Windbag phobia

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
Plato
Background: I’m Finnish. Stereotypically, Finns only speak when there is something so important to say they just can’t bear the silence anymore. Continuing with the stereotype, a Finnish form of small talk is sitting in a circle (or a line, [...]

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Facing the Scary of Shiva Nata

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo
Shiva Nata is wonderful and inspiring. It’s also hugely difficult, frustrating and scary. Since I’ve had some stucknesses with my “practice” during the past few weeks, I’m [...]

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Tidbit Insightings, the Computer Crash Edition

Why should I go into details, we have nothing that is not perishable except what our hearts and our intellects endows us with.
Ovid
So my hard drive called it quits on Saturday. My darling tech-savvy fiancé did everything he could, but unfortunately the data is apparently beyond restoration, at least in any DIY manner. My last [...]

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Perfectionism, pessimism, and fear

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
I have one or two acquaintances who are self-proclaimed pessimists. As in, whenever they encounter a new situation, they promptly declare that it’ll never work because of this, that and the other reason. And whenever someone challenges their negative [...]

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The Three Motivation Musketeers 3: Relatedness

This is a series of posts about motivation, based on Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s Self Determination Theory. In each post, I will talk about one of the three key needs that are linked with intrinsic motivation: Competence, Autonomy, and Relatedness.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man [...]

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