Category: Uncategorized

Anxiety is a bitch. And the beliefs behind it are even worse. When people struggle with Generalized Anxiety or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, they get trapped in “the what-ifs.” What if I have cancer? What if I’ll never get married? What if my parents never return? What if I’ll never feel good about myself? In the context of an often cruel universe, “the what-ifs” don’t seem so absurd. In its more benign form, life will leave us trapped in our ruminations. But, in its more malevolent one, they’ll actually come to pass. Existentially speaking, we can never know for sure that we’ll be safe.

I teach my clients critical thinking in the form of the cognitive thought record to help them better manage the fear of uncertainty and, worse, their pessimistic thinking. I try to tell them that they don’t need to trust themselves as long as they can trust the…

Who Is Gustave Loiseau?

Gustave Loiseau (3 October 1865–10 October 1935) was a French Post-Impressionist painter, remembered above all for his landscapes and scenes of Paris streets. ^[1]Wikipedia

Loiseau and the Coasts of Normandy

Born in Paris in 1865, Gustave Loiseau, like many of the Impressionist painters, found inspiration in the coast of Normandy. InFalaises de Saint-Jouin, Loiseau eliminates almost every sign of human presence, choosing instead to focus on nature itself.The composition is anchored by the dramatic cliffs on the right, and framed by a wide expanse of sea and sky.

Sotheby’s

FAR EAST, SOUTH ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA

First published in 2007, Tahmima Anam’s intimate civil war tale A Golden Age won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First Book and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. The edition I read was published in 2012 as part of the Canongate ‘the Canons‘ list, which is a slightly strange mixture of ‘boundary-breaking’ books that Canongate decided either were already classics in their own right, or deserved to be. I’m not convinced the collection has aged that well, but it’s an audacious idea.

Anam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh (and now lives in the UK). This, her debut novel, is set in 1971 in East Pakistan, where Rehana Haque, a young widow, is throwing a party. Anam is great on description of food, Rehana is an excellent cook and the feast is described in loving detail. But civil conflict…

“If he/she wanted to he/she would” is the most overused and misguided phrase in consolation. By saying it, the person on the other end attempts to provide his friend with tough-love, to say without saying: You need to move on. It’s akin to the saying: She’s just not that into you. Yet, most of the time, she’s just not that into anyone. But the tough-love crowd doesn’t seem to get it.

Romance has a multitude of barriers: income, self-image, fear of criticism from the prospective partner or one’s circle, fear of abandonment, fear of guilt, lack of sexual chemistry (which may be more internal than external), and so on. Yet, we’re keen on reducing rejection to the last barrier on that list and not only that, but to the version of sexual chemistry which implies that you just aren’t doing it for her/him. As you can imagine, this version of…