It is not the place we occupy which is important, but the direction in which we move.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Author. One of the most startling paradoxes of being human is the simultaneous quest for the "here-now" as well as "the other". We aspire to live this life to the fullest whilst dreaming of other lives…
The Myth of Mental Illness
In 1960, The American Psychologist published a highly controversial and daring paper from the Hungarian- American Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz- The myth of mental illness. In an age when mental illness was much more stigmatized than it is now, Szasz's dissent is in every bit the voice of the devil's advocate. Yet, in it's all provocative…
Book 3, Kamasutra
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. Abraham Lincoln Book 3 is a detailed section on marriage and courtship. It shifts its focus from romanticizing marriage and instead emphasizes on its strategic nature. Kamasutra encourages the union of equals through marriage. It recommends the family as well as acquaintances to prepare and…
Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
In 1915, soon after World war I broke out, Sigmund Freud wrote about the disillusionment of war and the conflicting dynamics of individual and collective morality, in this timely and timeless piece. Freud analyzed the harmony of paradoxes in the co-existence of opposites. The naive illusion of the civilized Disillusionment is, in essence, a result…
A Christmas Carol
If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease.Thomas Hood on A Christmas Carol. In one of the most beloved Christmas tales of all time, Charles Dickens beautifully captures the mood and humanity of…
The Little Matchstick Girl
A human life is a story told by GodHans Christian Andersen Illustration by Rachel Isadora Most fairy tales usually end with the phrase, they lived happily ever after. But some fairy tales, end in darker dead ends, in a dreadful balance act between the narrative of a fairy tale and the reality, where ultimately the…
The Nutcracker
E.T.A.Hoffman, "the unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature", as Freud calls him, wrote a dark and grim fairy tale about a young girl and her Nutcracker prince in 1816. The story was adapted famously, by Alexander Dumas and later to stage by Tchaikovsky. The allure of the story is still resplendent, yet the darkness…
The Gift of the Magi
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.Matthew 2:11 The gifts of Magi were essentially the anointing of Christ as the King, God…
On forgiveness
Vergangenheit, The Crown (Peter Morgan) In his 1947 essay, On forgiveness, written for the parish magazine of the Church of St.Mary Sawston, Cambridge, C.S.Lewis meditates on the Christian message of forgiveness that is more or less, a refrain of sundays. The simple, brief essay is literally a review of a portion of the holy scripture…
Advice to a Young Tradesman
In 1748, Benjamin Franklin, the immortal axiom builder, as Mark Twain once described him sat down to write a brief letter to his friend, on money matters. As much as it caters to financial tact, it is also essentially a counsel for a better life from the polymath who realized that a virtue is a…
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