Jumping in the Shower: Dad jokes, dead words, and a different kind of attention
"I'm just gonna jump in the shower real quick." Probably best if you just stand there and let the water fall on you. Dad jokes work by re-opening something closed, and for a second dead language is alive again without changing a word. That small event turns out to open onto metaphor, the two hemispheres of the brain, Lacan's symbolic order, and a skill that comes before all the others.
Why Panic Can Feel Like It Comes From Nowhere
A companion piece to "Panic Attacks Aren't About Fear." Why panic so often hits without warning, and what the divided brain has to do with it.
The Cult of Meaning-Making: When Thinking Hijacks Feeling
In our fast-paced culture, thinking is often elevated as the highest human function—our prized problem-solver, meaning-maker, and escape hatch. But thinking, as necessary as it is, can become a trap. Especially when it overrides our capacity to feel.
The Two Sides of Your Brain: Digital Life and Mental Well-being
Drawing from psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist's groundbreaking work, we can understand how modern technology affects our brain through its distinct hemispheric systems. The left hemisphere, primarily operating through dopamine pathways, has found its perfect match in social media and smartphone technology. Each notification, like, and scroll creates a small dopamine hit, feeding our left hemisphere's appetite for quick, predictable rewards.