On children

During the last two months I've been exploring the realm of Developmental psychology and especially the child- and adolescence period. Busy times, not much space for sharing thoughts. I have some ideas waiting to be developed but to wake this place up a little, here is one of the most brilliant descriptions of the relation between parents and children I've ever read.

From "The Prophet", by Kahlil Gibran

On Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Picture from gemsling's photostream

Identity vs. identity

How many identities can a person have? Is identity constant and created during our first years in a certain family and culture? Or is it something flexible that shapes up in the process of personal development we all undergo? How does language influence our identity and can we have alternative identities for each language we speak? And if the second is true, are we just dolls playing theatre in a "globalised world" - play?

I don't have the answers to these questions and I wonder if the psychological literature I am about to read during the next couple of years is going to help me out of my quandaries. What I know for sure is that this is an issue for many people living far from the countries they have been born and raised in. When the concept of home gets blurry and you start calling "home" whichever place you have been spending more than three weeks at, can you be considered rootless or just called world citizen ? And what about this concept I have just learned existed - "perpetual traveller" ? And how does all that influence our identity, our self-perception and social network? What can we who "suffer" from the "multiple identities"- disease can do to get the best from what we have without mourning what we've missed?

... I just leave this blog post open without giving any answers. Wise people say that giving the right answer is not smart, it is knowing the right question that is smart. Without any ambitions to be smarter than I am I give the word to you in the hope of getting some answers.

Public domain photo by Bobtalbot61, Creative Commons License

Christmas or how we deal with change

Nine days left to Christmas, nine days left to big family get-togethers all over the Christian part of the world. Planes to catch, plans to be made, big expectations and hopes to be met. What is Christmas to us? What drives us every year to keep joining the holiday rush overdosing ourselves with positive energy? The answers can vary but as I see it, what lies behind all this is a simple desire to feel secure. To go back to a familiar environment called home, to meet people who we have known since we were children and who we secretly hope know us best.

The natural desire to stop the earth from turning just for a few days and go back to what we knew as "safe" is as strong as an instinct and most of us don't even give it a second thought. It keeps us alive through the December darkness, helps us survive the otherwise frustrating crowds and queues in shops, stimulates our dreams for a better new year and gives us hope. Hope that we will rewind some of the chapters of our life, so that we can go back to our childhood, youth, or whatever we remember as safe and warm, if only for a day or two.

The worst thing that can happen in a scenario like this is to realise that there is no way back. The earth kept turning while we were away, time passed without bothering itself about our feelings and as a result, changes occurred. Christmas is this time of the year when we learn how to deal with change. How to accept what is long gone and will never come back and to welcome what is new and sometimes scary. I guess that's why people associate Christmas with love, forgiveness and reconciliation. These are the only tools we have to fight our disappointment and the feeling that we have been once again betrayed by time.

Not so bad after all. And as it seems it takes exactly one year to revive a lost hope. So ... Merry Christmas!

Picture via Flickr, credits to vince42

The art of slow living

A thing I would like to share today is an alternative concept of living which has turned into a small movement with no ambitions to solve global problems or spread its ideas to every single corner of the Earth. Yet I think it has the power to do it. It is called Slow Movement and started in Italy as a protest against opening a McDonalds restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome. Its initial concept was to defend the Slow food idea against the growing chain of Fast food restaurants all around the world. Slow food became a symbol of appreciating the local food, its preparation and taste, the importance of enjoying the time spent cooking and eating and turning it to a social event gathering people.

The Slow movement has now spread to other areas of life and includes Slow travel, Slow cities, Slow reading, Slow art, Slow school, Slow parenting, you name it. I am sure you can continue this list by thinking of a thing or activity which is important to you and putting the word "slow" before it. If you start thinking about it, you will also realise the point of it. In a world which develops quicklier than we can grasp, our deepest needs for inner peace and comfort are rarely met in our daily life. We become the offers of our own rush and desire to achieve as much as possible, at a pace much higher than we can be happy with. Slowing down and giving ourselves a break can give us the satisfaction which most of us find it hard to feel nowadays. Not to speak about the possible positive effects that a global slow movement can have on environment.

Actually what I like most about the Slow movement is that it speaks the language of general human needs which we all share but sometimes find it hard to articulate and often neglect.

I recommend you checking out this website www.slowmovement.com(created by a family running an enterprise called Footprint choices). It gives a short description of most of the topics the Slow movement covers.

I would very much like hearing your opinions, especially of those of you who see all that as difficult to apply for one reason or another. Comments in all languages are more than welcome!

Picture from Flickr, credits to linkalicante

Statistics and life

Welcome!

This blog is planned to tell stories about psychology, about mind and soul, about me, you, and all the things we are and we are not. It will not deal with exclusively scientific matters, instead it will try to capture moments which are precious, curious, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but which all come from the fact that we are humans. Some posts will be about everyday life, some about literature or movies, some about politics or social issues, others will discuss scientific data from recent or older psychological studies. No matter the topic, I promise to keep it short, interesting and provoking, so that all of you can come up with questions, points of view and critics.

I will take the freedom to write in English, Swedish or Bulgarian depending on how it feels right and in which language the topic is being developed in my mind. The choice of language will not be a way to prevent part of you from reading the post in question. It will just be a way to make it better.

And yes, this blog will have the form of a life-shaped curve. A curve which doesn't exist in any statistics book but which everyone of us is drawing every day - the shape of our lives. Let the journey begin now. Enjoy!