What Others Have Said: Tania Lombrozo

When I was a kid, I liked this poem by Jean Little from her collection, Hey World, Here I Am!:

Our History teacher says, "Be proud you're Canadians."
My father says, "You can be proud you're Jewish."
My mother says, "Stand up straight, Kate.
Be proud you're tall."
So I'm proud.
But what I want to know is,
When did I have the chance to be
Norwegian or Buddhist or short?

...Now, as an adult and as an experimental psychologist, the poem reminds me that when it comes to our personal narratives about how we came to be the people we are today, we never get a control group. And without a control group, we should be wary of making causal claims — the kinds of claims that so often form the basis for those narratives and for our sense of self. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/02/02/383219046/beware-of-the-pseudoscience-of-self)

What Others Have Said: Pema Chӧdrӧn

For Christmas this year, I once again built a book tree.  When I took it down, I started sorting the books.  There were some I had never read and some I didn’t even know where they came from.  And there were some I had read and loved. I've decided to look through some of these once-loved books and see what they still mean to me.  I may post a few passages from these books, maybe even previously posted passages.  The first one is from Pema Chӧdrӧn describing how to deal with negativity:

[D]rop the story line, which means—instead of acting out or repressing—use the situation as an opportunity to feel your heart, to feel the wound.  Use it as an opportunity to touch that soft spot.  Underneath all that craving or aversion or jealousy or feeling wretched about yourself, underneath all that hopelessness and despair and depression, there’s something extremely soft, which is called bodhichitta.  (Start Where You Are, 32)

I find this such helpful advice on the rare times when I remember it. 

It could happen to you.

Improving Policing

Charles Blow writes about police callousness.  Is it necessary for me to say this callousness is not true of all police officers, but needs to be stopped where it is present?