He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how – Nietzsche. When it comes to meaning I feel that I need to nail my colours to the mast. It is a big topic and sometimes a very controversial one. For me it implicates the core of who we are – which [...]
Continue reading about The Rough Guide to Self-Development Part Seven the meaning of (my) life
I have a guest post on the Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life blog. It is called After the Breakthrough Comes the Work of Consolidation. Breakthroughs get our attention – they are gripping at the time and memorable in retrospect. But they aren’t a major part of our time – we spend most of the time [...]
Our western culture I think overestimates the importance of thinking. For instance, our schooling (which I refuse to call education) is almost entirely focused on thinking. In Australia of late there is a push of the ‘back to basics’ variety – the basics being reading, writing and ‘rithmatic. The basics are not considered to be [...]
Continue reading about The Rough Guide to Self-Development Part Six learning from our feelings
Not so long ago, in a universe quite close to this one there was the realm of Slaog. I would like to take you on a tour. Slaog is in many ways a nice place to be – here, life works. People know what they need and want – and their set about achieving these [...]
Continue reading about The Rough Guide to Self Development Part Five A Visit to Slaog
Can we predict how healthy we will be in our old age? We all have an interest in the answer to this question! Most of us, I would think, want to know what will give us a healthy old age. A word of caution: These predictions are about statistics and averages – which means that [...]
Ageing is partly a process of finding out what our preferences are. I haven’t tasted a banana in years. Why not? Because I know that I don’t like bananas. Lately I have tried a few beers with fruit flavours added – lime and so forth. The result? The fruit mostly takes away the bitter edge [...]
There are three tasks or personal qualities that are especially relevant to old age. These are well explained in George Vaillant’s Ageing Well. They are: generativity, keeping the meaning and integrity. Generativity Generativity as defined by (Ageing Well p.115) John Kotre: To invest oneself in forms of life and work that will outlive the self. [...]
It is interesting to study how some people age well (and George Vaillant’s book Ageing Well is a great study of them). The question this raises is: So what? That radio station we like to tune into: WIIFM (What’s in it for me?). Can I do anything that makes it more likely I will age [...]
Continue reading about Ageing Well – can we do anything about it?
I’m Ageing Some of us are getting on a bit. OK, I’m getting on a bit. I turned 50 this year. This makes me (at least) middle aged. A few of my contemporaries have already died. I don’t feel panicked, but perhaps a little sobered. My parents (both 84) are still alive, so I haven’t [...]
These three blogs are all about changing our world for the better. First up, because it has the biggest agenda, is On The Commons. This blog covers the whole of our social lives from the perspective of what we share – rather than private ownership. It is biased to the US in its coverage. Consistently [...]
Continue reading about Great Blogs about Social Change (making utopia real #3)
