Life as Art

For many years I have practiced a New Year's tradition. Very late on New Year's Eve, after the festivities of the night are over and the rest of the merry-makers have retired to their champagne-inspired dreams, I settle in to watch one of my favorite movies dating back to childhood. I do this to usher in the New Year with a creativity-stimulating exercise. Read More

 Descriptions of monkey terrorists trained by the Taliban to shoot U.S. Military Members by identifying their uniforms are all over the internet this week. Fortunately the claims of monkey mercenaries appear to be only web-based monkeyshines! But if these claims were true, could we count this monkey business as an example of the dark side of the creativity? Read More

I recently finished reading Dr. Nancy Rappaport's excellent book In Her Wake, and it reminded me once again that our lives are works of art - or at least they can be works of art if we choose to make them so. Read More

Anorexia Nervosa is great American tragedy. It's the most deadly of psychiatric illnesses, killing almost 20% of those afflicted. Media portrayal of unhealthy thinness as the ideal of feminine beauty is one (but certainly not the only) contributing factor to this devastating illness. That's why it's so refreshing to see Hollywood offer us a glamorous, oversized, butter-eating role model.  Read More

The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations). These changes in the aging brain may make it ideally suited to accomplish work in a number of creative domains. So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing. Read More

This has been a week for great victories and great defeats. I'd like to muse on the defeat side of the issue for a few minutes. Like millions of Americans I watched both John McCain's gracious concession speech and Barack Obama's eloquent victory speech. The speeches of both men on this historic night brought me to tears. Read More

It’s a dull ache in the throat and stomach, accompanied by a sudden sinking feeling. I started noticing these physical symptoms of melancholy last week but couldn’t put my finger on the cause until I reread a Psychology Today blog on Sports Grief by colleague Steven Kotler that first appeared on June 25^th. Then I realized that my symptoms coincided with the onset of the NFL season… Read More

Personal space is a very individual matter. Each of us has a certain amount of physical space we like to maintain between ourselves and someone with whom we're interacting. This physical space acts as a boundary between self and others that may reflect the thickness of our psychic boundaries in other areas. Read More