Category: Psychology
They were always going to leave. that was the point.
Letting go of your children is not a single moment. It is a thousand quiet losses that begin long before they leave, and long before you are ready. There is a specific kind of grief that has no funeral. No date to mark. No ritual to contain it. Nobody brings you flowers. Nobody asks how…
Brain rot: the science behind the word oxford made official
Brain rot was a joke until the neuroscience caught up with it. Oxford University Press named it Word of the Year for 2024, defining it as the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state from excessive exposure to low-quality online content. The word itself is not new. It first appeared in Henry David…
Why does music give you chills? the science behind Frisson
Why does music give you chills? Because your brain just did something extraordinary. It predicted beauty. And it was right. That shiver down your spine has a name. Scientists call it frisson, from the French word for a brief but intense feeling. Most people describe it as goosebumps, a sudden tightening in the chest, hair…
An Astrologers Day by RK Narayan: the con man who told the truth
An Astrologer’s Day by RK Narayan is a story about a fraud. A man who knows nothing about the stars. Who cannot read the future. Who sits under a tamarind tree every day in a busy market and tells people what they need to hear so they will pay him and go home. He is…
Therapy generation anxiety: the paradox nobody wants to admit
Therapy generation anxiety is the paradox nobody in the mental health industry wants to talk about. Generation Z is the most therapised generation in history. More young people are in therapy, talking about their feelings, using mental health language, and identifying their emotional states than at any previous point in recorded human history. The stigma…
Why do we rehearse arguments that never happen?
Why do we rehearse arguments that never happen? Because the brain cannot tell the difference between a problem that has been resolved and a problem that has been rehearsed to death. You have done it today, probably. A conversation in your head with someone who was not there. You said exactly the right thing. They…
Solitude psychology: what being alone actually does to the brain
Solitude psychology is one of the most misunderstood fields in modern mental health research. We have spent decades studying loneliness, its harms, its causes, its epidemic spread through wealthy societies with more screens and fewer third places. Loneliness research is abundant, urgent, and well-funded. The research on solitude, on chosen aloneness, on the specific and…
The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty: the last line that changes everything
The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty is not a long story. You can read it in eight minutes. Maybe ten if you pause at the ending, which you will. Most people do. You were probably fourteen or fifteen when you first met it. A classroom. A textbook. A teacher asking about themes and literary devices. You…
Tagore’s The Postmaster: a story about being left behind
The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore is twelve pages long. Twelve pages. Written in 1891. And yet here you are, years after Class 9, still thinking about Ratan standing in a doorway. Still thinking about a lamp being lit in the dark. Still thinking about a girl who refused the money. That is not an accident.…
Why the 90s Feel More Real Than Yesterday
What were you like in the 90s? The question is everywhere right now. On social media. In comment sections. In the particular glow that comes over someone’s face when a certain song starts playing. But here is what nobody asking the question has told you. The reason the 90s feel the way they feel has…
