Psychologyspeaking topic
“In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality.”
— Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (1956)
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Cognitive load theory: when working memory is overloaded, learning simply stops. Is how a lesson is taught even more decisive than what it teaches?
- Pick up a product 'just to look' and your desire to own it strangely grows. It isn't yours yet, but your brain has already stuck a 'mine' label on it. Why does touching something make us want it so much more?
- Right before or after sleep, a person can lie awake unable to move, sensing a presence in the room. For centuries this was blamed on demons, hags, and spirits. Why did so many different cultures spin such similar horror stories out of the same event in the brain?
- If a language has no name for a color, do its speakers really find that color harder to tell apart? Russian has separate words for light blue and dark blue, and in the lab Russian speakers distinguish those shades milliseconds faster than English speakers. The eye receives the same light, but the label speeds up perception. So does color begin in the eye, or in language?
- The fig tree paradox: Sylvia Plath's narrator, unable to choose among figs that each hold a different life, watches them all rot before her eyes. If choosing one branch means killing all the others, isn't refusing to choose a choice as well?