My personal word of the year is demonize. But … A commentary on how “we are using our free time” … an ongoing “cultural conversation about humanity and technology.” • AP News > “How to sum up 2024? The Oxford […]

Pondering the big picture, what has changed in the last 100 years or so … This article (republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license) is a useful recap of our understanding of human evolution, and an excellent visualization […]

[Draft 11-7-2024] We supposedly live in a secular society. And yet, sacred speech dominates our polarized politics. The righteous mind is alive and well. Private & public piety pervades our identities, our virtues and values. Dogma still divides. History has […]

This blog’s Health & Exercise page has been reorganized. There now are separate sections (headings) for articles:

Fables were part of the moral fabric when I was growing up. Perhaps yours as well. Especially some of Aesop’s Fables. (Yet, I was suprised that this was not the case for many of my middle school students, when a […]

This article (below) discusses happiness as a direction, and the elements of that state of mind. And, yes, there’s a science of happiness. And a “happiness pension plan.” Yet, in such direction, recall our mantra: What’s the good news about […]

Like a mandala, here’s an interesting visualization … a 13.8 billion year chronicle. • NASA > APOD > “Time Spiral” – Illustration Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi via Wikipedia (9 August 2020) Explanation (quoted): What’s happened since the universe started? The time […]

A delirious, inexhaustible, social fountain of information … what could go … A new book (below) reminded me of the sci-fi classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, and how an extinct godlike race fell prey to the ultimate persuasive technology (“unaffected […]

Here’s some advice on building the sense of being connected socially. • Washington Post > Advice > “Making new friends can be hard. Here are 5 ways to make 1 friend a year.” by Emma Nadler, psychotherapist and author (June […]

So, simplified strategies help us cope with emotional & mental burdens, like too many choices. This article discusses cognitive shortcuts in a similar context: “Our minds are naturally inclined to use simplified strategies to conserve mental energy and reduce cognitive […]