Emotional Terrain: Anxiety – Fear in Search of a Cause
Patricia Pearson defines anxiety as fear in search of a cause. Fear is an immediate emotional response to a perceived threat, which results in potent feelings of apprehension, dread, terror and panic. In its most intense form, the fear response is specific to a time, place, moment, circumstance, or situation. In the midst of a [...]
Memory: The Revival of Experience
[Exploring Life] What is the nature of our memory? We often associate memory with an ability to remember, recollect, recall, or revive, a mental impression that refers to a past experience. The prefix “re” means again and again and therefore repetition; we associate repetition with memory in the sense that we can recall an experience [...]
Time: Dreaming Time
[Exploring Life] Defining time is an immensely difficult task. We superimpose clocks and calendars as a means to orient ourselves to the natural cycles of the earth. Both clocks and calendars are ideas that serve to create presuppositions about how we relate to the movement and flow of our lives. A “new year” is a [...]
Mental Degradation: Habit – Involuntary Routines
How much of our experience is driven by involuntary tendencies and habits? Understanding the nature and essence of habit in our lives is an essential task. Habits are both inevitable and unavoidable. They are a medium of perception; a complex network of filters that influence how we interpret and orient ourselves to everyday life. The [...]
Mental Clarity: Mindful Learning
[Exploring Life] In Mindful Learning, Ellen J. Langer describes mindful learning as “the simple act of drawing distinctions” with specific reference to learning. She draws a distinction between mindful and mindless forms of learning. Her work focuses on the integration of the Buddhist concept of awareness (or mindfulness) with modern conceptions of learning, which are [...]
Food: What is Food?
[Exploring Life] Most of what we buy in a grocery store is not food. Manufactured, processed, or modified products are not real food, they are food imitations or edible food-like substances. Food imitations might begin in nature but are then modified through the addition of additives in manufacturing and processing facilities before becoming available to [...]