Southeast Asia is always teeming with Western backpackers, and there’s a silent competition among them to appear the most relaxed. You can get an idea of who’s been “in country” for some time based on how unfazed they appear in sketchy situations. Something that rattles you on the first day in Bangkok—a taxi ignoring a red light, a housecat bedding down beneath your table in a restaurant, a motorcycle using the sidewalk to sneak past a traffic jam—seems mundane a week later.
So when you’re on an overcrowded boat that seems as if it’s about to capsize with every wave, some of your fellow passengers can appear almost supernaturally relaxed. It’s hard to know who’s truly at ease in the tumult, and who’s trying to look like they are. Continue reading How To Worry Less→
Published in 1837, the short story by Hans Christian Andersen called the Emperor’s New Clothes is a children’s story that carries some eye-opening messages about life, reality, society and self-deception.
It seems that no one wants to talk about self-deception these days. I believe one of the reasons for this is we feel embarrassed when we are wrong especially when we find out that we have been lying to ourselves.
When we lie to ourselves and we decide that we want to grow beyond the lie we have to look into life’s mirror metaphorically and face the truth behind our lies. This type of truth seeking can leave us feeling naked, vulnerable and a bit scared of what we are going to find. Continue reading Self-Deception, Our Media and the “Emperor’s New Clothes Effect”→
There is a deep sickness beginning to take hold of the American psyche that threatens to undermine the already shaken stability of the lives of everyone in this country.
It appears that America is coming apart at the seams. Routine school shootings, the reemergence of overt racism, anti-government paranoia on the rise, exaggerated threats of germs and terrorists lurking around every corner, government indifference to the hollowing out of the middle class, military tactics employed by officers of the peace—signs of societal disintegration are everywhere. And now we have witnessed the murder of two journalists on live TV and must endure the relentless exploitative media coverage that inevitably follows. While it is true that there always will be social unrest and all manner of cultural crises, the current state of affairs strikes many as beyond the ordinary—and I must cautiously cast my vote in agreement. Continue reading Understanding The Sickness of the American Psyche→
