Wellsbaum.blog

Writing about life and arts

Psychology

  • Crossing to safety

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    1 min read

    Home is where the heart is, but it is not where we discover what the world is about. All reality exists in the streets, behind the shadows of a passerby. What is artificial is the parochial nature of home. We are blind to what we can’t see, organizing our periphery to notice and absorb what…

  • The 2-minute exercise that could make you more successful

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    2 min read

    According to Harvard psychologist Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage, it is happiness that begets success and not the other way around. And one of the quickest ways to boost your mood is to start by sending someone a quick email every morning. The simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking…

  • We are a plastic society

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    1 min read

    We have become a plastic society, with celebrities (not leaders) running the world stage and ‘geniuses‘ creating culture. While social media gives everyone a microphone, it also permits mediocrity to rise up to the professional level. When these influencers take public responsibility, they can further colonize large parts of our minds. To echo Hannah Arendt…

  • Anxious/Hopeful

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    1 min read

    Anxious, hopeful or both? A new installation wants to know

  • Time keeps on slipping into the future

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    1 min read

    Time is moving at warp speed. But is it time or our habits that permit time to slip into the future? Today’s perception is irreality. We spend more time looking into our devices than we do looking up at the world. What seems like 2 minutes pecking at the phone turns into 20 minutes of…

  • Missing the details

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    1 min read

    How fantastically great and rare it is to immerse ourselves in something (a job, a concert, our art) that removes the friction of anxiety and doubt? The plethora of digital choice impedes the aura of experience and human connection. With so much stimuli, it’s easy to miss the pleasures of a laughing flower, the beauty…

  • The Truman Show Delusion

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    1 min read

    Some people believe that all reality is one big TV show and they’re the star. Others seem to think that the world is simulated and that their life has always been lived on a predetermined stage. But are we that special? Your fingerprints are uniquely yours. So is your Twitter microphone. But in the age…

  • Technology spreads unreality

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    1 min read

    The reason we’re so comfortable around friends is because we can strip away the plastic and can be ourselves, zits and all. The problem with social media is that while it allows for the perfected self, it also undermines reality. Juxtaposing our screen lives and raw selves can make us feel fraudulent. Technology spreads unreality.…

  • Dear Sheeple, are you part of the herd?

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    1 min read

    Each individual reduces danger to itself by moving to the center of the group. The herd appears as a unit, but its function emerges from the uncoordinated behavior of self-serving individuals. We copy others out of safety, thinking that it’s better to conform rather than be ostracized. So like lemmings, we do whatever else is doing, including…

  • Michael Pollan goes tripping on psychedelics for his new book

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    2 min read

    “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” That’s the short and sweet dietary advice offered by journalist Michael Pollan. But after writing Cooked, now he’s back with a new challenge: psychedelics. Pollan’s autobiography on his first-hand experience with LSD and mushrooms are sure to interest people once more. He tells the Financial Times: “There is…

  • When sharing is forgetting

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    2 min read

    We are not only taking too many photographs and spending little time looking at them, but we’re also inhibiting in our memory in the act. In a recent study done by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, those who document and Instagram their images are consistently less likely to remember their experience compared to the…

  • The epidemic of worry

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    1 min read

    [bha size=’120×120′ variation=’01’ align=’alignright’] “He doesn’t give out energy for the benefit of others. He absorbs energy at others’ cost.” – Francis O’Gorman, Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History In other words, the worrier is the opposite of a lighthouse.