impossibly possible

The Kairos Principle

When Life Gives You Lemons You Squeeze the Vitamin C Out of Them

Dear Impossible Readers,

When life gives you lemons, you squeeze the vitamin C out of them. Yes, that is correct. Did you know that one lemon provides nearly 50% of the recommended daily intake for adults? Did you also know that citrus fibre can lower bad cholesterol, LDL, by preventing the intestines from absorbing it? That sounds like great advice. Only I do not believe in good advice. Nor do I believe in bad advice. Am I stubborn? Possibly. I believe one should evaluate one’s values and decide whether to take advice. If you live your life to meet others’ expectations, you are not living the life you want. You would be living the life others laid out for you.

My mother came from a small fishing village. One day, her brother came home with poor grades, yet again. My grandfather said something interesting. He said, ‘It is okay. If school does not work out, you just go fish’. Funny enough, one of my uncle’s friends did become a fisherman. And guess what? After 20 years, fishermen were among the wealthiest men in the village.

To be honest, most people in school or at work are not high performers. However, I do not believe in bad performers. I believe that under the right conditions, many people could be classified as high performers, whether within that system or through a journey of self-discovery. I think everyone has innate abilities that have yet to be uncovered.

I went from being an A student to a C student, then to a B student. When I was a C student, my teachers thought I was hopeless. My mum told me something interesting. She said I needed someone to teach me how to learn because the way I was learning was not working. Little did she realise that the standard educational system was not working. It never did.

I do not believe in good or bad advice. I believe in science and values. The average lemon contains 30 to 50 mg of Vitamin C. That is a fact. Whether you should squeeze it into your water is a matter of personal choice. We are told that only 10% of us are high performers. The fishermen were low performers in a classroom, but they were the wealthiest men in the village once they got on a boat. So, who is the low performer now?

Do you know how I went from a C to a B student? I sat at the back of the lecture hall doing newspaper puzzles instead of sitting in the front row to pretend I enjoyed boring lectures. Do not take this the wrong way, I have met teachers so good that the entire class passed. I moved back up to a B, not because I worked harder but because I stopped trying to fit the standard mould and started using my innate abilities, even if they looked like a Sunday crossword puzzle.

In reality, most people just follow the stepping stones. Then reality slaps you in the face. The standard system is not working because it tries to turn every lemon into the same lemonade. If you are a C student, you may not be hopeless. Maybe you are just a fisherman sitting in a math class.

The power law beats the bell curve,
Yours Possibly

Further Reading

O’Boyle Jr, E. and Aguinis, H., 2012. The best and the rest: Revisiting the norm of normality of individual performance. Personnel Psychology, 65(1), pp.79-119.
Bronfenbrenner, U., 1979. The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design (Vol. 352). Harvard university press.
Edwards, J.R. and Cooper, C.L., 2013. The Person-Environment Fit Approach to Stress: Recurring Problems and Some Suggested Solutions. From Stress to Wellbeing.
Gardner, H., 1993. Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. Basic Books/Hachette Book Group.
Kristof-Brown, A.L., Zimmerman, & RD, Johnson, EC (2005). Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, personorganization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel psychology, 58(2), pp.281-342.
Livingston, J.A., 2003. Metacognition: An Overview.
McRae, M.P., 2008. Vitamin C supplementation lowers serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides: a meta-analysis of 13 randomized controlled trials. Journal of chiropractic medicine, 7(2), pp.48-58.
Zimmerman, B.J., 1990. Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: An overview. Educational psychologist, 25(1), pp.3-17.

How does your future look?

Kingdom of Play

Dear Impossible Readers,

Did you know that studies estimate nearly 80% of all toys end up in landfills, incinerators, or the ocean, unrecycled? No? Me neither. A UK study showed that the average child owns around 493 toys throughout their childhood, which could fill over 34 wheelie bins of clutter. Furthermore, research indicates that doubling the lifespan of toys through reuse, material recovery, or on-demand production could reduce greenhouse gas emissions per toy by 30-50% by preventing repeated manufacturing cycles. Recycling plastic toys into new printable material has been shown to lower emissions by 3-4 kg of CO₂ per kilogram of plastic compared to using virgin material.

