Behind the philosopher’s cryptic phrase is an invocation to sculpt your ideal self out of the hard stone of your psyche In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche published The Gay Science, a work he referred to as ...

Physics tells us that time doesn’t flow like a river, as Heraclitus claimed. Why then do we feel like we’re swept along? What could be more universal and obvious than this flowing? And yet things are ...

To some, the idea of leaving a religion can seem as innocuous as cancelling a gym membership. However, for many who have left a faith tradition, the reality is much more complicated. As a psychologist ...

There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to ...

A sense of humour is a moral virtue that can help people flourish, even in dire conditions that are conducive to unhappiness Humour can be cruel, especially when it’s dark or mocking. In fact, a ...

These experiences – which are more of an illusion than a hallucination – can be a healthy part of the grieving process In the weeks after the neurologist Oliver Sacks died, his friend Jonathan Weiner ...

Psychologists are discovering what’s going on when you do something you enjoy, but also feel weird or embarrassed about ...

Honesty has fallen out of fashion, yet it is essential to self-improvement. How can we cultivate this neglected virtue? There is little controversy that honesty is a virtue. It is an excellence of ...

Suppose that you’re talking with a couple of friends about whether one survives biological death. Your view is that humans are purely physical creatures, which means that there is no non-physical soul ...

Uncertainty is a universal human predicament: ‘the future’s not ours to see’, as a song once put it. While people often feel pretty certain about many things – including the sense that the rhythms of ...

The immortalists say beating death will lead to peace. But what if mortality is our bittersweet path to love and harmony? You can accept the idea that everything passes. You can read the Stoic ...

The way you relate to other people emotionally – your attachment style – matters greatly in life. Studies that have followed the same individuals for decades have found that the ability to initiate ...