You Are an Organism, Not a Mechanism.
The difference is relevant to every aspect of life. You are an organism, not a mechanism. Though this seems the most obvious insight, still we mostly act as if the reverse is true. Even the working of the brain used to be understood as some kind of hydraulic system with pressure valves and the like, Read the full article…
Body-Talk
Whether on stage or in love or in company or before a church or anywhere: the body speaks. Even more: it is heard. [DISCLAIMER: There are experts with far more expertise than me. My broad interest is where my audacity comes from.] The body is indeed heard. Thus, it’s important for you to also listen Read the full article…
Is ‘Open Religion’ the Future?
In a world replete with separate religions, that what overlaps-in-depth may show a way towards Open Religion. Being an adherent of one specific religion at the principled exclusion of others, is definitely not open. ‘Inter-religious dialogue’ is in many cases just a kindly disguised way to (non-)accept each other for some specific common goal. We Read the full article…
Monogamy?
You might not like this. Please bear with me until the end. I will repeat that this idea is not unconditionally applicable. About ‘mono’ in monogamy Is it merely about a one-on-one relationship at a superficial level? As in “Thy Shall not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Consort”? Or is it primarily about a deeper level, as Read the full article…
Against Aggression Against Terrorism
Aggressively fighting terrorism is putting fuel on terrorism. There are other ways. Relatively (!) seen, terrorism is not the biggest problem. Worldwide, there are 11.7K terrorism deaths per year – mostly in Africa, versus for instance 450K through homicide, 1.3M through traffic accidents, 184K through drinking sugary beverages… Of course, each premature death is one Read the full article…
The End of War
War is not inevitable. At some point in the future, there will be no war ever anymore. We can think about what is needed towards that. No war is worth it. Let’s be reasonable. However, an argument against pacifism is that it leads aggressive opponents to seek their chances on war or economic invasion. Right. Read the full article…
Particle-arities
Talking about ‘things’ may make something look like a ‘thing’. Does that make a ‘fundamental particle’ a ‘thing’? [This is an ‘Ultimates’ text. Please, don’t take it at face value.] Mind-games forever I’m just a curious guy, I guess, who sometimes as a hobby likes to think about different ‘things’ in different ways… as a Read the full article…
Burnout Prevention: Burning Efficiently
It’s a question of gears: driving in a gear too high makes you spend a lot of energy in an inefficient way. Moreover, your engine may get into a burnout. That’s even an original meaning of the word ‘burnout’ itself: an engine gets into too high a gear and starts to smoke. It literally burns Read the full article…
Islamic Veil
This is an example of a broader issue. There is nothing intrinsically particular to Islam nor to the veil, besides being a kind-of-religion and a kind-of-piece of cloth. Open Religion I see a huge difference between nonconceptual re-ligion (‘Open Religion’) and any conceptual ‘god-view’ called religion where openness, depth… are barely understood. For more about Read the full article…
There is Still a Dire Need for More Empathy in Leadership
Good leadership is mostly defined as empathic, yet we frequently end up with a non-empathic, ‘coercive’ one. May this be related to ignoring the unconscious? Although a lot of science proves the importance of the unconscious, to many it is ‘the alien inside’, which provokes anxiety when there is even a possibility to have to Read the full article…
How to Become a Strongly Empathic Leader
Empathy gets wrongly confused with weakness. What we need is strong empathy. Empathy can be defined as understanding and sharing another person’s feelings and emotions, accompanied by a desire for action and while not canceling your own personality. It comes frequently together with integrity, authenticity and humility. Empathy is not a weakness. To constantly take into Read the full article…
How to Prevent Your Next Heart Attack – Using Your Mind.
This piece of ‘reverse causality’ might save the lives of millions… including yours. In the US, there are 8 million visits to Emergency Departments for chest pain yearly, while +/- 1.200.000 people have a heart attack, of which 40% end in death. May a mental procedure alleviate much of this suffering? And may it save Read the full article…
From Discussion to Conversation
This is not obvious to many people. Thereby they get into needless difficulties, trying to ‘win’ alone instead of to gain insight together. This is about people talking about some meaningful issue in a domain they both hold dear. Eventually of course, it can be any domain. A (converging) conversation is a being together, talking Read the full article…
Real Goals Point Towards Deepest Motivation.
Goals that really motivate are seldom those that readily come up when asked. Going deep, you may encounter the ones that energize you. There is no motivation but inner motivation. The inner in this phrase is the region deep inside your mind where ‘everything is formless’. If you could go there in your imagination, you Read the full article…
The Difference between Being Alone and Being Lonely
Being (= feeling) lonely is as much related to you as to your situation. Most of all, it is about a meaningful relationship with yourself. A person can be very alone, yet not feel lonely – and a person can feel very lonely, yet not be alone. The fact that this is possible, means that Read the full article…
Is Man Morally Makeable?
Is Man Morally Makeable? IF there is a moral standard, can man be made to approach it? For instance, can one be made into a ‘good leader’? [Man or woman. I just love the alliteration.] For many centuries of course, this has been a main goal of education: to make humans into ‘better humans’. This Read the full article…
Science = Re-ligion
Science is frequently seen as partly or even completely opposite to religion. In the sense of re-ligion however, things get reversed. Science is the quest to know the universe as it is and not as someone of a few centuries or even millennia ago has imagined it. Back then, almost nothing was known on many Read the full article…