What if we could do that? I would like to call it The Imaginarium. Instead of fitting toy creation into a standard household printer, imagine a specialised device dedicated solely to play. This toy printer would not compete with other tools or furniture. It would integrate more naturally into the child’s environment, both physically and conceptually. Its goal is not efficiency but inspiration. This device produces toys on demand: a rattle for a toddler, a puzzle for a rainy day, or a moving creature for a brief fascination. When the toy is no longer needed, it can be returned to the device, disassembled, and recycled. The toy disappears, but the materials are (mostly) conserved.

The Imaginarium uses various material cartridges, each tailored for a specific type of interaction. Soft toys are crafted from flexible, foam-like materials that resemble plush, making them lightweight, durable, and easy to clean. For infants, some options could include natural, non-toxic substances derived from sources such as cellulose, starches, or algae, which are already utilised in biomedical and food-safe applications. There are even toys that might be edible, eliminating risks during early play. Structural toys like blocks, puzzles, and simple tools are made from durable, baby-safe plastics. While these materials are not edible, they can be fully recycled within the device. They feature precise, snap-fit connections and can be reused multiple times without degradation. More advanced toys often combine printed shells with embedded movement or lighting features, all while avoiding the inclusion of delicate electronics in the manufacturing process.

Movement and interaction rely not on disposable batteries but on a limited number of reusable energy cores. These sealed units are shared among toys and enjoyed repeatedly over many years. Each core contains a solid-state power source with simple actuation or lighting components, all fully enclosed and certified as safe for children. The toy printer does not generate energy. Instead, it beautifully prints objects around these cores, gently embedding them into secure shapes that cannot be easily removed or misused. When a toy is no longer needed, simply return the core to the system to recharge and reuse in new designs. This means a household can get by with just a few energy cores, sharing them across many different toys rather than owning dozens of battery-powered ones.

Much of this system already exists in parts. Recyclable, self-healing polymers are currently under active research. Bio-based, food-safe printable materials are used in medical and laboratory environments. Modular electronics, sealed power units, inductive charging, and digital toy design are all well-established technologies. What still needs to be developed is their integration into a closed domestic cycle that considers toys as temporary expressions rather than permanent possessions.

The challenges are mainly cultural and regulatory. Safety certification must evolve to accommodate reconfigurable objects. Standards are needed for material purity, reuse cycles, and embedded energy modules. Parents would need to trust systems instead of objects. The issue of design also arises. Toys are not neutral; they embody values, behaviours, and stories. Bringing toy manufacturing into the home also transfers responsibility.

Today, toy manufacturing emphasises scale over durability. Items are mass-produced, shipped globally, used briefly, and discarded. In contrast, a domestic toy printer shifts this approach by producing fewer items, reducing shipments, and decreasing plastic waste. Producing toys only as needed and recycling materials and energy afterwards helps reduce waste at both the product level and throughout supply chains. This approach reduces transportation, lowering CO₂ emissions, and reduces manufacturing, resulting in less raw material extraction.

With The Imaginarium, toys are not everlasting. The materials are. Power is. Design is. Play is.

