It Looks Different Than It Feels
If you want the present to be different than the past. . . study the past – Spinosa I’ve been using the metaphor of the "puppy and puppy-trainer" for the …
Doing Personal Research
We don’t receive wisdom. We must discover it for ourselves after a journey than no one can take for us nor spare us. — Marcel Proust Some general principles to …
Know Thyself!
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. — Aristotle Bad things happen, and some suffering is unavoidable. But you can create additional suffering for yourself and others by …
The Karma of Behaving Badly
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. — Elbert Hubbard Performance becomes easier with practice. In fact, with enough practice, performance can become autonomous—that is, it requires …
The Imp of the Perverse
God’s error was forbidding the apple. If He would have forbidden the serpent, then Adam would have eaten the serpent. –George Bernard Shaw People often end up doing exactly what …
The PIG
No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object. — Sidonie Colette The Problem of Immediate Gratification (the PIG) is our name for the principle that immediate …
Ruminative Self Focus
The secret to being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. — George Bernard Shaw We are all self-focused. Thoughts related to …
Recursive Traps
"It is often possible to discern a structure to people’s difficulties, in which internal states and external events continually create the conditions for the recurrence of each other." — Paul …
The Soul Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts
You are not the passenger. You are the ride. At some point in the evolution of biological creatures, conscious awareness emerged. Abstract processing, which opens the door to self-consciousness, comes …
Irreversible Change
We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us, nor spare us — Marcel Proust Even though they know …