Reading Time: 9 minutes Engaging meaningfully with new information is a process. Avoiding that engagement is called antiprocess. When it comes to people’s beliefs, antiprocess is how they avoid confronting challenges and contradictions, and still come out thinking that they totally nailed that fight.
Psychology
Secular writers explore human behavior through the lens of psychology.
Posted inPsychology
For the Trump faithful, it comes down to plot armor
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you are trying to puzzle out reality, Trump is done. If you are writing a story with Trump as the hero, he’s invulnerable. The difference comes down to an irritating artifact of bad drama.
Posted inPsychology
When gods are held accountable
Reading Time: 3 minutes All gods are human-made, and we make them unaccountable for a reason. That includes the human-made god currently in the dock, whose followers can’t get past the very idea of accountability to consider the charges.
Posted inPsychology
The art of losing yourself
Reading Time: 3 minutes According to creativity researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, when you’re lost in an all-consuming activity, you don’t have enough attention left over to notice that you exist. Welcome to the flow state.
Posted inPsychology
The methadone of the people
Reading Time: 6 minutes A lot of us are mystified that so many Millennials and Gen Z, after finding their way out of religion, have flopped right over to astrology and crystals. Between 40 and 62% of Gen Z give at least some credence to astrology. It shouldn’t mystify us.
Posted inPolitics
Trump and his cult of cognitive dissonance
Reading Time: 4 minutes Trump is in legal hot water. But what will be more interesting for observers is not his reaction but that of his fervent followers.
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
The pleasure of walking in rain
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’re part of nature, and we should embrace it. An occasional walk in the rain, letting yourself get wet on purpose, is a secular ritual that will remind you of the deep connection we all have to nature.
Posted inPsychology
Let me start over
Reading Time: 3 minutes When I left teaching to become a full-time writer, a canyon opened up between my words and my self. My ability to speak on my feet evaporated, replaced by a reliance on the careful edit.
Posted inPsychology
The Trump lover: How a dangerous political emotion undermines democracy
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why do Republicans stick with Donald Trump? The rational thing would be for Republicans to find another champion of their ideas who is not tainted by overwhelming character flaws and indictments. Perhaps the Party leaders are making a rational calculation about the need to appease the Trumpian base. But that calculus is inextricably linked to […]
Posted inPsychology
Are you intelligent?
Reading Time: 4 minutes How do you know how intelligent you are? Is intelligence about amassing information or knowing what to do with the information you have? Is intelligence genetic, or can you learn it? How would you measure intelligence? Would you frame a series of questions you know you’ll smash because you have the necessary life experience to win? […]