Purpose and meaning are not inherent to the universe but our own creation… all of our reckonings with the nature of reality are a mirror we hold up to ourselves.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Life & Society, Meaning, Psychology | Behavior
Inseparable from the question of freedom is the nature of the imagination — that ultimate frontier of our freedom of thought.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation, Freedom | Liberty
As we steer a course through the river of our lives, we are affected by innumerable forces, the vast majority unknown to us. By some accounts this makes of our freedom an illusion, for how can we purport to freely choose when we can’t even see a fraction of the legion of influences acting on us, limiting our movements, sparking our appetites? The threat this … [ Read more ]
Author: William Egginton | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement
People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.
Author: F. M. Alexander | Subjects: Career, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Success / Failure
The trouble is that most people want to be right. The very best people, however, want to know if they’re right.
Author: John Cleese | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement
Economic cycles are driven as much by human nature as by resources. When profits are flowing, it encourages overconfidence, greed, and complacency. When profits are nowhere to be found, it encourages fear, savings, and ruthless efficiency.
Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subject: Economics | Economy
Thinking of populists as left or right is a misunderstanding. Populists care little about ideology — what they want is power. To get it, they build their popularity by polarizing populations. Fanning division between “us” and “them” creates intense loyalty from a base of supporters, who are easily convinced that things that stand in the leaders’ way — including independent institutions and laws — are … [ Read more ]
Authors: Rachel Kleinfeld, Roberto Stefan Foa | Source: Harvard Business Review (HBR) | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Nothing does more damage in love than a paucity of self-knowledge.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Wisdom is the ability to allow a diversity of values and thoughts to emerge within your own mind, yet still be able to act despite them. […] The opposite is fanaticism. Fanaticism may produce confidence and relieve anxiety. But fanaticism is a tyranny of our internal mental order. It is when one belief or value pushes all other competing factions out of our consciousness.
But by … [ Read more ]
Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement, Wisdom
This, in a nutshell, is the genius of democracy: it’s built to accentuate rather than suppress diversity. And not just diversity of race, gender, or religion, but diversity of personality, interests, philosophies, and worldly pursuits. Democratic systems let the wisdom of evolutionary processes play out in the social realm. This is why democratic societies tend to be more economically innovative, culturally dynamic, and physically safer … [ Read more ]
Author: Mark Manson | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
Complicity turns into guilt, and guilt turns into shame, and shame turns into fear.
Author: Cody Johnson | Source: The Washington Post | Subjects: Fear, Psychology | Behavior
Americans are divided not just by political beliefs but by whether they believe in a shared reality—or desire one at all.
Author: Charlie Warzel | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, International, Politics & Public Policy
As Michael Caulfield, an information researcher at the University of Washington, has argued, “The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” This distinction is important, in part because it assigns agency to … [ Read more ]
Authors: Charlie Warzel, Michael Caulfield | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.
Author: Immanuel Kant | Subject: Education | Scholarship
We live in a culture that idealizes the idea of love, and the idea that there is one true person who will complete you, fulfill all your dreams and love you forever. We are told from an early age that our true love is out there, waiting for us and so we yearn to find them, to know what it feels like to experience true … [ Read more ]
Author: Roxane Gay | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
We mistake much for love – admiration, attraction, need. We fumble and fall again and again into the treacherous abyss between the idea of love – an idea baggaged with millennia of cultural mythologies – and the reality of love, with all its work and responsibility.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Bringing good things into your life, whether love, career success, or something else, usually involves risk. Risk doesn’t necessarily make us happy, and a risky life is going to bring disappointment. But it can also bring bigger rewards than a life played safe.
Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Risk
Enjoyment of life—whether that means spending “unproductive” time with others, reading a good book, or taking a long walk—has a loftier significance than good feelings do. It is important for human agency, a life lived on purpose. Enjoyment means refusing to be managed by pleasures, nor subjugated by joyless drudgery. Pursuing it is a declaration of independence from your base impulses, be they licentious or … [ Read more ]
Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subject: Personal Improvement
Enjoyment and pleasure are terms often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Pleasure happens to you; enjoyment is something that you create through your own effort. Pleasure is the lightheadedness you get from a bit of grain alcohol; enjoyment is the satisfaction of a good wine, properly understood. Pleasure is addictive and animal; enjoyment is elective and human.
Author: Arthur C. Brooks | Source: The Atlantic | Subject: Psychology | Behavior