Stories From the Ground.

“And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you.” – Pink Floyd, Time

Psychological Time Dilation

As we get older, our minds play a mean trick on us: the more we appreciate the value of time, the more fleeting it seems to become. As children, some periods might have seemed like eternities. But as adults, they can seem like mere moments. This effect—where time appears to truncate with age—has a few explanations, with the most popular treating it as a matter of simple math.

Continue reading “Considering Hindsight: Does Time Really Speed Up with Age?”

“You cannot possibly say that you are what you think yourself to be! Your ideas about yourself change from day to day and from moment to moment. Your self-image is the most changeful thing you have.”—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

“There is no difference between our own being and the knowing of our own being, just as there is no difference between the sun and its shining.”—Rupert Spira, Being Aware of Being Aware

The Secular Soul

For millennia, religion has buttressed many harmful beliefs. Under its banner, people have enthusiastically drowned “witches”, stoned adulterers, burned heretics, beheaded apostates, abhorred homosexuals and, more generally, despised progress. Because of this grim track-record, non-believers often scoff at religious faith, seeing it as not just ill-founded but downright dangerous. Continue reading “What is Nondualism?”

“Humans may be vulnerable to bias and error, but clearly not all of us all the time, or no one would ever be entitled to say that humans are vulnerable to bias and error.” — Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

On occasion, big ideas escape scholarly circles and take hold in the popular consciousness. Freed from the constraints of academic rigour, such ideas quickly find themselves where they don’t belong. For instance, confused people have taken the Big Bang as proof of Genesis 1:3 (“Let there be light”), used quantum mechanics to peddle half-baked science and spirituality, and enlisted natural selection to justify all manner of abuse. Lately, a similar sense of confusion has emerged around the idea of cognitive biases. Continue reading “Can Reason and Bias Coexist?”

“What can you gain from only expecting good experiences?” — Steve Armstrong, Meditation Teacher

I. The Downside of Comfort

Most people know, at some level, that their lives are limited by the size of their comfort zones. Life rarely offers reward without first subjecting us to discomfort, so if we can’t tolerate discomfort we can’t lead rewarding lives. Unfortunately, by relentlessly shaping modern life to suit our desires, we’ve lost much of our ability to withstand discomfort. Because we seldom need to forego food, shelter, entertainment, or social contact, we’ve become accustomed to overly comfortable lives. Though this might not sound like such a bad thing—after all, who doesn’t want to be comfortable?—our attachment to comfort causes much misery. Continue reading “The Mindful Case for Cold Showers”

“If time is truly seen to be nonexistent, then living in the now is an inevitable consequence of that understanding.” — Rupert Spira

“There is simply constant change, continuous adjustment, and random selection in an eternal present.” — Andrew Sullivan, The Conservative Soul

Runaway Imaginings

Few things in life are as revered as the human imagination, and for good reason. All of our great stories, works of art, systems of cooperation, and technologies were birthed and nurtured in the imaginings of human minds. Without imagination we would be an impoverished species, vastly limited in our possibilities. For many people, this connection—between imagination and human possibility—has made imagination a kind of synonym for limitless freedom; imagination can set a person free, whether they’re a student daydreaming in class, a single mother dreaming of a better life, or a prisoner of war dreaming of life back home.

However, because we idolize imagination we rarely appreciate how, more often than not, it leaves us feeling trapped. Continue reading “Time: A Changing Present”

“People with a lot of talent and an inclination to work hard are extremely fortunate.” – Robert H. Frank, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy

The Myth of Cosmic Justice

Life is challenging. Without exception, it involves hard work, difficult choices, and painful losses, spread against a backdrop of insecurity and uncertainty. We deal with life’s challenges as best we can, establishing islands of certainty and security to hold its turbulence at bay. Through work, friends, and family, we insure our basic material and social needs. Through art, entertainment, and personal pursuits, we search for spiritual satisfaction. But no matter how carefully we structure our lives, we live under the light of an unsettling fact, which is that life is fundamentally unfair. Continue reading “Luck and the Meaning of Life”