Many people across the world are celebrating the beginning of a new year today, and some are thinking about New Year's resolutions - how to improve ourselves, be better persons, take on new projects, hobbies, or change some habits. Maybe you would like to be more compassionate and understanding with other people. This worthy goal … Continue reading What Does Empathy Mean
Spreading the Word: Tangled Business of Desire
It's great knowing what you want and going after it. But sometimes, perhaps more often than we care to admit, it is a too-good-to-be-true sort of story. I don't mean it just in the sense that it can be very difficult or even impossible to get what you want. There is a more surreptitious side … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Tangled Business of Desire
Spreading the Word: Thinking When Reading and Listening
Have you noticed a difference in your thought process when reading and listening? Recent research suggests there is indeed a difference. We tend to think more intuitively, more automatically when we listen to something and more deliberately and analytically when we read something. While it is not entirely clear why this is so, one possible … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Thinking When Reading and Listening
Spreading the Word: East-West Narrative
The idea that there are inherent differences in how people think between the Western and Eastern cultures is widespread and popular. However, as recent research in cross-cultural psychology clearly shows, it is also a sweeping oversimplification. In the words of one of the researchers, "We are much more diverse – but, at the same time, … Continue reading Spreading the Word: East-West Narrative
Spreading the Word: Emotional Decomposition
Let's do a thought experiment. What would happen if we interpreted our emotional, existential, identity crises as analogous to the physical and chemical process of decomposition? Could the rawness of our emotions and thoughts during these times be viewed as the raw material that we will eventually process into a new, transformed self? Today I … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Emotional Decomposition
Spreading the Word: Anger and Female Rage
Assertive self-expression, anger, rage, and various forms of roughness are traditionally associated with maleness. Even if they scare us or make us uncomfortable, they are perceived and experienced as masculine qualities. It is so deeply rooted in so many cultures that we do not notice its presence. To test it, see what comes to your … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Anger and Female Rage
Spreading the Word: Healing Inherited Traumas
A family tree is an interesting metaphor. Each new generation inherits something from its ancestors through genetic connections, just like every new branch grows out of the one before it. While each branch is different from the rest, just like any family member is unique, all are linked through the tree trunk to their shared … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Healing Inherited Traumas
Spreading the Word: Importance of Meaning-Making
Why is it much more important to understand than to know? Why are all the 'why' questions significant, and how an understanding of reasons shapes our actions? I found these two articles that I would like to share with you today: on understanding and on 'why'. In each article, the authors offer their take on … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Importance of Meaning-Making
What Is Necessary Knowledge?
In philosophy, questions about the nature of knowledge are some of the oldest. They have kept philosophers busy for well over 2,000 years and continue doing so today. The branch of philosophy that tries to answer questions about knowledge - epistemology - is considered one of the core building blocks of philosophical thinking. However, philosophy … Continue reading What Is Necessary Knowledge?
Spreading the Word: Getting Stuck (and Unstuck) in the Negatives
Psychological research has shown that our minds are naturally more inclined to tilt towards the negative, the loss. Negative news, negative information sticks in our thoughts and it takes more mental effort on our part to get unstuck from that frame of mind. But it is not impossible. In this short, insightful and, in my … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Getting Stuck (and Unstuck) in the Negatives
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