Strange; this life can feel so strange. We are born into an environment that seems to compel us to reach and continue to reach. As children, we learn the rules early: kindergarten is meant to lead to Grade 1, Grade 2, and so on. We are taught, explicitly and implicitly, that we should strive, reach, become more, and make something of ourselves. And to that … Continue reading “Right,” Where I Am
Hello there! How are you doing today? How was the week? I had a relaxing week. This is the last calm week before the storm so I am trying to make the most of it. Here is the question for today: If you were to to explain what keeps us together and helps us going in one word, what would that word be? I would … Continue reading Hope
Emerging through hardship Continue reading On the Duality of Life
How fortunate I am to have been raised by loving parents. Although not perfect (for who in human form is?), my parents set many fine examples of how to be in this world. They encouraged–more importantly practiced–honesty, caring, generosity, and industriousness. One of their powerful examples was that of saying grace before eating our meals. As a child, with head bowed and eyes closed, I … Continue reading God At My Table
Hello! Let’s talk about life transitions today. As you might know, I recently finished my dissertation and I will no longer be a student. I have been a student for about 24 years by now. So, this new chapter in my life is very exciting and I am looking forward to it but also a bit intimidating. I do not know how life is when … Continue reading How to handle transitions in life
Over the past 3 years with Pointless Overthinking, I’ve loved getting to know our community of bloggers and blog-lovers. I’m surrounded by inspiration and aspire to give back even a fraction of the amount of motivation I’ve received. Through this community, I connected to a podcast created for writers that explores topics of the writer’s journey such as: the fear of failure, rejection, trusting the … Continue reading Great Writers Are Great Readers… and Listeners
As noted by the philosopher Aristotle, humans are ‘social animals’ who exist and thrive in communities. We have the ability to devise sophisticated institutions enabling us to co-operate with others across cultures and borders. We can see how interwoven our lives all are through the complex interdependencies in our economies, societies and in the natural environment. As humans, we exist in broader networks and are … Continue reading Expanding Circles: Spiritual Exercises as a Bridge Towards Cosmopolitanism
The paradigm of reality that is related in this article is radically different from the one that we’ve been conditioned to believe. Almost everyone, particularly in western-type cultures, has been programmed to blindly accept that they are a separate self (the little “i”) who either gains, and is, therefore, labelled a success; or losses, and is, therefore, labelled a failure. Due to this, it’s our natural tendency to judge … Continue reading The Story of Gain and Loss
Hello there! Today, going with the theme of my last few posts, I want to discuss one other internal change I went through in the past 5-6 months: no longer claiming to know what is good for me and leaving it God’s hands what happens in my life. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my marriage was called off one month before the actual … Continue reading Let it happen
In To Have or to Be? the sociologist Erich Fromm argues that there are two distinct modes of existence. These are unique ways in which we relate to others and the world around us. Having The first is the ‘having mode.’ This is characterized by an attitude of acquiring or possessing things. It is when an individual defines themselves by what they have or own, … Continue reading Erich Fromm on Having Versus Being
Please accept my apologies for posting two days in a row. It’s generally not a good thing to do with so many of my talented colleagues able to offer so many great pieces. But I felt a need to write this as I lay awake last night, and realized that April is the month American, British, and other Allied soldiers first discovered the freshly abandoned … Continue reading April, 2022, Meet April, 1945
We are warned by psychologists and counselors to heal our apparent wounds; to recognize the importance of dealing with our emotional issues. To carry them into the so-called future is paramount to inviting a tiger to claw at us whenever it pleases. Such is not a way to live, or thrive, because there remains the threat that the wound will rip open again and bleed … Continue reading The Blink of A Porch Light
PEOPLE OF EARTH : If you’re free and/or bored today at either 1:00pm or 6:00pm American Eastern Daylight Time, please click on a link below to watch a FREE live stream of a reading from New York City of my new play about Dorothy Parker. For those of you who may not know, a play reading is where the actors (two, in this case) read … Continue reading And Now A Brief Pause In Pointless Overthinking For Some Shameless Self-Promoting
Hello! I have come to the realization in recent years (especially in recent months) that it is very important to understand your nature. Don’t resist your natural state. Here is what I mean: I realized that I am very much of a perfectionist when it comes to work (and just as chill with everything else). What I used to do was to take on too … Continue reading Understand you
A meditation on wonder Continue reading Wonder
(This article was orinally posted on my own blog site) The inspiration for this article arose from two recent events. The first was related to the poignant account of a man whose wife had recently passed away; of how he and his wife had walked a pathway together for many years, including periods when her body-mind had been ill. The second occurred when I read the … Continue reading Quit Thy Childhood, Wake Up
Hello everyone! In my post last week, here, I talked about how silent and calm times are often followed by busy times. This is what happened with me last fall (calm times) and then this winter (busy times). I would normally expect myself to be very overwhelmed, especially given that all the things that happened were very important things for my life (dissertation defense, moving … Continue reading What we cannot control
Much of our suffering and psychological problems we face are due to the fact that we are using ancient cognitive machinery to deal with the complexities of the modern world. Humans evolved though a process called natural selection in which genes that were best suited for their respective environments were passed on to the next generation. As Robert Wright notes in his book Why Buddhism is … Continue reading Mindfulness and Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer
Hello everyone! Wishing you all a great Sunday and a great week! Life has a habit of presenting us with times of unusually busy schedules right after often very stagnant periods. It looks like nothing is happening for months and then boom, everything happens at the same time. Maybe we are presented with those stagnant times first so we can rest properly and get the … Continue reading The Price of Resting too much: Chaos
Happy Sunday to my fellow bloggers and blog-lovers. In my corner of the world, it feels like summer is jussst around the corner. I’m not sure about you, but I’ve been feeling a little drained lately. There’s a pile of things pulling me in all different directions today. So in lieu of that, I’m going to share with you something that really fills my cup. … Continue reading On the philosophy of loving and losing
