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Posts tagged with the category Self-Actualization
The Search for a Unifying Vision to Save Our Lost Culture
Yesterday I was speaking with a colleague at the college where I teach, a sociology instructor, who asked me this question: “Why doesn’t our society teach people how to be happy?” Implicit within this question, which became more explicit in our brief conversation, was a shared concern regarding our cultural values, focusing particularly on the...
Considering Existential Joy
Existential joy is the moment of exaltation in which we are at one with the world and conscious of our being in a kind of illumination that carries a deep conviction with it. This is a state of being that many people seek to experience in their lives. If we cannot have it all of the time, we at least want that sensation coursing through us most of...
Retardation and meaning
Years of working with adults with developmental disabilities have left me with questions regarding the meaning and meaningfulness of the lives of people who experience high levels of mental retardation.
I mean something different here from purpose. What a divine entity might mean for these people must remain a question beyond my ability to...
A Trip to Cambodia Prompts Existential Reflections
A major tenet of existentialism is we create our lives through our values, choices, and actions. Certainly, no one would say this is an “easy” task during any time period. European Existentialists of the 1940s and 1950s, such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Frankl, formed their philosophies with World War II as a backdrop—when...
The importance of playtime
In Times Square is the Ripley’s Believe It or Not “Odditorium,” a two-story attraction filled with exhibitions many of which are just perfect to bring out one’s inner eight-year-old boy. Ancient weapons, the size 25 Reeboks from the largest woman in the world, a paper-mache replica of the average meal consumed by world...
Can Self-Promotion Be Authentic?
Self-promotion often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. Most people have experienced individuals who frequently self-aggrandize and promote themselves. These individuals often are dismissed as narcissistic and self-centered. When analyzing these self-promoters, even the armchair analyst knows that it is common for this to be an attempt to cover...
World, meet the "Cyberhero"
We know the internet has changed the way we shop, socialize, and schedule – but how is it changing our sense of human potential. When we dream of who we might be in a networked world, what are we dreaming about?
According to Dana Klisanin, Executive Director of Evolutionary Guidance Media Research & Design, society has focused on the...
Dying with Innocence
How does one move into the acceptance of death, when hope has been the sustaining force of life? The question is upon me at this moment after hearing the news that someone close to my heart, in years and shared existence, has been told that her cancer is incurable and nothing more can be done. This woman, otherwise young and vital through every...
The Courage to Love
Every relationship ends. We grow apart, we lose touch, tragedy strikes; even in the most hopeful circumstances, one person must outlive the other. Our losses compound and sometimes it gets difficult to engage in new relationships. If a loss is especially traumatic and there is nobody to understand and nurture, in fact it becomes...
Myths are rules -- to follow and to break
Dr. Louis Hoffman recently published a book, Existential Psychology: East-West, is a collection of articles written by leading scholars of Existential psychology. I was drawn to one particular chapter titled “An Existential Analysis of American Beauty” by Cathy Calvert, Kate Calhoon, Steve Fehl, and Christen Gregory.
Briefly, the film...
Humanism
Isms are dangerous things when used thoughtlessly. The most obviously dangerous is racism: advocating for the rights of one group over another, with corresponding denigration of those not belonging to the racist group.
It is easy to point to American racism, typically white-on-black hate so endemic to parts of our culture. It is...
Giving Thanks for our Suffering: An Existential Interpretation of Thanksgiving
At this time of year I wonder how many Americans reflect very deeply, if at all, about the meaning of Thanksgiving.
Of course, as a national holiday most of us likely have at least a vague understanding of it as a commemoration of the meal shared between the pilgrims and Native Americans. Beyond this, I’m sure that for many it provides a...
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