In Flaubert’s Parrot (Vintage International, New York, 1990, pp. 39) Julian Barnes writes: But then Ed Winterton liked to present himself as a failure…. His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore toContinue reading “On Failing In Our Own Style”
Category Archives: Psychology
On Being Protected By My Father
Around the time my father retired from his military service, he decided to build a home on the then-still-developing outskirts of India’s capital, New Delhi. We bought a small plot of land, hired a contractor, and work began. We–my mother, my brother, and I–occasionally accompanied my father on his many trips to inspect the progressContinue reading “On Being Protected By My Father”
Notes On Meditation Practice – I
Last year, after being urged to do so by many–friends, strangers, dissertation adviser–I began a meditation practice. In May 2015 to be precise. I registered for a four-day class, attended four two-hour ‘training sessions,’ and was off and running. Or, rather, I was off and sitting down. Twice a day for twenty minutes at time.Continue reading “Notes On Meditation Practice – I”
Hating On The Phrase ‘All Lawyered Up’
You’ve heard it in police procedurals on the television and the big screen. I know I heard it in The Killing and The Wire. A couple of weary beat cops or detectives, battling crime on the streets, fighting the noble War on Drugs perhaps, keeping us law-abiding citizens safe from the depredations of the big,Continue reading “Hating On The Phrase ‘All Lawyered Up’”
No Happy Endings To This Election Season
Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008. With approximately fifty-three percent of the popular vote and a 365-173 electoral college margin over his rival, John McCain. His party, the Democrats, commanded a 235-278 majority in the US House of Representatives, and a 57-41 majority in the US Senate. Despite this electoral and popular mandate,Continue reading “No Happy Endings To This Election Season”
A Seinfeldian Encounter In My Barbershop
For the past few years, I’ve had my hair cut at a local barbershop, a few blocks down from where I live. It is an old-fashioned family establishment, owned and manned by a father and son pair (Italian), backed up by a Ukranian gentleman. (A classic Brooklyn institution, to be sure.) Initially, I would getContinue reading “A Seinfeldian Encounter In My Barbershop”
An Unsettling Vision Of An Ugly Word
I’ve been reading Garry Wills‘ Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994; a light and entertaining read this election season) over the past couple of days–on the subway, naturally. On Monday night, as I rode back to Brooklyn from Manhattan to pick up my daughter on daycare, I came toContinue reading “An Unsettling Vision Of An Ugly Word”
A Cup Final On The Playground’s Jungle Gym
On Wednesday evening, as is my usual practice, I picked up my daughter from her daycare, and began walking home with her. The unseasonably warm weather suggested a little detour in the tot-lot on the way back was a very good idea. (I remain unenthusiastic about visiting playgrounds but my sense of parental duty overridesContinue reading “A Cup Final On The Playground’s Jungle Gym”
Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts
In the summer of 1999, I attended my first ever professional academic philosophy conference–in Vienna. At the conference, one titled ‘New Trends in Cognitive Science’, I gave a talk titled (rather pompously) ‘No Cognition without Representation: The Dynamical Theory of Cognition and The Emulation Theory of Mental Representation.’ I did the things you do atContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts”
The Civil War, The Emancipation Proclamation, And The Slow ‘Disintegration’
In his revisionist history of the Reconstruction A Short History of Reconstruction (Harper and Row, New York, 1990, pp.2) Eric Foner writes: [T]the [Emancipation] Proclamation only confirmed what was happening on farms and plantations throughout the South. War, it has been said, is the midwife of revolution, and well before 1863 the disintegration of slavery hadContinue reading “The Civil War, The Emancipation Proclamation, And The Slow ‘Disintegration’”
Samir Chopra 