What Does It Mean to Be Down-to-Earth?

Being down-to-earth is an admirable and valuable personal trait. Down-to-earth people are realistic – they avoid illusions and pretensions when evaluating themselves and the world. The opposite of this reasonableness could entail a number of negative characteristics: self-aggrandizement, self-importance, delusional ambition, utopianism, and being over-idealistic. But down-to-earthness is a difficult balancing act. How do you…

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Why Do Jesters and Tricksters Appear in the DMT Experience?

A jester is an entertainer that a monarch or nobleman would employ to entertain him and his guests. These court jesters thrived in the medieval and Renaissance eras. These jovial entertainers wore hats featuring floppy, pointed protrusions, with a bell hanging from the tip of each protrusion. They also donned motley clothing (the traditional costume…

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How Studying Mythology Can Help You Become a Better Entrepreneur

When most people think of entrepreneurs or freelancers who have taken their careers into their own hands and have broken free from the conventional structures of the working world, so to speak, the first thoughts that come to mind are things like “cunning”, “hard-working”, “strategic”, and “pragmatic”. And, of course, to make it on your…

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Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning is one of the most profound and moving books I have read. It illustrates what we can learn from the human condition in the face of extreme suffering. The author, Viktor Frankl, was an Austrian psychiatrist who was transported to and imprisoned in Auschwitz. Frankl does not go into great and…

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The Phenomenology of Depression: What It’s Like When the ‘Dark Fog’ Descends

Phenomenology is a philosophical movement, founded by Edmund Husserl (1859 ­– 1938), which concerns itself with direct experiences. Phenomenologists study the nature of consciousness as it is experienced subjectively in the first person. Through systematic reflection on experiences from the first-person point of view, Husserl believed we could better understand the structures of consciousness and…

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