Laurence Mesirow
The Impossible Task Of Always Pinning Down What Is True
In today’s world, the main entity of knowledge by which people apprehend the world is a datum. Unless something lends itself to verification by the empirical evidence that a datum represents, it is not...
Living On A Psychological Treadmill
In today’s world, people increasingly define themselves and are defined by others with regard to what they do rather than who they are. The more that daily life becomes easier, becomes more frictionless, the...
Solving Meaningless Problems To Feel Alive
The human need to have some kind of control over his living environment has been fundamental to his survival. Control comes in many forms: superior knowledge, sharpened skills, good financial resources, powerful modern technology,...
Touch Has Become So Boring
Touching has become such a boring activity in modern technological society. In terms of the hard things that we have to deal with such as furniture, implements and devices, everything is either made of...
That Which Propels Our Lives Today
A young friend of mine in her twenties was recently discussing with me that if she decided to go to graduate school, she would like to do research into intrinsic motivators. Her desire triggered...
The News As A Substitute For Life
No matter where one goes in modern technological society, it is hard to escape the news. People are reading newspapers and magazines in some form, whether hard copy or online. People are listening to...
Being Seduced Into Giving Up One’s Control Of Things
Driving has become more and more frictionless and more and more mediated. From gear shift to automatic. From manual steering to power steering. From manual brakes to power brakes. Then there is cruise control. ...
Living Life Without Devices
I spend so much time focusing on the negative in this column and not enough focusing on the positive, on the potential solutions to many of our emotional and behavioral problems today. I guess...
Is Emptiness A Part Of Paradise?
Perhaps it is since the Enlightenment that the concept of Individualism has permeated so much of Western society and later industrialized non-Western societies. Once one believes in the importance of the individual and at...
Being A Space Traveler In Your Own Space
Virtual reality is something that has been discussed several times in this column, and it is becoming an increasingly important mode of life experience in today’s society. Initially, it has involved more perceptual experience...