Ctrl + imagination + P,
Yours Possibly

Further Reading

De Angelis, G., Dupont, G., Lucherini, L. and Amstad, E., 2025. Recyclable 3D printable single network granular hydrogels. Biomaterials Science, 13(6), pp.1426-1433.
Goshtasbi, A., Grignaffini, L. and Sadeghi, A., 2025. Bio-inspired 3D printing approach for bonding soft and rigid materials through underextrusion. Scientific reports, 15(1), p.4429.
Jiang, Y., Ng, E.L.L., Han, D.X., Yan, Y., Chan, S.Y., Wang, J. and Chan, B.Q.Y., 2023. Self-Healing polymeric materials and composites for additive manufacturing. Polymers, 15(21), p.4206.
Liu, F., Jiang, J., Zhe, M., Yu, P., Xing, F. and Xiang, Z., 2025. Alginate-based 3D bioprinting strategies for structure–function integrated tissue regeneration. Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 13(40), pp.12765-12811.
Nasiripour, S., Pishbin, F. and Seyyed Ebrahimi, S.A., 2025. 3D Printing of a self-healing, bioactive, and dual-cross-linked polysaccharide-based composite hydrogel as a scaffold for bone tissue engineering. ACS Applied Bio Materials, 8(1), pp.582-599.
Rahman, S.S., Arshad, M., Qureshi, A. and Ullah, A., 2020. Fabrication of a self-healing, 3D printable, and reprocessable biobased elastomer. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 12(46), pp.51927-51939.
Wu, K., Xiao, J., Li, J. and Wang, Y., 2025. 3D Printed Hydrogels for Soft Robotic Applications. Journal of Polymer Materials, 42(2).

The Kairos Principle

The Bureaucratic Leech

Dear Impossible Readers,

Once upon a time, very close by, there lived a very beautiful leech called Bureaucracy….

I remember a story a friend of mine told me. A person was walking his dog in the park. Then the small dog decided to go down into the rabbit hole. Literally. After that, the fire brigade had to come and locate the little dog in the rabbit hole. A few things came to mind. Among them were “oh what a stupid dog” and “oh what kind of an idiot walks a dumb dog without a leash (yes, I am a cat person, but do not worry, I also love smart dogs). But perhaps the most important thought was “Did I just pay 35% income tax for that?”. Now, that is what I call a waste of tax money.

Unfortunately, humans resemble that small dog much more than we like to admit. We enjoy sending people down rabbit holes, and if we fail, we end up going down them ourselves. Yes, I mean bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is the human tendency to create rabbit holes, label them carefully, assign someone to guard the entrance, and then act surprised when people fall into them. It thrives on good intentions and consumes time, energy, and common sense. Much like a leech, it does not attack aggressively. It attaches quietly, almost elegantly, and before you notice, you are weaker, slower, and inexplicably tired.

At first, it seems harmless. A form here. A signature there. “Just one more document,” it softly whispers. And because it presents itself as order, safety, and responsibility, we seldom question it. After all, who could oppose procedure? Fairness? Doing things “the right way”? But somewhere between form number three and form number seventeen, something curious occurs. The process becomes more significant than the outcome. The rules outlast their purpose. The leech grows fat.

And when things inevitably go wrong, as they always do, we respond in the only way we seem to know: by sending more people into the hole. Committees are formed. Departments are consulted. Firefighters arrive, funded by that same 35% income tax, to rescue a problem which did not need to exist in the first place.

The tragedy is not the existence of bureaucracy. Some organisation is essential. The real tragedy is that we mistake complexity for intelligence and procedure for wisdom. Like the small dog, we keep rushing ahead, convinced that someone else has checked if the hole is safe.

And this is where the leech shows its true talent.

Bureaucracy does not appear as a monster. It is refined. Symmetrical. Adorned with courteous language and official stamps. It reassures you that everything is under control while quietly consuming. It does not drain blood in a single violent moment. It sips over minutes, hours, years. A meeting here. A delay there. A requirement no one recalls inventing.

Like any clever leech, it convinces the host that its presence is essential. “Without me there would be chaos,” it claims. And so we allow it to remain. We even admire it. We call it “institutional knowledge.” We create flowcharts and display them on walls.

Meanwhile, the dog remains in the hole.

By the time we realise how much has been taken from us. Time, money, patience, initiative. We are already too exhausted to remove the leech. Doing so would require a form, possibly two, and certainly a committee. And so the leech remains, beautiful and well-fed, while we argue over who should recognise that we are bleeding.

