As a generation accused of being lazy, self-obsessed and self-entitled, obsessing over travel seems to fit that bill. To feel entitled to quit a job and go backpacking around the world on a ‘personal journey’ – equipped with selfie (selfish) stick in hand – might be a sign of self-indulgence. This might play some role in…
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I’ve written before about how travelling can be addictive. I’ve also defended the millennial obsession with travelling. Obviously, it’s better to be ‘addicted’ to travelling than, say, gambling. But if the urge to just ‘travel more’ and hoard travel experiences becomes the centre of one’s focus, then this kind of experientialism may lose meaning and value. Just as a focus…
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Seneca the Younger (4 BC – 65 AD) was a Roman philosopher who expounded, promoted and practised Stoicism – the philosophy that asserts that virtue is what makes us happy and that we should be calm in the face of misfortune. We are not in control of, and cannot depend on, external events – as…
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Sentience – the capacity to feel, perceive and experience – lies at the foundation of the consideration for the rights and welfare of non-human animals. In Eastern traditions, there are prohibitions against causing injury to all sentient beings since sentience entails the capacity to feel pain. Although what many people may not realise – or…
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In 1927, the French dramatist Romain Rolland wrote a letter to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in which he coined the phrase ‘oceanic feeling’. It is oceanic because the experience seems to be “without perceptible limits”. Rolland believed that this feeling of ‘the eternal’ was a religious feeling independent of any organised religion, but…
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