Self-Knowledge
Mechanisms of Defence
Getting to know ourselves better sounds, on the surface, like a project we might all buy into. But this is…
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Leisure
Three Essays on Flight
If we were tasked with showing a visiting Martian the best of human capacities, we could do worst than to take them to the airport for a look around.
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Henri Rousseau
The artist Henri Rousseau — who had no formal training, and who only began painting seriously in his forties — was ridiculed by the critics of his day. Yet he is now celebrated as a visionary genius.
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Charles Dickens’s Secret
Almost no other writer has ever been quite as successful as Charles Dickens. But Dickens spent most of his life hiding a terrible secret — one that helps to shed light on his peculiar genius…
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Self-Knowledge
The Always Unfinished Business of Self-Knowledge
Whatever our commitment to self-knowledge, we have no alternative but to go to our deaths having understood only a fraction…
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Self-Knowledge
How to Live More Consciously
We want – almost all of us – to live as long as possible. But in our urgent and never-guaranteed…
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Self-Knowledge
On Always Finding Fault with Others
The problem with trying accurately to identify the behaviour known as fault-finding – defined as an obsessive need to focus…
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Calm
The Causes of Obsessive Thinking
For some of us, today like every day, will mean another case of immersing ourselves, from the moment we wake…
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Leisure
How Psychotherapy Might Truly Help Us
There can be considerable confusion as to why exactly it might be helpful to visit a psychotherapist. Typically we might…
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Self-Knowledge
How History Can Explain Our Unhappiness
When trying to understand why we might be feeling unhappy, we tend to be drawn to reasons relatively close to…
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Self-Knowledge
The Sinner Inside All of Us
In the public squares of the cities of northern Europe in the Middle Ages, a standard sight was of a…
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Calm
Why Things May Need to Get Worse Before They Can Get Better
Our lives are often less than they could be because we are – strangely – too good at making things…
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Select themes
Self-Knowledge
The Always Unfinished Business of Self-Knowledge
Whatever our commitment to self-knowledge, we have no alternative but to go to our deaths having understood only a fraction…
View
Self-Knowledge
How to Live More Consciously
We want – almost all of us – to live as long as possible. But in our urgent and never-guaranteed…
View
Self-Knowledge
On Always Finding Fault with Others
The problem with trying accurately to identify the behaviour known as fault-finding – defined as an obsessive need to focus…
View
Calm
The Causes of Obsessive Thinking
For some of us, today like every day, will mean another case of immersing ourselves, from the moment we wake…
View
Leisure
How Psychotherapy Might Truly Help Us
There can be considerable confusion as to why exactly it might be helpful to visit a psychotherapist. Typically we might…
View
Self-Knowledge
How History Can Explain Our Unhappiness
When trying to understand why we might be feeling unhappy, we tend to be drawn to reasons relatively close to…
View
Self-Knowledge
The Sinner Inside All of Us
In the public squares of the cities of northern Europe in the Middle Ages, a standard sight was of a…
View
Calm
Why Things May Need to Get Worse Before They Can Get Better
Our lives are often less than they could be because we are – strangely – too good at making things…
View