Welcome to Brainwaves and Tangents
This site is for the curious ones. The wanderers of thought. The people who pause to wonder why they just mentally counted the tiles on the ceiling, or who lie awake at night replaying imaginary arguments in their heads. It's for those who love big questions, small puzzles, mental meanderings, and unexpected insights.
Brainwaves and Tangents is a home for essays that explore how we think, reflect, create, and get wonderfully sidetracked. From cognitive quirks and creative rituals to mental maps and the Tetris effect, this site celebrates the odd, overlooked, and quietly brilliant workings of the human mind.
Our articles aren't about improving your brain with hacks or self-help jargon. They’re about enjoying your brain—watching how it loops, leaps, and spirals through memory, imagination, and observation. It’s a site where introspection is play, distraction is sometimes the point, and clarity often hides inside a well-placed tangent.
You won’t find clickbait or listicles here. Instead, you’ll find six themed trails of content, each offering a different way to stroll through the landscape of thought:
- Mental Detours — Celebrating the productive side of distraction, digression, and accidental insight
- Thinking About Thinking — Metacognition, self-talk, and how the mind reflects on itself
- Creative Sparks — Essays on inspiration, invention, and how original ideas take shape
- Curious Practices — Everyday mental rituals, patterns, and habits that make us who we are
- Idea Histories — Explorations of where big (and small) ideas came from and how they evolved
- Mental Playground — Puzzles, patterns, thought loops, and other playful corners of cognition
Whether you're a lifelong learner, a restless thinker, or just someone who likes to read essays that wander and return changed, you’ll find plenty to explore here. There’s no required reading order—just follow the trails that interest you, and see where they lead.
Brainwaves and Tangents is proudly powered by curiosity. So take a look around. Read slowly. Think sideways. And if you find yourself happily off-track, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.