Bureaucracy does not solve problems. It feeds on them.

Once upon a time, very close by, there lived a very beautiful leech called Bureaucracy.

And it is still there.

And it lives inefficiently ever after,
Yours Possibly

Further Reading

Breton, A., 1995. Organizational hierarchies and bureaucracies: An integrative essay. European Journal of Political Economy, 11(3), pp.411-440.
Brewer, G.A. and Walker, R.M., 2010. The impact of red tape on governmental performance: An empirical analysis. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20(1), pp.233-257.
Coccia, M., 2009. Bureaucratization in public research institutions. Minerva, 47(1), pp.31-50.
George, B., Pandey, S.K., Steijn, B., Decramer, A. and Audenaert, M., 2021. Red Tape, organizational performance, and employee outcomes: Meta‐analysis, meta‐regression, and research agenda. Public Administration Review, 81(4), pp.638-651.
Holm, J.R., Nielsen, K. and Timmermans, B., 2025. Bureaucracy, work organization, and the transition to entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 64(4), pp.2179-2195.
Kaufmann, W., Taggart, G. and Bozeman, B., 2019. Administrative delay, red tape, and organizational performance. Public Performance & Management Review, 42(3), pp.529-553.
Pandey, S.K., Coursey, D.H. and Moynihan, D.P., 2007. Organizational effectiveness and bureaucratic red tape: A multimethod study. Public Performance & Management Review, 30(3), pp.398-425.

Cancer

The Rare Responsibility: Unauthorised Copies

Dear Impossible Readers,

Cancer is often characterised by uncontrolled growth, but ultra-rare cancers adhere to entirely different biological principles. Some are driven by a single fusion protein that modifies the epigenetic landscape, while others originate from immune precursors circulating in the bloodstream. Certain types excel by hijacking kinase signalling in otherwise healthy organs, whereas others survive within the protected environment of the brain. Rare cancers are not merely infrequent variants of common tumours. They are mechanistically distinct entities that challenge our understanding of how malignancy begins, progresses, and responds to treatment.

The range of rare cancers is striking. NUT Carcinoma (NC) results from a fusion that disrupts differentiation through epigenetic reprogramming, leading to an aggressive carcinoma. Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma (ASPS), originating from mesenchymal tissue, features a fusion that promotes angiogenesis and early metastasis despite slow primary growth. Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm (BPDCN) is not a solid tumour but a malignancy of innate immune precursors, often initially appearing in the skin before spreading systemically. Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma (FL-HCC) affects young people without liver disease and is driven by a kinase fusion protein. Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma (PCNSL) occurs within the immune-privileged brain, where both biology and treatment are limited. These cancers demonstrate that rare cancers are a spectrum of distinct mechanisms, tissues, and challenges.

Treatment strategies reflect this biological diversity. Aggressive multimodal therapy, combining surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, is often used for NC, but outcomes remain poor. ASPS responds poorly to standard chemotherapy but may respond to VEGF inhibitors, which block new blood vessel growth that is essential for tumour expansion. For BPDCN, CD123-targeted therapies like tagraxofusp, delivering a cytotoxin to malignant cells, have transformed treatment, signalling a move toward lineage-specific immunotherapy. Managed primarily by surgery when possible, FL-HCC benefits most from complete tumour removal, as systemic therapies often have limited success. PCNSL requires high-dose methotrexate (HD-MTX) to cross the blood–brain barrier and target CNS lymphoma cells, sometimes followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), where a patient’s own stem cells are reinfused after intensive chemo to restore bone marrow. Across these diseases, precision medicine is vital, with understanding driver mutations or cellular origins guiding therapy.

