As I sit here tonight, it’s Saturday night and everyone is in bed, I give thought to the phrase; mistaking a shiny penny for the sun, and I can’t say where it comes from. It says a lot in only a few words, so I thought I’d expand on it this week. It highlights the folly in materialism, of capitalism, and of the pursuit of one’s self in the world of things. I says I’m a fool, but
Welcome To The Sunday Letters Archive
Welcome to the Sunday Letters archive where you can read all past issues of the weekly Sunday Letters publication. Sunday Letters goes out weekly to subscribers to my material. Each week I try to present to you a different perspective of the world in which we live and work in an effort to encourage you to perhaps think differently about yourself and develop the courage to follow your creative passions. Subscribe free to get Sunday Letters each week.
Scepticism: An Antidote To The Dangers of Groupthink
Is scepticism a valued attribute of thinking in today’s society? Are sceptics valued or reviled? It’s certainly valuable to have healthy dose of scepticism, but maybe those social groups to which we belong would prefer if we’d get in line and be quiet. Maybe we ostracise ourselves and bring on unwanted attention when we question […]
On Becoming The Performatist
I was about 13 years old and I was training with the junior team after school. We were playing a short game into the goals at the railway side of the field. I was in corner-forward when the ball came to me. I turned and took a shot – it went wide. The coach looked […]
Carl Rogers on The Resolution of Internal Conflict
American psychologist Carl Rogers was one of the founders of the Person-centred Therapeutic Approach in psychology and a founding father of Humanistic Psychotherapy. Rogers was aligned with Maslow’s concept of the self-actualising person and suggested that for a person to recover from internal conflict, they require an environment of genuineness, acceptance and empathy with both […]
Whitehead: The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness
I watched The Truman Show for the second time in a couple of days this evening. It was released in 1998 – imagine that! It’s such a great movie with an excellent script and actor in the leading role. Carey understood the metaphor. He knew what the movie needed to portray, I would argue, because he perhaps had already lived it. Or maybe he was living it. Either way, he played the part well. I believed him. The story attempted to show the thinness of contemporary life, the deception of the firework display, and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness
Taking Score Too Soon
When the task becomes a toll on us, when we find ourselves taking score too soon and realise we don’t have what it takes, we lose enthusiasm, become discouraged and often give up. We’re caught in time. To achieve the result requires too much effort and so it’s not worth the time to learn the […]
On The Merits of Introversion
In the world of the extrovert, introversion is undesirable. At worst, introversion is a distinct disadvantage. The extrovert’s world is bright, noisy and stimulating. It dictates to us, demands our attention and more often than not, distracts us from things of true value. Things like time with family, time alone with our thoughts, and the benefit of doing things for no materially valuable reason. It’s an effort not to succumb to its lure. So much so that many of us relate being busy with personal value and worthiness.