"This is not happening," a friend told me emphatically and full of confidence a few days ago. "This" obviously refers to the global crisis that now affects humanity. But what is not so obvious is what does that mean of "…is not happening", because all the evidence indicates that the crisis, whatever…
Blog posts : "General"
The real crisis is a crisis of personal and collective maturity
Let's be honest: we live in an immature society. It is nothing new: Milan Kundera already proclaimed it decades ago in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Heraclitus already lamented it more than two millennia ago, as his fragmentary writings attest.
To the immaturity typical of a relatively ne…
A reduced world of sophisticated science and devalued magic
That little “black mirror” that we have almost constantly in our hands, in front of our eyes, or close to our ears, far from being just an innocent smartphone is, in fact, a world reducer. Every time we use it our world becomes smaller and smaller and, because the reduction is associated with forget…
How many absurdities can we tolerate in a single day?
Recently an update was made on my computer and soon after a message appeared on the screen: "You have a new notification." Then, I opened the message and read it: "Your computer is not configured to receive notifications." And I literally didn't know what to do.
Let's analyze the issue step by st…
Clinging to the "present" does little to build a new, different future
Too often through social networks I get messages inviting me to no longer talk so much about the future and to concentrate on the “present”, the “now”, since, according to those who send me those messages, the “now” is what really exists and, therefore, dealing with the past or the future is, at bes…
Somebody wrote an academic paper and quoted me
For several years now, I have subscribed to a site of academic publications and every time a new study is published on a subject of my interest, I receive a notification. But the notification I received last week was different because it was not a specific subject, but a name: mine.
According to …
What can we sow today that could be successfully harvested in 2000 years?
In a recent report in the specialized journal Science Advances, it indicates that seeds that remained in the soil of Judea 2000 years ago were successfully cultivated, growing and bearing fruit. Although this is not the first experiment of its kind, the result leads to the question: what are we sowi…
Just because you don’t see the road you can’t assume the road is not there
A few years ago, driving back home on a local road, a truck traveling in the same direction caused such a splash that my windshield was filled with mud, preventing me from seeing the road. The incident was resolved immediately. Nothing bad happended. But those few seconds seemed longer than they rea…
When we stop confusing "being" with "having", self-deception dissipates
In his book The Song of the Bird (which should be mandatory reading), Anthony De Mello tells the very short and beautiful story of the dialogue between a young husband and his wife. He says: "Someday we will be rich." And she replies: “We are rich already, dear. Someday we may have money.”
I …
We can’t escape the past, but we can still see the future
When we look at the starry sky, which caused so much admiration to Kant, we don’t see its present but its past and, in some cases, even if we don’t know it, we contemplate a distant past, billions of years ago. Even that the sun we "see" is already eight minutes in the past and the moon we see is th…
Can we still keep our dialogue with ourselves in the age of social networks?
It has been known for decades that intelligence is not one, but that there are different types of intelligence and one of the most interesting is intrapersonal intelligence, that internal dialogue that everyone has with himself/herself and that, well practiced, takes us away from self-deception. But…
Sometimes an unexpected void forms that we cannot fill
During the recent holiday season, I received a puzzle as a gift. It is not one of my favorite activities because putting together a puzzle requires patience, which, in turn, is not one of the highest points of my character. But the festive occasion and the collaboration of the family led me to parti…
Be careful when crossing the threshold of the New Year!
If we could stop seeing ancient Greeks and Romans myths as if they were baseless legends and we could see them for what they really were, that is, narrations of psychological reflections on important moments of life, we would then see that these stories have much to teach us about the beginning of a…
When we suppress humor, our world becomes one-dimensional
One of the basic elements of every humorous story, or joke, is to direct the story in a certain direction and then, using the multiple meanings of a word, suddenly change the story in another direction. That unexpected change is what causes laughter (at least in some cases).
One of the most commo…
By projecting our inaction to the world, we contribute to the reduction of the world
I recently learned, while reading a book written by James Mallon, that the consequence of inaction is not just to allow a problem to get worse or an adverse situation to get out of control. The consequence goes beyond the loss of goods, money, opportunities or health. The worst consequence of inacti…
The uncertainty of the future used as an excuse to ignore the future
Quite often, when I talk about the future, someone says that, because the future does not exist, we should not worry about the future, thus using our total lack of certainty about the future as an excuse to ignore and even disregard that future. However, it is increasingly clear that the future is t…
The inability to dialogue ruins the present and destroys the future
For reasons related of my work, recently I had to go to the bank where I have the accounts of my business to get a certification indicating that the accounts of my business are really mine. In the past, that simple procedure was completed in a few minutes. But this time, things were very different.
…Our closed minds reduce our world to a very small world
I recently met a young man who shared with me his serious personal problems, perhaps only to have someone listening to him because at no time he asked for help. During his monologue, he said that "What happens to me must be normal because it happens to all the men I know."
The young man explained…
“I don’t have time for the future”
During a recent informal meeting with a business expert, in the context of a conversation about new community projects, this person told me "I don't have time for the future". And, with a kind smile and body expression, he ended the conversation.
The expression “I don't have time for the future” …
The dispute is not between reality and fantasy, but between meaning and nonsense
For many years, in the context of my studies in philosophy, theology and comparative religions, I focused on understanding the difference between reality and fantasy, between what it is and what it seems to be, between what is present and what appears. And although those efforts were sincere and aca…
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