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 [...]
Emotional Terrain: Grief – Exploring Absence
[Exploring Life] In the Time Magazine article New Ways to Think About Grief Ruth Davis Konigsberg explores some common misconceptions of grief. She proposes that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – are in fact not stages. Kubler-Ross was focused on identifying the stages of grief each of [...]
Mental Degradation: Multitasking and the Inner Athelete
[Exploring Life] In Mental Degradation: Multitasking I explored the possibility that multitasking, or the ability to simultaneously process tasks, is a delusion. What really happens in the brain is a rapid shifting of attention between a series of tasks that creates the illusion of simultaneity. This constant shifting of attention is also the basis for [...]
Mental Degradation: Caffeinated or Decaffeinated Learning?
Caffeine is an addictive substance that produces stimulative effects in the body and mind. Caffeine simultaneously affects our body and mind and therefore influences how we think, feel and act. If we developed a diet based on the principle of do no harm to body or mind, then caffeine would be eliminated. If we developed [...]
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 Degradation: Toxic Food Toxic Mind
[Exploring Life] What we eat has a direct and immediate affect on how we behave. Though we may practice relaxation, mindfulness, and meditation in order to foster a sense of equanimity in our body and mind, we completely undermine our efforts by eating food additives (i.e. – chemical additives that are not really food) and [...]
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 [...]