Taken from a short and sweet book of insights about life, love and loss by Mary McEvoy… As life goes on, the clothesline diminishes again, families part, spouses leave or die. The clothesline now displays a gender specific wardrobe of perhaps an adventurous widow, or an ordered man on his own in neat contentment. IContinue reading “Comforting Thought: A changing clothesline”
Category Archives: Comforting Thought
Comforting Thought: Trust begins when someone dares to go against the flow
Like hatred, trust can be contagious… What if negative ideas around human nature are actually a form of pluralistic ignorance? Could our fear that most people are out to maximise their own gain be borne of the assumption that that’s what other’s think? And then we adopt a more cynical view, when, deep down mostContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Trust begins when someone dares to go against the flow”
Comforting thought: Liking something is all about anticipation and memory
It turns out we like things when we have the opportunity to pine for them in anticipation and also to think about them fondly as a memory. ‘Liking’ something happens on a continuum of past, present and future according to the fascinating book about tastes, You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt. Even as youContinue reading “Comforting thought: Liking something is all about anticipation and memory”
Comforting Thought: Humans are hardwired to be attracted to imperfection
Humans instinctively understand the organic imperfections of the human face, however we experience a ‘visual shock’ when we see severe disfigurement. Taken from the fascinating book ‘You May Also Like’ by Tom Vanderbilt. There is one brain response that never falters – severe disfigurement. And so Bacon’s ‘Visual Shock’ as he calls it seems toContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Humans are hardwired to be attracted to imperfection”
Comforting thought: Museums are ways of seeing
According to the fascinating book about preferences and tastes, ‘You May Also Like’ by Tom Vanderbilt, museums help us see the odd and remarkable in everyday objects. They also give us cues about the boundaries of art. “The fact that art is not something we see everyday is what makes it extraordinary. This is whyContinue reading “Comforting thought: Museums are ways of seeing”
Interesting Thought: We like things according to a U-shaped curve
One leading theory by Daniel Berlyne is that our liking of things such as music follows an inverted U shaped graph, based on the factor of complexity. We prefer and like things less the more simple or complex they are. The sweet spot for most people is somewhere in the middle. You May Also LikeContinue reading “Interesting Thought: We like things according to a U-shaped curve”
Comforting Thought: We remember what we like/we like what we remember
Memory functions in curious and fascinating ways according to the fascinating guide to why we like things called ‘You May Also Like’ by Tom Vanderbilt. One of the simplest and most innocent forms of bias is memory itself. In various types of competitions, people who performed later seemed to do better. You might think, asContinue reading “Comforting Thought: We remember what we like/we like what we remember”
Comforting Thought: I am what I look at
“In essence, one becomes what one participates in. In other words, I am what I look at.”― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
Comforting Thought: We all have four limbs and a shared history
“Just as all humans are the same and each human differs. All species are the same and each species differs, and within that, each creature too, is an individual. It is a matter of mystery and delight compounded that so many species can bring that buondary between us, so that the hawk looks for theContinue reading “Comforting Thought: We all have four limbs and a shared history”
Comforting Thought: The dancers are free
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what each of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life,Continue reading “Comforting Thought: The dancers are free”
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