Ambigamy

When your dependents cut ties, it's sweet freedom but also a loss of identity. Here I explore the cut ties and overtight dependencies in the arc of a father's life. Read More

You can learn a lot about someone, including yourself, by thinking about our affirmation economy—our supply of and demand for affirmation. Ego strokes are a staple in everyone's diets, like honey to a bee, and so nothing to be ashamed of. It's time to get over the shame and instead look squarely at how affirmation comes and flows. Read More

Though we make a virtue out of both honest connection and respectful disengagement, we rarely look at the challenge of figuring when to do which. Here's a primer on fool efficiency, deciding how best to suffer fools, when to do it through respectful engagement, and when through respectful disengagement. Read More

Freedom from guilt; not responsibility Read More

Asperity Parity is being as rhetorically rough as your debate partner but no rougher. It's a key to having creative, expansive debates. Truth springs from arguments amongst friends, which requires the ability to argue and stay friends. You can't afford to be too blunt or too tentative, not by some absolute standard but attuned to what your friend can tolerate. Read More

A friend takes frequent woods walks with a spiritual buddy. On the walks the spiritual buddy talks freely, but whenever my friend talks, the spiritualists shushes her saying, “Let’s just enjoy the present moment OK?” Typical and telling. We all need ways to say shut up, if for no other reason than that there's a limit to how receptive we can afford to be. Read More

There is no God, and from what we can tell nothing means anything to the universe. Still, that doesn't mean that your life is meaningless. Scientists today treat all behavior as things bumping into things and changing them. Here we expose popular scientific misconceptions about what information is and point toward a more meaningful definition. Read More

Talkiswalkism is the dark side of self-affirmation, the belief that talk is tantamount to walk, that the positive things you say about yourself and what you aspire to be automatically makes you those things. It's a recipe for hypocrisy, and perhaps the greatest hazard of popular spirituality. For a more effective path to personal growth, become a Selectrician. Read More

Sloptimism is blind faith optimism you embrace based on some vague ideological platitude you hold proudly but unthinkingly, for the comfort it provides. There are three particularly virulent strains of it going around. Inoculate yourself against them: Things will work out best if you always be here now, always believe without clinging or always believe in chang Read More

Mindfulness practice is great as far as it goes but by itself doesn't bring wisdom. Letting go of thoughts isn't enough. You need to practice embracing difficult thoughts and practice honing your intuitions about which thoughts are most useful. For that, complement your Mindfulness Practice with Mind Yoga and Introspective Intelligence. Read More

It's a nightmare that must often come true, a life wasted studying the details of some placebo practice, the priest memorizing prayers to a non-existent God, the shaman wasting years learning a fussy healing art that's pure sham, the dedicated student of any practice that turns out to not really work. How would you feel if it happened to you? And could it? Read More

If you think of yoga as a spiritual path or a physical practice, maybe it’s not for you. If you define it more broadly as any practice in which you un-stress the stretch, relaxing as you push yourself out of your comfort zone, you’ll see that you do it lots, like it, and could do it even more. Read More

A parody with a purpose: A new IQ-like metric is proposed, the Fallibility Quotient or FA Q, which measures how receptive one is to evidence of failure. People with high FA Q's are unreceptive and quick to shout "FA Q!" as if, perhaps to proudly declare their usually large FA Q scores. Read More

Love is not chemistry. Animal magnetism is not magnetism. So what is love? Here's a scientific definition that takes us all the way from the origins of life to how you feel about your beloveds. Read More