In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James makes a distinction between two kinds of religious people: the ordinary religious believer versus the religious genius. The ordinary religious believer This is the person who oftentimes from his upbringing has been taught to be part of a particular religion. Most Christians are Christians because their parents … Read more
I’ve always liked cubism, but I was most familiar with Picasso’s work. What I didn’t know was that the development of cubism was really a creative collaboration between two artists. While Picasso gained incredible fame and wealth, and became indeed the first celebrity artist, the other one is largely forgotten outside of the art world: … Read more
We’re all on a healing journey. Healing from past traumas, healing from unresolved pain, healing from the wounds inflicted upon us and the scars of fear they left behind in our psyche. There are destructive and creative forces at work within each of us—and more proactively engaging with those creative energies is ultimately what will … Read more
I’m a somewhat weird creature. At times, I’m absolutely perfectionistic. Other times, I’m the exact opposite: seemingly careless and inattentive. It’s a very odd combination, paradoxical, but when did human beings ever make sense? But let’s look at the perfectionism first, and why I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. The thing about perfectionism is that … Read more
I don’t know where my own feelings of inadequacy come from, but I know they’ve been with me from an early age. As I’ve grown older and evolved as a person, these feelings, too, have evolved, and expressed themselves through different manifestations. I no longer feel inadequate about the things that made me feel inadequate … Read more
Where do you draw the line between reflecting about the past vs ruminating about it? You want to look at the past and learn from it, otherwise you’ll go through life making the same mistakes again and again, never learning and evolving, only getting older but no wiser. On the other hand, you also don’t … Read more
All artists experience creative blocks at some point. In fact, not having a creative block is more the exception than the rule—that certainly is the case for me. Getting into a creative flow state is a rather rare experience, and every time I do it feels like I got lucky and struck gold. But I … Read more
Here’s a simple, but powerful writing exercise that’s helped me tremendously with my daily writing habit. Pick one of your favorite passages from one of your favorite books. Read it. And then rewrite it; try to make it better than the original. You will fail. That’s ok. An exercise is not about the end result. … Read more
Life sometimes feels like an emotional rollercoaster—a rollercoaster you can’t get off. You’re stuck in that ride, in a seemingly endless procession of ups and downs that leaves you feeling nauseous and exhausted after a while. Maybe you often act unreasonable, or you repeatedly do things you later regret. If things get too overwhelming, your … Read more
It was the year 2001, and System of a Down were working on Chop Suey—which would become one of their most iconic songs. Serj, the songwriter, didn’t have words for a certain section of the song. He was in the library of his producer at the time, Rick Rubin, and Rubin told him: ”Pick some … Read more