Future treatments rely on more targeted biological approaches. BET inhibitors are small molecules that disrupt abnormal chromatin-binding proteins that sustain oncogenic transcription and are being studied for NC to reverse differentiation blockade. In ASPS, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), which counteract inhibitory signals on T cells to boost anti-tumour immunity, are under investigation given the tumour’s immunogenic nature. For BPDCN, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), where a patient’s T cells are engineered to target CD123-expressing cancer cells, shows promise as a future treatment. In FL-HCC, research centres on selective PKA pathway inhibitors to block continuous kinase signalling driven by the fusion protein. Additionally, new CNS-penetrant targeted therapies specifically designed to cross the blood–brain barrier, alongside combination immunomodulatory treatments, could transform PCNSL therapy. Rare cancers often act as models of clarity, as their dependence on a single fusion or pathway makes them highly suitable for precise targeted treatment.

Early molecular testing is essential for both patients and clinicians today. Rare cancers often go misdiagnosed or are mistaken for more common types, leading to treatment delays. Referring patients to specialised centres, enrolling them in rare cancer registries, and exploring clinical trials can significantly improve outcomes. Many ultra-rare cancers, such as NC, ASPS, BPDCN, FL-HCC, and PCNSL, have specific molecular drivers or biological contexts, making comprehensive genomic profiling urgent rather than optional. Despite their rarity, these cancers demand exceptional accuracy. Understanding their biological uniqueness is the crucial first step towards effective treatment.

Until the next rare post,
Yours Possibly

Which rare disease category would you like to see covered next?

Further Reading

Christyani, G., Carswell, M., Qin, S. and Kim, W., 2024. An overview of advances in rare cancer diagnosis and treatment. International journal of molecular sciences, 25(2), p.1201.
Dinh, T.A., Utria, A.F., Barry, K.C., Ma, R., Abou-Alfa, G.K., Gordan, J.D., Jaffee, E.M., Scott, J.D., Zucman-Rossi, J., O’Neill, A.F. and Furth, M.E., 2022. A framework for fibrolamellar carcinoma research and clinical trials. Nature reviews Gastroenterology & hepatology, 19(5), pp.328-342.
Van Der Graaf, W.T.A., Tesselaar, M.E.T., McVeigh, T.P., Oyen, W.J.G. and Fröhling, S., 2022, September. Biology-guided precision medicine in rare cancers: Lessons from sarcomas and neuroendocrine tumours. In Seminars in Cancer Biology (Vol. 84, pp. 228-241). Academic Press.
Van der Graaf, W.T., Heiss, N.S., Hynes, C.L., Keller, S.P., Weinman, A., Blay, J.Y., Franco, P., Giles, R.H., Lacombe, D., Schlatter, P. and Thomas, D.M., 2025. Overcoming the barriers to treatment of rare cancer patients in the era of precision oncology: A call to action. Cancer Treatment Reviews, p.103013.
Luo, J., Bishop, J.A., Dubois, S.G., Hanna, G.J., Sholl, L.M., Stelow, E.B., Thompson, L.D., Shapiro, G.I. and French, C.A., 2025. Hiding in plain sight: NUT carcinoma is an unrecognized subtype of squamous cell carcinoma of the lungs and head and neck. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 22(4), pp.292-306.
Mechahougui, H., Friedlaender, A., Görgülü, K., Tsantoulis, P., Illert, A.L., Subbiah, V., Wahida, A. and Kurzrock, R., 2026. Precision oncology in rare tumors: Have the orphans been adopted?. Med.
Mehra, S. and Taylor, J., 2024. Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm: a comprehensive review of the disease, central nervous system presentations, and treatment strategies. Cells, 13(3), p.243.
Mondello, P., Mian, M. and Bertoni, F., 2019. Primary central nervous system lymphoma: novel precision therapies. Critical reviews in oncology/hematology, 141, pp.139-145.
Moreno, V., Saluja, K. and Pina-Oviedo, S., 2022. NUT carcinoma: clinicopathologic features, molecular genetics and epigenetics. Frontiers in Oncology, 12, p.860830.
Paoluzzi, L. and Maki, R.G., 2019. Diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of alveolar soft-part sarcoma: a review. JAMA oncology, 5(2), pp.254-260.
Schaff, L.R. and Grommes, C., 2022. Primary central nervous system lymphoma. Blood, The Journal of the American Society of Hematology, 140(9), pp.971-979.
Shimony, S., Luskin, M.R., Gangat, N., LeBoeuf, N.R., Feraco, A.M. and Lane, A.A., 2025. Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN): 2025 update on Diagnosis, Pathophysiology, risk Assessment, and management. American Journal of Hematology, 100(8), pp.1408-1422.
Suto, H., 2025. Advances in alveolar soft part sarcoma treatment in the era of immunotherapy. ESMO Rare Cancers, 1, p.100002.
Wege, H., Schulze, K., von Felden, J., Calderaro, J. and Reig, M., 2021. Rare variants of primary liver cancer: Fibrolamellar, combined, and sarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinomas. European Journal of Medical Genetics, 64(11), p.104313.

