance to you, made some very valid points.”
Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband.
The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship are “I apologize” and “You are right.”
A good marriage is one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal.
My wife says I have two main faults: I don’t listen, and something else she was telling me about.
Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are.
I asked my wife what she wanted for her birthday. She said, “Oh, I don’t know, dear. Just give me something with diamonds.” So I got her a deck of cards.
Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, and a whole lot of other qualities you wouldn’t need if you’d stayed single.
The secret to a long marriage is to have a good sense of humor and a separate tube of toothpaste.
My wife and I have a great system. I handle all the big decisions, and she handles all the small ones. In twenty years, we haven’t had to make a single big decision.
I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
A man says to his friend, “I haven’t spoken to my wife in 18 months.” The friend says, “Why not?” The man replies, “I don’t like to interrupt her.”
Marriage is not just a word. It’s a sentence… a life sentence.
My wife asked me if I would still love her if she was old, fat, and ugly. I said, “Of course, I do.”
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
A woman is on trial for beating her husband to death with his guitar collection. The judge asks her, “First offender?” She says, “No, first a Gibson, then a Fender.”
When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.
My wife and I have the secret to a happy marriage. Twice a week, we go to a nice restaurant, have a little wine and good food. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.
The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.
An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
After a quarrel, a wife said to her husband, “You know, I was a fool when I married you.” The husband replied, “Yes, dear, but I was in love and didn’t notice.”
A man said his credit card was stolen but he decided not to report it because the thief was spending less than his wife.
Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.
Why is psychoanalysis so much quicker for a man than for a woman? Because when it’s time to go back to his childhood, he’s already there.
A man’s idea of helping with the housework is lifting his legs so you can vacuum.
What’s the difference between a man and a government bond? The bond matures.
Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it’s up to women to stomp the heck out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
A man has six items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, shaving cream, a bar of soap, and a towel from a hotel he stayed at in 1998.
How do you know a man is about to say something smart? He starts his sentence with “My wife told me…”
Why do men like remote controls? Because it gives them a sense of control over at least one thing.
A man’s favorite movie is GoodFellas. His wife’s favorite movie is whatever is playing on the one screen at the theater that isn’t showing GoodFellas.
If a man says he’ll fix it, he will. There’s no need to remind him every six months about it.
What did the man say when he walked into a bar? “Ouch.”
Why don’t men have mid-life crises? They get stuck in adolescence.
A man’s idea of a clean house is a clear path from his chair to the refrigerator.
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t. A man marries a woman expecting she won’t change, and she does.
Men are just like commercials. You can’t believe a word they say.
A man and his wife are at a restaurant, and the waiter tells the man, “Your credit card was declined.” The man replies, “Try my wife’s. She has a much better job than I do.”
A man is talking to his friend. “I don’t know what to do. My wife is so messy. She’s always leaving her clothes all over the place.” His friend replies, “I have the same problem. My wife leaves her clothes all over the floor, the chair, the bed… but at least she’s in them.”
A man comes home from work and his wife says, “Honey, the car won’t start. I think there’s water in the carburetor.” The man asks, “Where’s the car?” His wife replies, “In the lake.”
A husband and wife are trying to set up a new password for their computer. The husband types, “Mypenis,” and the wife falls on the floor laughing because the computer responds, “Error. Not long enough.”
A man told his doctor that he wasn’t able to do all the things around the house that he used to do. When the doctor finished his checkup, he said, “Now, I can’t find anything wrong with you. So you’ll have to give me a good reason why you can’t do all those things.” The man replied, “Because my wife won’t let me.”
A man goes to the library and asks for a book on paranoia. The librarian whispers, “They’re right behind you.”
A man walks into a bar and orders a drink. He then pulls a tiny piano and a 12-inch-tall man out of his pocket. The tiny man starts playing the piano. The bartender says, “That’s amazing! Where did you find him?” The man replies, “I found a magic lamp, and the genie granted me a wish.” The bartender says, “You should have wished for a million bucks!” The man replies, “What, and do you think I wished for a 12-inch pianist?”
A guy is reading his newspaper and says to his wife, “It says here that women use twice as many words as men.” His wife replies, “That’s because we have to repeat everything we say.” He says, “What?”
A man is filling out a job application. He comes to the question, “Have you ever been arrested?” He writes, “No.” The next question, “Why?” He writes, “I’ve never been caught.”
Why are husbands like lawnmowers? They’re hard to get started, emit foul odors, and half the time they don’t work.
A woman says to her friend, “I’ve been married for 20 years, and I’m still in love with the same man.” Her friend says, “That’s so sweet!” The first woman replies, “I know. If my husband ever finds out, he’ll kill me.”
How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper? We don’t know. It’s never happened.
