I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today’s guest, Harriet Brown. She is a writer, magazine editor and professor of magazine journalism at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Harriet writes,…
My Dad Is the Pale Guy in the Middle This week’s blogs have been about “circles of inclusion.” I grew up on a leprosy compound in Paraguay, South America. My husband Ed and I are currently writing an historical novel about the lives and…
I have suggested in prior articles that we all have circles of belonging that delineate who’s included in our in-groups and who represents the ‘other’ in our out-groups. Most of us divide the world into “us” and “them” based on a…
Apricot Irving, award-winning author of The Gospel of Trees I am sitting on the steps of an 8’x11’ shed (though I prefer to call it a tiny house) in a green meadow, just down the hill from the house that I share with two…
My Grandson Trying On New Pants Which Leg Do You Habitually Step into First? My podcast and blogs this week explored the sense of familiarity and belonging that the groups we are part of (e.g., social class, family, etc.) provide for us. It feels comfortable to…
Belonging means feeling part of a group. It’s “we-ness.” Social identity theory proposes that the groups we belong to (e.g., social class, family, etc.) are typically important sources of pride and self-esteem. They also give us a fundamental sense of who “we” are, a sense…
There’s a lot of discussion about the risks of COVID-19 for the elderly. But I worry more about the impact of this pandemic on our just-turned-teenager grandson. He’s at the stage in life when he’s very invested in social connections and…
I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today’s guest, Elizabeth Scott. Liz is a psychologist in private practice in Portland, and she is the author of This Never Happened, a…
Monday’s blog explored the illusions of perfection I’ve hidden beneath — about my family, about my society — which have temporarily made me feel secure and satisfied in my own little bubble. But illusions of a perfect world in the face of today’s ugly imperfections finally cannot hold up….
Machu Picchu (even this seemingly perfect world was built by slaves) I grew up knowing it was wrong to be a racist. And I convinced myself that we were making progress, as individuals, as communities, as a nation and as a world. Despite obvious hiccups, I…