In this week's "Spreading the Word", I continue the travel topic and combine it with some amazing first-hand historical accounts. It`s a video where the author of the channel reads a translated primary historical source that describes the experiences of Mongol Invasions during the 13th century. Among them, the great Genghis Khan! After listening to …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: First-Hand Historical Accounts of Mongol Invasions
Going for a trip on vacation is difficult these days. I live in Europe, and at the time of writing it is possible to travel, albeit with some restrictions. However, it's pretty clear that it will not be your usual vacation experience. So, what to do? Well, isn't this the perfect time to think about …
Continue reading Travelling at Home or Finding the Unknown in the Familiar
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you a travel video. This time, it's something a bit special and not my standard format, so to speak. It is a video of one guy who has a travel vlog. He lives in Ukraine and has travelled all over the world, posting videos about his …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Take a Trip to Nature (in the Carpathian Mountains)
One day many, many years ago I was working on an assignment for my literature class at school. We had read the story of the national mythological hero and had to write an essay on it. I can no longer remember the exact title of the essay, but it had to do with heroism and …
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you a video. It is a 2017 TED talk given by the writer Emily Esfahani Smith. She has studied how people find and create meaning in (and for) their lives, and has come up with a suggestion of the results - she refers to them as …
"The ships leave shore,Minerva steers."Homer, The Odyssey, Book Two A very short line of only six words. What does it tell us? Does it tell us anything meaningful? Well, that depends on whether we know what or who Minerva is, but more than that - our appreciation of these words rests on our understanding of …
Continue reading Meaning in the Words – Where it Comes From?
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you an article and a podcast recording. The topic: metaphors in our languages. For the most part, we don`t even notice them. Yet, we cannot really do without them. It may even be that metaphors reflect the way we think, not just the way we express …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Metaphors in Our Languages
In the first part of this article (published last week), I stopped at the appearance on the stage of Plato and his ideas of what is real, as expressed in his famous cave allegory. Now, I jump right in and pick up from exploring Plato`s thoughts on the topic of reality. Afterwards, I offer some …
Continue reading The Meaning of Objectivity, Reality, Truth – Part II (Final)
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you a video where philosopher Dr. Stephen Hicks talks about postmodernism. Lately I found myself 'stumbling' on this concept more and more often, so I thought it would be helpful to try and understand it better. In his talk, Dr. Hicks takes the audience not just …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: a Talk on Postmodernism
Real life. Objective reality. True fact. We all confront these and similar short phrases in our daily lives. They are powerful because they are meaningful to us. Yet, do we really, objectively, truly know the meaning of these words? Do we understand that it is us who endow them with meaning? If we are ready to contemplate …
Continue reading The Meaning of Objectivity, Reality, Truth – Part I
