Taking Down the Walls to Intimacy Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven Sometime during the first episode of BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, I fell in love with Mr. Darcy. So much so […]
Look Into My Eyes: The crucial role of eye contact in relationships
People are innately attracted to faces, especially eyes. The human face is associated with our identity; we are recognized more through our eyes than through any other facial feature. ”Because the eyes offer such rich social information, adults and infants alike show a natural attraction to the whole face,” write contributors to the APA handbook […]
The Elusive Muse: Reclaiming creativity and focus
For three months, I’ve resisted writing. I sat at my desk or the kitchen table—my favorite place to write—to compose an essay, but distraction beckoned me at every turn. The muse, that slippery, elusive impulse to create words from experiences and observations, had gone missing. Each week I’d tell myself that I’d write over the weekend, […]
Facebook’s False Face: Comparing our insides to other people’s outsides
We seldom deliberately present a bad face on social media. Selfie stick in hand, we depict ourselves smiling before an elaborate, expensive meal, in front of a landmark in an exotic land, or simply celebrating with friends (which all can see, including those not fortunate enough to be present in those moments). Accumulating ubiquitous likes […]
Implacable Grandeur: Mindfulness and Change
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Albert Camus Much of the human experience is determined by chance—factors completely outside our control. My father, […]