A wife asks her husband, “Honey, if I died, would you remarry?” The husband says, “Well, I suppose so.” The wife asks, “Would you let her wear my clothes?” He says, “I guess, if she wanted to.” The wife asks, “Would you let her use my golf clubs?” The husband replies, “Of course not. She’s left-handed.”
See also: Worst Jokes About Women.
People assume men mostly dream about women. Men dream more often about their male heroes, bosses, friends or role models than about women.
When people imagine the secret landscape of the human subconscious, they often picture romantic fantasies, abstract nightmares, or surreal reflections of daily life. Yet decades of quantitative sleep research have revealed a striking, counterintuitive pattern in night-time cognition: when men fall asleep, their dreams are overwhelmingly populated by other men.
Pioneered by psychologists Calvin S. Hall and Robert Van de Castle in the mid-20th century, the systematic coding of dream content has yielded consistent data across diverse cultures. While women’s dreams feature a balanced character ratio—roughly 50 percent male and 50 percent female—men’s dreams tell a vastly different demographic story. Across thousands of studied dream journals, approximately 67 percent of all characters appearing in men’s dreams are male.
Rather than focusing primarily on romantic interests or family members, male dreamers routinely encounter male colleagues, bosses, friends, authority figures, and strangers. However, these nightly appearances are rarely passive. Quantitative dream analysis shows that male-on-male interactions in REM sleep feature a disproportionately high degree of physical aggression, social competition, and status negotiation compared to any other demographic pairing.
Psychologists and evolutionary theorists offer two main explanations for this phenomenon:
Ultimately, dream content reflects the brain’s deepest survival priorities rather than conscious waking desires. Whether facing down an overbearing boss or navigating a competitive arena with male peers, a man’s subconscious mind spends two-thirds of its night focusing on the side of humanity it feels most compelled to understand, outwit, or align with.
Socrates was married to a woman named Xanthippe (pronounced zan-THIP-ee).
Her name comes from the Ancient Greek words xanthos (“yellow” or “blonde”) and hippos (“horse”), translating roughly to “yellow horse.”
In ancient literary tradition, most notably in writings by Xenophon and later Roman observers, Xanthippe was portrayed as notoriously sharp-tongued, quick-tempered, and argumentative. Her name eventually became a famous literary archetype (an eponym) in Western culture for a nagging, shrewish spouse.
However, modern historians generally view this reputation as exaggerated or unfair. Managing a household, raising three sons, and running a domestic life alongside a famous philosopher who famously took no payment for his work and spent all day debating in the market likely required immense patience!
Galileo Galilei, the famous astronomer, had three children (Virginia, Livia, and Vincenzo) with his domestic partner Marina Gamba. Because they never married, the children were considered “illegitimate” under Roman Catholic law.
Due to their illegitimate status, marrying off his daughters with respectable dowries was exceedingly difficult in 17th-century Italian society. Consequently, Galileo arranged for both daughters to enter the San Matteo convent in Arcetri near Florence, where they became nuns (Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela).
His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a famous music theorist, composer, and lutenist who taught Galileo to play. Galileo’s younger brother, Michelagnolo Galilei, became a renowned professional lutenist and composer. (Interestingly, Galileo’s own son, Vincenzo, also played the lute!)
As a young man, Galileo seriously considered joining the priesthood, but his father encouraged him to enroll in medical school at the University of Pisa instead. Galileo lost interest in medicine and shifted his focus to mathematics and natural philosophy.
Dutch eyeglass makers invented the telescope in 1608. When Galileo heard of the device, he built his own without ever seeing the Dutch design, improving its magnification from 3x to 30x and turning it toward the night sky.
In 1610, Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons. Seeking financial patronage, he named them the “Medicean Stars” in honor of his former student, Cosimo II de’ Medici, who then hired him as official mathematician to the Medici family.
While tracking Jupiter’s moons in late 1612 and early 1613, Galileo recorded a faint, dark dot next to the planet. Modern calculations show this was Neptune, though Galileo mistook it for a dim star.
The popular story of Galileo dropping cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test gravity is widely considered a legend written by his secretary decades later. Galileo actually proved his theory by rolling balls down inclined ramps.
Galileo’s father sent him to study medicine at the University of Pisa, but he became obsessed with mathematics instead. He dropped out in 1585 without a degree, yet his brilliance was so apparent that the university hired him four years later as Chair of Mathematics.
Beyond telescopes, Galileo invented a thermoscope (a precursor to the thermometer), a hydrostatic balance for measuring density, and a military proportional compass for calculating artillery trajectories.
Galileo suspected light was not instantaneous. He designed an experiment using covered lanterns on distant hilltops at night to measure light’s speed, though the speed of light was far too fast for human reaction times to detect.
