Today we will explore the idea of good and evil, that there are "good people and evil people", the foundation of the last untruth explained by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in their book "The Coddling of the American Mind." In response to the three untruths, in...
Stories are how we bind individual perception and social reality. Social reality, our combined stories, is a universe of perspective. Consider from a nautical metaphor, where stories are the lines connecting individual boats with the social pier. Sure, the boat...
There is simply no relationship problem that is different in kind between any form of relationship. The differences are always the particular variables involved, not some issue uniquely found within a particular relationship form.
We feel lost when, we are so focused on finding the "right" path, that we can't see the opportunities that surround us. We encourage freedom of imagination in our kids because we don't want them to get locked into the sin of bad habits. We entreat each other to...
America's most powerful social product may very well be that of the politicized identity. Pick a label, shove the entirety of a person into it, then use this narrow caricature to condemn, belittle, dismiss, celebrate and worship, depending on whether you like or...
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible...
Nobody holds to a belief that they knowingly acknowledge is wrong or inaccurate. Each belief has an emotional and identity-defining weight attached to it. For every incremental increase in resources (time, energy, money, relationships) spent on maintaining a...
Overwrought declarations concerning the security of a nation's people is the bread and butter of modern politics. Every potential leader of the self-proclaimed free world attempts to outdo another with over-confident pronouncements of their ability to defeat the...
Divine love seems inexplicably tied to divine judgment at times. With even a cursory search online the subsequent finding of so many articles and images depicting people of otherwise benign feelings supporting hatred and irrational judgment, the only seeming...
The lucky-save is a classic story, that event awash with emotional weight, in which the person survived by the merest, slightest, of chances. Were a microphone to be present at the time, the likely most common phrase after would be "Whoa! That was lucky!" though...
Contrary opinions are difficult to face. We see the world a particular way, utilize this perspective to provide justification for our actions and rarely tell our stories with anyone but ourselves being front and center. Contrary opinions are like having walked a...
Political season is well and truly in full swing these days, bringing with it the struggle of political identity. One can barely find a cute picture of a panda online without bumping into a near-overwhelming number of memes (supportive and derogatory),...
