The dishonesty of feelings
When I was young, I was under the impression that feelings were accompanied by a sense of weakness, they show how affected you are by different situations, how fragile you are, they may even be a sample of immaturity. Growing up we were told “Don’t cry, you’re not a baby”, “Don’t grumble, you are a […]
It must be so, since everyone says so…
Imagine you are taking a test, and in the most difficult question, all your friends give a as an answer, while you answer b. The question that remains is: do you change your answer or do you remain dissuaded of your opinion? In 1951, Solomon Asch undertook one of the most classic experiments in social […]
Modern-day Bohemian Rhapsody or Do schools kill intelligence?
Picture this: One day, a persistent beeping sound wakes you up earlier than your brain can function. It’s not the construction site next door, just your alarm marking 7:00 am. You’re forced to get up and perform everyday tasks of personal hygiene and maintenance, only you’re not sure whether this is real life or just […]
To see and be seen; the gaze in cinematic narratives
“When you look at somebody they’re also always looking at you. . . Of course, it’s political but it’s also about cinema.”* While I was in the Netherlands as an Erasmus exchange student, I enrolled in some gender studies courses, trying to dig deeper into feminist theory and history. ��Sexuality in contemporary media culture” definitely […]
Golden Blood
Sensitive content warning: reference to blood Terms such as ‘hair color’, ‘eye color’, ‘body type’, or ‘height’, bring about different thoughts and connotations in mind. If we take a careful look, though, we realize that there is common ground between them. They constitute characteristics that exist in different forms and make us special. Among them […]
Why can’t we measure Great Britain’s coastline?
Since the dawn of humanity, maths and geometry have been proven to be very useful and critical tools in the process of deciphering the world around us. Many claim that these sciences are “the language of the universe,” and for a good reason: nature is indissolubly linked with mathematical notions, from the simplest examples of […]
”Waiting for Godot” or Our tendency to live in the future
Better days are coming! But, in the meantime, what happens with the ones already here? Whether we admit it or not, humans love dreaming…when we are awake. We spend endless hours imagining our future. Not a distant future with flying cars, trips to Mars and robot-servants, but our close and personal future, in which life […]
Body shaming: a common bullying technique
Body shaming is known as the tendency of people to criticize others or even themselves based solely on their appearance. It has always been a thing, but in modern times, especially through the extensive use of social media and the subsequent provided anonymity, this phenomenon is in a bigger outbreak and that’s why it’s a […]
The (self) restriction of expressing feelings
In general, we humans tend to set obstacles, giving ourselves a hard time. We overanalyze situations, dive into a chaotic vortex of thoughts, dramatize events, and, finally, drown in a spoonful of water. We end up not expressing what we want and not doing what we wish, guided by unnecessary precautions and fear, limited by […]
Cynicism: Humour in Ill Health
When someone is messing with you and you feel a discomfort, a “twinge” inside of you, an internal anger, then they are probably making a cynical joke in order to convey to you a harsh -but always indirect- message. Of course, these types of “jokes” are not funny, although they are camouflaged as being such. […]