Created Equal But Evolved Differently
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, According to the science of biology, people were not ‘created’. They have evolved. And they certainly did not evolve to be ‘equal’. The idea of equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. The Americans got the idea […]
Binding Pleasure and Displeasure
Philosopher Alain de Botton writes in The Consolations of Philosophy: What if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other … you have the choice: either as little displeasure as possible, painlessness in brief … […]
Memory is Conditioned by Emotion
Isabel Allende writes in the memoir My Invented Country, Memory is conditioned by emotion; we remember better, and more fully, things that move us, such as the joy of a birth, the pleasure of a night of love, the pain of a loved one’s death, the trauma of a wound. When we call up the […]
Keeping a Crowd of Characters Waiting
R. K. Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami,) one of India’s notable English-language authors writes in the epilogue to The Talkative Man about the contended brevity of his novel: The difficulty lies perhaps in classification. Talkative Man is too long to be a short story, but is it too short for a novel? I prefer the […]
Living in a Dual Reality
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. […]
Each Individual’s Tale is Unique and Tragic
Neil Gaiman writes in the novel American Gods, There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster […]
Genes and Their Survival Machines
Richard Dawkins writes in his best-selling The Selfish Gene, Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four […]
Growing in Love and Understanding
Pema Chodron writes in The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction. What is it that allows our goodwill to […]
Culture and Forbiddance of Unnatural Behavior
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. […]
History of Copyright Law
The first law regulating copyright in the world was issued in Great Britain on 10-Apr-1710, making it possible for authors to truly own their own work. “the Author of any Book or Books already Printed, who hath not Transferred to any other the Copy or Copies of such Book or Books, Share or Shares thereof, […]