Nearly a century after his death, admirers moving his body to a grand tomb removed several bones. Today, three of his fingers, a tooth, and a vertebra are preserved, with his middle finger on display at the Museo Galileo in Florence.
From a book written in 1858:
Daughters: Mothers, who wish not only to discharge well their own duties in the domestic circle, but to train up their daughters at a later day to make happy and comfortable firesides for their families, should watch well, and guard well, the notions which they imbibe and with which they grow up. There will be so many persons ready to fill their young heads with false and vain fancies, and there is so much always afloat in society opposed to duty and common sense, that if mothers do not watch well, they may contract ideas very fatal to their future happiness and usefulness, and hold them till they grow into habits of thought or feeling. A wise mother will have her eyes open, and be ready for every case.
On September 12, 1984, Sandra Williams gave birth to her daughter in Texas. Originally, Sandra and her husband gave the child an unusually long name: Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenk Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams.
However, three weeks later, Sandra felt the name wasn’t unique enough and filed a formal amendment to extend it, taking roughly six years to craft the full string of letters by combining words, family names, car models, and movie titles.
The amendment expanded her first name to 1,019 letters, added a 36-letter middle name, and ended with her surname.
Her official first name is:
Her 36-letter middle name is Koyaanisquatsiuth, and her last name is Williams.
Following her brief media exposure in the mid-1990s as a child, Jamie stepped entirely out of the public eye.
As many as one out of every 50 people have mild prosopagnosia, in which they have more trouble recognizing faces than everyone else. You may have it if you fail to recognize someone you know in a new hat, or having shaved off a beard.
A more severe form of the disease, typically brought on by a minor stroke, can happen in which the victim can no longer recognize faces. These patients can tell they are seeing someone’s face, but they cannot tell whose it is, even if the person is a close friend or relative.
If you have a new friend who fails to recognize you, don’t get mad, get even. Wait, that’s not right. Just realize that the person may have prosopagnosia.
You can fail to recognize yourself in the mirror. In severe cases, people with prosopagnosia (face blindness) don’t recognize their own reflection. They might see a person looking back at them, try to fix their hair or adjust a collar, and only realize it’s their own face because the image moves at the exact same millisecond.
Oliver Sacks famously mistook his own reflection for a stranger. The renowned neurologist—who wrote extensively about brain anomalies in books like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat—suffered from prosopagnosia himself. He once apologized to a man in a restaurant for nearly bumping into him, only to realize he was speaking to a large mirror.
It isn’t a problem with vision. Prosopagnosics usually have normal visual acuity and can see the individual parts of a face—eyes, nose, mouth—just fine. The brain simply fails to “stitch” those features together into a cohesive, recognizable identity (a process called holistic face processing).
People rely on “stealth tracking” techniques. To navigate social life without offending people, individuals with prosopagnosia rely heavily on non-facial identifiers: unique voice cadence, distinct hairstyles, walk/gait, specific shoes, tattoos, or distinctive jewelry. If a close friend drastically cuts their hair or changes their style, they may suddenly become a total stranger.
Watching movies can be an absolute nightmare. Following complex film plots is uniquely difficult when multiple characters share similar physical builds, skin tones, or hair colors. Fans with face blindness often rely on sub-titles, distinct costuming, or audio descriptions to keep track of who is talking to whom.
There’s a subtype where you can’t even tell faces apart from non-faces. While visual prosopagnosia specifically impacts recognizing individual faces, extreme apperceptive prosopagnosia makes it hard to even distinguish a face from an arbitrary object, like seeing facial patterns in a building front or cloud formation.
It can be built-in or acquired. Congenital (developmental) prosopagnosia is present from birth without any obvious brain damage, often running in families. Acquired prosopagnosia happens suddenly after stroke, traumatic brain injury, or encephalitis damaging the fusiform gyrus (the brain’s face-processing hub).
You can suffer from “developmental prosopagnosia” for decades without knowing it. Because people born with it have never experienced face recognition, many assume everyone relies on context, hair, or voice to identify people. It’s common for individuals to reach middle age before discovering that typical brains recognize faces instantly and automatically.
It can affect how you see animals. For some people with prosopagnosia, the impairment extends to other categories where fine-grained visual distinction within a group is required. Dog show judges or sheep farmers with the condition, for instance, may struggle to tell individual animals in a herd or breed apart.
The direct opposite condition exists (“Super-Recognizers”). On the exact opposite end of the spectrum are super-recognizers—people who can see a face once in a crowd, brief background footage, or a grainy security video, and reliably recognize that same face decades later. Many police forces around the world actively recruit them for security and surveillance roles.
Your author has mild prosopagnosia.