bigthinkeditor
NYU's Dr. Nicole Foubister chats with us about the two-faced nature of bipolar disorder.
Dr. Sacks died on 30 August 2015, in his home in Manhattan at the age of 82 from liver cancer.
Words of wisdom from FDR: "Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."
Words of wisdom from Sherman Alexie: "I don't know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders."
Mental illness is not one-size-fits-all. Just look at the state of mental health in the black community, which is replete with unique and systemic issues.
Words of wisdom from A. Philip Randolph: "Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated.”
Words like "liberty" and "freedom" represent big ideas that are about as amorphous as they are valued.
The hurdles in life presented by traumatic experiences, if treated properly, represent opportunities for momentous personal growth.
Why don't we just listen to our body? Because our minds, and our culture, are often louder.
Words of wisdom from 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
The freedom and opportunity that going away to college offers correlates with higher rates of depression and anxiety.
Just 10 years ago, the suicide-prevention community consisted mainly of families who had been affected by the suicide of a loved one. Today, it numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Words of wisdom from the late, great Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
What distinguishes real OCD from how it's depicted in pop culture — a characteristic of someone's perfectionist tendencies — is that sufferers respond to stimuli in the same way everyone else does.
Words of wisdom from the 32nd president of the United States: "More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars." FDR's words are inspiring, but are they feasible?
Smarts Don’t Guarantee Success. Only a Hunger to Win Can. Take it from a 19-year-old college graduate. Brandon Adams says that most poker players, like financial traders, have sharply analytical […]
Anxiety is typically a helpful evolutionary tool, but it can sometimes become a pathology.
History is littered with prejudiced ideas that use Darwin to claim legitimacy.
"It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable."
Words of wisdom from Cuban national hero José Martí: "A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them."
What makes a great artist? According to French writer Émile Zola, it's talent coupled with tenacity.
"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."
Words of wisdom from the great composer and pioneer of ethnomusicology: "Competitions are for horses, not artists."
Words of wisdom from Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, the founder of ethnomusicology: "In art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution."
"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories."
"There’s a very basic human, nonverbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements; it doesn't have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual."
"The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're looking at visual objects, I think our eyes are obviously directed outward, so there's not as much reflective time. And it's the reflectiveness and the spiritual inwardness about reading that appeals to me."
A quote from author Joyce Carol Oates: "The worst cynicism: a belief in luck." She believes hard work and tenacity are the main ingredients for success. Do you agree?
Words of wisdom from the American author (and prolific tweeter): "Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions."