I listened to a very interesting episode of the Making Sense podcast the other day. It was between the founder of the podcast, Sam Harris, and cognitive psychologist, Scott Barry Kaufman. A topic that came up was pathological altruism, and it got me thinking about this paradox of selfish altruism. I’d like to elaborate on …
Living During the Coronvavirus Pandemic Dear reader, I don’t know what year it’ll be when you read this letter, but I hope it’s at a point in which the COVID-19 ‘s destructive effects have been quelled. Before going on to the body of this letter, if there’s anything good to come from the global coronavirus …
Read moreA Letter to Future Generations About Living During the Coronvavirus Pandemic
In the space of a few short weeks, the Covid-19 outbreak has flipped our way of life on its head. An unfeeling, unconscious, and invisible pathogen has ruthlessly undermined the large-scale human cooperative effort that we call modern globalized society. Countries closed their borders, airplanes stopped flying, bars and restaurants shut, and millions of people …
Read moreHow Covid-19 Gives Us All the Chance to Accept Impermanence
Why Do You Feel Unhappy All The Time? It is a perplexing dilemma for the unlucky people who tend towards pessimism, negativity, rumination, and neuroticism as their default mental state: Why do other people seem so happy all the time? What is wrong with me that I seem to feel unhappy by default? Was it …
The Present Moment Entering the present moment sounds like a bit of a contradictory phrase. After all, “it is only ever now”, as the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle is fond of saying. The problem is that while we might always physically be present in whatever location our body happens to be in, mentally, most of …
My watch has been out of action for the last few days because the battery is gone. When I glanced at the little time and date section on the corner of my Windows 10 taskbar today, I was startled. It’s September 2nd apparently. My mind’s perception of time and how far it feels into this …
Read moreThe Holiday Paradox, Time Flying, and Altering Your Perception of Time
Ever Been Nostalgic for a Time You’ve Never Known? I was listening to the radio the other day and one of my favourite feel-good tunes came on. It was Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly, which is a quite simple song based on four chords. One of the reasons I like the song so much is …
Read moreExploring Anemoia: Nostalgia for a Time You’ve Never Known