Curious Apes. The Turning Point. 12 Toxic Behaviors that Push People Away From You. Woz on Creativity: Work Alone. By Maria Popova Last week, we took a look at what a 1962 Candid Camera elevator experiment reveals about the psychology of groupthink.
More than vintage comic relief, however, groupthink can be the archnemesis of creativity, because creativity by committee is no creativity at all — just ask Stephen King, who famously advised aspiring authors to “write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” In his modestly titled memoir, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, computer legend Steve Wozniak, better-known as Woz, makes a bold case for the importance of intellectual independence in the creative process: This neuroscientist wants you to embrace your forgetfulness. Have you ever forgotten where you parked your car, or why you entered a specific room?
If you have, you might be familiar with the vaguely unsettling feeling that you're losing your mind, or that you're experiencing early signs of Alzheimer's disease. But according to neuroscientist and bestselling author Lisa Genova, those memory slips are nothing to be worried about. Genova is the author of Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Acid test: scientists show how LSD opens doors of perception. When Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.
Writing in The Doors of Perception, his 1954 book that took its name from a William Blake poem, Huxley declared that the psychedelic “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life”. Even for Huxley, the assessment now seems remarkably prescient. In new research, scientists have found evidence that LSD, another psychedelic, lowers the barriers that constrain people’s thoughts. 'I'm extremely controversial': the psychologist rethinking human emotion. In early March, as the world began to realise that coronavirus wasn’t going to go quietly, psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett was thousands of miles away from home.
“I went to New Zealand because I was getting an honorary degree,” she tells me over the phone from lockdown in Newton, a leafy suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, where she runs a lab devoted to the study of emotions. She had arranged the trip to coincide with spring break so her college-age daughter could join her and see the sights. But as countries around the world began to impose restrictions, she started having second thoughts. Generalise, don't specialise: why focusing too narrowly is bad for us. Let’s start with a couple of stories from the world of sports.
This first one, you probably know … The boy’s father could tell something was different. At seven months, he gave his son a putter to fool around with, and the boy dragged it everywhere he went in his little circular baby walker. At 10 months, he climbed down from his high chair, trundled over to a golf club that had been cut down to size for him, and imitated the swing he had been watching in the garage.
Because the father couldn’t yet talk with his son, he drew pictures to show the boy how to place his hands on the club. The Goodness Paradox - Why humans are so good and so bad. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Interview with Steven Hayes. A history of happiness explains why capitalism makes us feel empty inside. What is happiness?
It’s a very old question. And no one really knows the answer, although theories abound. Aristotle was one of the first to offer what you might call a philosophy of happiness. For him, happiness consisted of being a good person, of living virtuously and not being a slave to one’s lowest impulses. Happiness was a goal, something at which humans constantly aim but never quite reach.
Beyond environment: falling back in love with Mother Earth. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has been practising meditation and mindfulness for 70 years and radiates an extraordinary sense of calm and peace.
This is a man who on a fundamental level walks his talk, and whom Buddhists revere as a Bodhisattva; seeking the highest level of being in order to help others. Ever since being caught up in the horrors of the Vietnam war, the 86-year-old monk has committed his life to reconciling conflict and in 1967 Martin Luther King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying "his ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.
" So it seems only natural that in recent years he has turned his attention towards not only addressing peoples' disharmonious relationships with each other, but also with the planet on which all our lives depend. Move beyond concept of the "environment" The Meaning of Life - Jordan Peterson.
In Defense of Being Average. There’s this guy. World-renowned billionaire. Tech genius. 4 Things You Can Do to Cheer Up, According to Neuroscience. How to be perfectly unhappy. Lidia Yuknavitch: The beauty of being a misfit. The McMindfulness Craze: The Shadow Side of the Mindfulness Revolution. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout) In case we had any doubt after watching Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes," mindfulness is the new yoga - and we are in the midst of a mindfulness revolution.
It's been embraced by celebrities, business leaders, politicians and athletes; and recommended by doctors, clergy, psychotherapists and prison wardens. Apps and bestselling books touting the benefits of meditation proliferate. A Non-Conformist's Guide to Success in a Conformist World, Bryan Caplan. I've been a non-conformist for as long as I can remember.
"All the other kids love sports" never seemed like a good reason why I should feel - or pretend to feel - the same way. "None of the other adults are wearing shorts and flip-flops" never seemed like a good reason why I should make myself uncomfortable. It wasn't mere elitism on my part. "All the other Princeton economists take general equilibrium models seriously" was no more compelling to me than "All the other teens want their own car. " Non-conformism at my intensity rarely allows real-world success.
10 Signs Your Energy Field & Chakras are Out of Whack. Psych Pedia: The Science of Happiness: Why complaining is literally killing you. By Steven Parton, From CuriousApes.com Sometimes in life, all the experience and knowledge simmering around in that ol’ consciousness of ours combines itself in a way that suddenly causes the cerebral clockwork to click into place, and in this fluid flow of thought we find an epiphany rising to the surface.
One such point for me came in my junior year at University. It changed the way I viewed the world forever as it catapulted me out of the last of my angsty, melancholic youth and onto a path of ever-increasing bliss. Sounds like I’m verging on feeding you some new-agey, mumbo-jumbo, doesn’t it? Well, bear with me, because I assure you the point here is to add some logical evidence to the ol’ cliches, to give you what I would consider my Science of Happiness.
At the time of this personal discovery, I was pursuing a double-major in Computer Science and Psychology. How to Make Anxiety Work for You, Not Against You. “Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.” ~Jean Vanier I got fired from my job, my boyfriend left me, and my father died in one day. Screw Finding Your Passion. Remember back when you were a kid? You would just do things. You never thought to yourself, “What are the relative merits of learning baseball versus football?” Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason — Tim Lawrence. I emerge from this conversation dumbfounded. I've seen this a million times before, but it still gets me every time. I’m listening to a man tell a story. A woman he knows was in a devastating car accident; her life shattered in an instant. 10 Signs You May Be Involved With a Sex Addict, By a Sex Addict
Sanism: Dr. Jennifer Poole at TEDxRyersonU. Johann Hari: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong. 5 Tips For Empaths To Prevent Anxiety And Depression. By Amateo Ra| Empaths have now been scientifically proven to be more prone to anxiety, especially social anxiety, as well as depression. This Stunning Photo Series Nails What It Feels Like To Have An Anxiety Disorder.
It can be difficult to verbalize what it's like to experience mental illness, so photographer Katie Crawford decided to show people instead of tell them. Myers Briggs: Cat Edition.
What it means to "hold space" for people, plus eight tips on how to do it well - Heather Plett. My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. 7 Signs Your Havingness Level is Dangerously Low » BAD WITCHES. Witchery Published on December 20th, 2014 | by Carolyn Elliott. What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital. Bipolar Advantage. What if the Central Premise of Bipolar Disorder Is Wrong? Seventhvoice. 12 Toxic Behaviors that Push People Away From You. Neurodiversity Rewires Conventional Thinking About Brains. Sick of this market-driven world? You should be. Why Do People Persist in Believing Things That Just Aren't True? Mother's Day: The Good Child. Daniel Leiberman on Human Evolution. Meditation for the damned - Notes & Errata by Mark Morford. The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People. Brené Brown: Listening to shame.
How being called smart can actually make you stupid. Activism, optimism, compassion, occupy love, zainab amadahy, Why indigenous and racialized struggles will always be appendixed by the left. Did the Dalai Lama Just Call for an End to Religion?
There's More to Life Than Being Happy - Frankl. RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation. Online disinhibition effect. Picasso, Kepler, and the Benefits of Being an Expert Generalist.