#psychology


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  • Shameless

    Interesting how shamelessness can be so corrosive in one context, yet so liberating in another.

  • Threatening

    Swedes across the political spectrum have exceedingly thin skin; it’s very easy to hurt our delicate feelings.

  • True Sailors

    Learning to sail was never about toughening up.

  • Commitment Issues

    A certain gym chain is currently running an ad campaign in my city, asking whether locals have “commitment issues”. If so, not to worry: expensive-looking personal trainers stand ready — subcontractors in the department of willpower. I thought of that as I finished Lena Andersson’s third and final book about Ester Nilsson. The series never…

  • Ice Man

    I’ve just finished reading Alfred Lansing’s 1959 classic Endurance, which recounts how Ernest Shackleton and his men survived seventeen months in Antarctica after their ship was crushed in the ice. It’s a hell of a story. I’m struck by how Shackleton struggled to make regular life work. In the cushioned world of upper-middle-class London, he was…

  • Non-explosive Demolition Agent

    I’ve thought of this trick often, usually when I’m on the receiving end of someone else’s heat – whether it’s a lump of human ego or a chunk of granite.