The Kairos Principle

The Fine Line Between Marketing and Harassment

Dear Impossible Readers,

Have you ever signed up for a service or content that includes the word “professional” somewhere? And then immediately regretted it? After several attempts to unsubscribe, you just ended up blocking this flood of unwanted content. Welcome to the club!

I understand the importance of marketing. At the same time, I can decide for myself what I want, and I really do not need a commercial or an email to tell me. If you grew up watching “normal” TV, you probably remember your life was filled with commercials. However, you might recall that some commercials were really fun to watch, and you did not mind rewatching them a few times. Just maybe not five times during one movie.

On the other hand, you have probably also seen or heard commercials that irritate you so much that it annoys you when you see the brand, and it makes you never want to buy from them in the first place.

Then there are types of marketing that deserve a special place in hell. They use extortion, like dramatically longer delivery times if you do not become a member. But you know what? If I really need it, I would just buy it from another retailer. And yes, that other retailer might actually make more money on that specific product because you paid a little more. But you know what? That retailer earned it by not being annoying.

The real difference between a nuisance and a brand leader lies in shifting from interruption to invitation. Effective marketing, like Toyota’s “Today, Tomorrow, Toyota” or the recent “Let’s Go Places,” works because it creates a consistent promise rather than just making noise. It respects the “Value Exchange,” the unspoken agreement that if a brand takes 30 seconds of your time, it should give you something in return, whether that’s a laugh, a useful insight, or a solution to a real problem. Poor marketing fails because it focuses on message volume instead of how quickly it delivers value. When a brand emphasises short-term metrics, like email open rates, over building long-term trust, it risks losing its reputation for a quick click.

This frustration underscores the delicate balance between effective communication and digital noise. Usually, the main factors are Permission, Signal, and Equity. Great marketing follows Seth Godin’s idea of “Permission Marketing,” where content is so well-targeted that recipients want to receive it instead of seeing it as spam. It is about maintaining a high “Signal-to-Noise” ratio and standing out by solving a real problem you face, rather than just shouting into the void. Companies using “special place in hell” tactics, often focus on immediate “Direct Response” sales at the cost of their “Brand Equity.” While they might make a quick sale today, they risk losing long-term trust and goodwill that could lead to repeat business.

Ultimately, the best marketing does not feel like a sales pitch. It feels like a well-timed recommendation from a friend who genuinely understands what you like.

To special places in hell,
Yours Possibly

Further Reading

Aaker, D.A. (1991) Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name. New York: Free Press.
Binet, L. and Field, P. (2013) The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies. London: IPA.
Cialdini, R.B. (2007) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Rev. edn. New York: Harper Business.
Godin, S. (1999) Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Godin, S. (2018) This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.
Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York: Grand Central Publishing.
Sharp, B. (2010) How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Simon, H.A. (1971) ‘Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World’, in Greenberger, M. (ed.) Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 37–72.
Searls, D. (2012) The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.