Category: Being Human
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How to engineer a pyrrhic victory
We fought a lot early on in our marriage. Well, kind of fought. She would lash due to feeling overwhelmed and unloved. I responded with avoidance and retreating further into my shell. Needless to say, neither approach solved the conflict. We played the blame game, determined not to lose. In the end, we both did. As humans, we naturally blame others and absolve ourselves when we find ourselves in conflict. Our brains are wired that way. Our cognitive biases lead us to prefer overly simplistic…
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Chocolate is the new White
It would be just an amusing story about government bureaucracy—if it weren’t for the dark undertones. It was about a year after I had married my Mexican bride. We were at the immigration office for her permanent residency interview. (She has since become a citizen.) The interview itself had gone smoothly; no, our interviewer really did…
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It’s good to be wrong
I looked at the phosphor screen dumbfounded. Several months previously I had confidently predicted I would never see this. Yet, there it was in front of me. I rotated the sample 60 degrees, and the pattern reversed, just as expected. I had a good, logical reason why this shouldn’t have happened. But I could see…
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The gift of dual perspective
At least I think it is a fun way to end the semester. Looking through 3-D glasses at an astronaut. Passing around a View Master. Looking at both sides of the coin at once. Trying to see the 3-D image in a Magic Eye illustration. But of course, I have a really good academic justification…