Everyday there are constant reminders of the difference between how we are perceived and how we perceive ouselves, between one´s reputation and one´s self-image. Yesterday I dropped into St. Gallen for a day of “Adam is good to himself today”. Chatted with Starbuck´s colleagues, had a meal and a movie with my good friend Adrian,… Continue reading Through the looking glass
Tag: psychology
Them and us: points of view
Young men and women have been, and will continue to be, fighting and dying in the Middle East, and though they do so in the names of their home nations, I wonder if they really understand WHY they are doing so. In the Gulf War and the War with Iraq and the War in Afghanistan,… Continue reading Them and us: points of view
The need to understand
With rare exception almost every Westerner remembers where they were and what they were doing when the planes struck the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001. I remember being at a teaching colleague´s home near Bad Krozingen discussing work when one of her friends called her up and told us… Continue reading The need to understand
Bodies on the beach
Let´s talk about what we struggle to discuss, what we find difficult to comprehend…the Tunisia beach attack. 24-year-old student Serfeddine Rezgui was shot dead by Tunisian police after he attacked a beach of international Western tourists killing, at last count, 39 people. His bullets did not distinguish between nationalities as unarmed vacationing Brits, Germans, Irish,… Continue reading Bodies on the beach
The Last Chance Saloon
The mind loves its little games at times. It imagines things that cannot be. It invents ideas that have not been. It plays and teases with both the conscious and unconscious parts of our self. Especially when one emerges from the cocoon of slumber the mind still continues to operate in a dreamlike hallucinatory state.… Continue reading The Last Chance Saloon
The enemy electronic
Yesterday I wrote a post in this blog asking for feedback, asking for requests as to what should appear in these posts… Hank Broomfield, an old friend from my youth, (Yes, I had one!), wrote he was satisfied but being the visual guy he is he wanted pictures. (When I figure out how…) Sumit Panigrahi,… Continue reading The enemy electronic
Lessons from old Europe (and India) to America
Consider the teenager… Prone to emotion, quick to enrage, quick to find fault, filled with self-doubt, impatient, quick to hate, acting prouder and wiser than actual experience justifies, a dreamer but not much of a thinker, a braggart in victory, overly-sensitive in defeat, a bully who feels might makes right unless it is he being… Continue reading Lessons from old Europe (and India) to America
USA: Unlimited sadness allowed
I am just one voice. A Canadian resident in Switzerland with unimpressive credentials and thus uninspiring credibility. I am far removed from the problems in America and thus unlikely to restrain America from its determination to self-destruct, a determination that is as old as the history of the United States itself. The news out of… Continue reading USA: Unlimited sadness allowed
Underdog University
“There is only one road to human greatness: through the school of hard knocks.” Albert Einstein There are moments that show me how very different at times my way of thinking seems to be from the general Swiss philosophy of looking at life. Here in Switzerland documents rule. One cannot do anything without the accompanying… Continue reading Underdog University
Death and despair defeated
The past month has been good for me in that it has awakened long dormant feelings and ambitions that I am only now starting to act upon. Part of this has, of course, been connected with my domestic situation at home, which, after the mother of all discussions and arguments, seems, for the first time… Continue reading Death and despair defeated