Category: Psychology
After Twenty Years by O. Henry: the promise both of them Kept
After Twenty Years by O. Henry is told in less than a thousand words. It contains three scenes, two twists, one note, and four words that do more work than most novels manage in three hundred pages. Those four words are: Somehow I couldn’t do it myself. Everything the story is about lives in that…
Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore: the story about two fathers and one lost daughter
Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore begins with a little girl who cannot stop talking. Mini is five years old. She has been talking since she learned how. Her mother loses patience with the chatter. Her father never does. He finds her silence, when it occasionally arrives, unbearable. This detail matters. Remember it. Because the story is…
What is Schadenfreude: why we secretly enjoy other people’s pain
You scrolled past something this week that made you feel a small, quiet satisfaction. A person you find arrogant got publicly corrected. A company you dislike announced disappointing results. A celebrity whose confidence irritates you made an embarrassing mistake. An influencer who always appears perfect posted something that revealed they are not. You did not…
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant: the last line that changes everything
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant was published in 1884. It takes about fifteen minutes to read. The last line takes considerably longer to recover from. You will know it when you get there. Most people put the story down for a moment afterward. Not because they did not see it coming. Because somewhere underneath…
Does cannabis affect memory? it does not just blur it
Does Cannabis affect memory? You remember it clearly. The conversation. The thing that was said. The version of events that has quietly become the official version inside your head. You were there. You are sure of it. But what if you were high? And what if being high did not just make the memory vaguer?…
Why do i feel guilty for resting? the answer is not what you think
Why do I feel guilty for resting? It is one of those questions most people ask privately, usually on a Sunday afternoon when they are lying on the sofa doing nothing and a familiar unease has started to settle in. Not a crisis. Not even discomfort exactly. Just the low, persistent sense that they should…
Why asking someone out directly can lower your chances
Why asking someone out lowers your chances is what we try to answer in this article, scientifically. The psychology suggests it is also, in many situations, the approach most likely to fail. Not because directness is wrong. Not because women do not appreciate confidence. But because of what the formal ask actually does to the…
Why are human babies so helpless at birth?
Why are human babies so helpless at birth? A foal stands within hours of being born. It is unsteady. It staggers. But it is upright, and it is moving, and within a day it can keep pace with the herd. A baby elephant walks the same day. A baby shark swims the same minute. These…
The Tiger in the Tunnel by Ruskin Bond: the story about what fathers leave behind
The Tiger in the Tunnel by Ruskin Bond is not really about a tiger. You suspected this the first time you read it. You probably could not have said why. Now you can. It is about an axe. It is about a lamp. It is about a twelve-year-old boy sitting alone in the dark with…
Does your partner change your personality? the research says more than you think
Does your partner change your personality? Most people would say yes, in a vague, intuitive way. You pick up their phrases. You start watching the shows they like. You order differently at restaurants than you did before. Small things. Surface things. The research published this week in Clinical Psychological Science suggests the change goes considerably…
