Author Archives: Brett Bloemendaal

Bert’s Back with a Book

By | March 19, 2020

It’s been a while. I apologize for that. I’d like to promise it won’t happen again, but I can’t make guarantees. Life gets busy. Nevertheless, I like to think we have the type of relationship that we can pick up right where we left off months or years ago, as if we never left. That… Read More »

Ten Life Lessons to Live Better in 2019

By | January 13, 2019

I woke up this morning feeling quite groggy and disoriented with a peculiar sense that something was out of place. The sun was brighter than I expected…perhaps I overslept. Wondering how long I’d been out, I looked towards my dresser to check my alarm clock and instead saw a coffee maker. And then I realized… Read More »

How Health Research Can Be Dangerous for INFJs

By | August 31, 2018

To be fair, health research CAN be (not always IS) dangerous for anyone. There is a lot of bad information out there. Some of it is downright wrong. Some of it is half-truths, partially accurate but missing an important part of the picture. Some of it is helpful but only for certain people…certain genetic types,… Read More »

Discovering Uncertainty

By | July 2, 2018

Remember when you were an adorable and lovable (yet exhaustingly inquisitive) child naturally gifted in the art of the brain ninja? Under the cloak of cuteness, you would stealthily slice open the skull, one throwing star at a time, each inscribed with a seemingly innocuous, three-letter word, the simplest of all questions…”Why?” Death by a… Read More »

The Men Who Stare at Walls

By | March 31, 2018

At the risk of falling into any certain pattern or regular format, “The Men Who Stare at Walls” is, indeed, another title inspired by… Okay, I know what you’re thinking, didn’t I start the last post this way? Some silly title and/or theme similar to and/or conceptually criss-crossing a recently-viewed movie or TV series? How… Read More »

Friends in Cars Going to Work

By | January 28, 2018

I’ve been watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee as of late. Why now? Because it recently became available on Netflix, of course. Netflix is to me like Fox News is to our president. If you want to get something planted into my consciousness, put it on Netflix, and I’ll probably have moderately coherent talking points formulated… Read More »

Obsession

By | January 13, 2018

There was a movie I had been meaning to watch for some time now, The Number 23. It’s a heartwarming tale of someone who kills the person they love after discovering they weren’t loved in return, buries the body, writes a “book” about their life as a suicide note, jumps from a window but doesn’t die,… Read More »

The Betterman Holiday Wish List

By | December 23, 2017

With a new year soon upon us, and another Festivus just behind us, Bert has fallen into a reflective state again. Perhaps it’s the symbolic turning of the calendar, endings that beget new beginnings, that make me pause like a reindeer on a rooftop. Maybe it’s sitting inside a warm, seventy-degree house and staring at… Read More »

My Enemies of Creativity (And Why You Should Not Lock Toddlers in Basements)

By | October 29, 2017

Sometimes creative ideas burst out of me like brilliant rays of light, all youthful, fresh, and energetic…like toddlers seeing butterflies for the first time. So long as I feed them and let them out in the yard to play for a while, they run around spreading the joy of precious baby laughter forever…or at least… Read More »

Random Better Thoughts 5

By | July 30, 2017

What was thinking like before words? Before we created these unique and elaborate sets of mouth sounds to symbolize things and ideas (language), how did we think? I don’t know about you, but most of my active, conscious thinking is word dialogue, my Introverted Thinking (Ti) for those of you following the Myers Briggs Series… Read More »