An attraction to dinosaurs

The bodily symptoms of this strange appearance point to three dimensions:

• Sensory: The marvelous things take hold of our senses - we stare and widen our eyes.
• Cognitive: We are perplexed because we don't have a past experience to understand them. It leads to a suspension of breath, similar to when we are startled.
• Spiritual: We look upwards in veneration, which makes our heart swell.

At the mild end of this emotion, we talk about things being marvelous. More intense emotions might be described as astonishing. The extreme of this experiences is met with expressions of awe.

Some words remain a mystery, as human language cannot be simply demarcated and translated as is, by giving definitions to words.

Certain words add to the mystery and the beauty of languages and provide richer shades to communication.

Certain words contain the essence of the lifestyles, and the hardships endured in certain cultures. These words are relatable to those who themselves have experienced the same.

• In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud gave childhood amnesia its name. The most commonly accepted explanation for childhood amnesia was that children couldn't form stable memories until age 7 - even though evidence for this idea was lacking.
• In the late 1980s, experiments revealed that children three and younger keep their memories, although it is limited. At 6 months of age, infants' memories last for a day, and by age 2, for a year. At around age 6, children begin to forget many of their earliest memories.

From birth to our early teens, we have far more links between brain cells. The excess brain mass is very adaptable and allows children to learn very quickly.

But the adaptability comes with a price. The large and complex network in the brain is still busy growing and not as capable of forming memories efficiently as in adulthood. Consequently, long-term memories created in our first three years of life are the least stable and prone to be forgotten as we age.

Sports psychologists have a list of why people love sports:

• Sports carry self-esteem benefits.
• Commercial reasons (money bets etc.).
• Peer pressure of being part of their group.
• Sports are exciting.
• Sports is an aesthetically pleasing activity.
• A venue for emotional expression.
• Sports is an escape from real-world problems.
• Sports provide a sense of connectedness and belonging.

• Talent-Luck Theory: Sports appeals to a lot of people due to its ability to balance skill with randomness.
• Mirror Neurons: Many fans are able to feel what the player is feeling, and experience the excitement first-hand in his mind, with no barrier between the self and the outside world.

Cultures without writing are called ‘non-literate’, instead their identity should be associated with what they do in the absence of writing to record their knowledge.

They employ a range of memory technologies linked under the term ‘primary orality’, including song, dance, story and physical memory devices. The sky or landscape itself, are the most universal of these and they provide highly effective memory storage across many societies

Australian Aboriginal memory palaces are associated with the land, structured by sung pathways called songlines. A songline is a sequence of locations that orientate or contain valuable resources. At each location, a song or ritual is performed that will always be associated with that particular location, physically and in memory. Thus, a songline provides a table of contents to the entire knowledge system.

Some cultures mix the skyscape with the landscape as a memory device; associating knowledge such as seasonal variations, navigation, timekeeping and the ethics of their culture with stories about the heavenly locations. Typically, only fully initiated elders would know and understand the entire knowledge system of the community. This secrecy and sacredness of critical information protects it from corruption.

Swearing is not just for the uneducated or people of a lower socio-economic class -  it knows no social boundaries in its expression.

Personality research suggests that people who swear more, score higher on traits such as extraversion, dominance, hostility and Type A personalities.

Create vision boards–collages of words and images–related to business challenges or goals. Do mind-mapping or doodling exercises. 

You will begin making remote associations. It can be hard and it’s a stretch, but it opens up new ways of thinking.

When you’re facing down something unexpected, you’re taken out of your everyday experience and all of the preconceived notions that go with it.

Do something new every day to capture the same openness. Take a new route home and carefully observe what’s there. Look for beauty, interesting architecture, or exceptional gardens. Remember how it feels to be truly observant and unsure of what to expect.

“For every PhD, there is an equal and opposite PhD.” 

In law and public policy, for every qualified expert witness, there is an expert witness that will come to the opposite conclusion.

"The amount of energy needed to refute bullsh*t is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

Albert Brandolini's law acknowledges four truths:

• People don't like to admit when they don't understand something. When they are confronted with nonsense, they will rather agree than admit they don't understand.
• In law, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution (You often can't prove something didn't happen).
• Bad commentary gives readers a cover to hide their own biases and prejudices.
• Publishing an opinion has become very easy in the last two decades.

ASMR is a personal, individual experience, with very little science behind it. People enjoy a deeply relaxing whispering video or a role-play, which gives them a tingling sensation on the back of their head and spine. It may be a mundane, monotonous activity like tapping, stirring, or crinkling objects, but they kick in a pleasure sensation in many.

The feeling varies and is somewhat similar to a sexual turn-on, in many cases.

People get tingles through different kinds of sensory inputs.

Some people find out at an early age that they feel a therapeutic high when they are touched or tickled and love the attention they are given.

Others find that some simple activities or role-plays put them in a trance-like state. 

When someone lets us down, breaks promises, our first, second and hundredth impulse is never simply to up sticks and leave. 

Our tendency is to wonder what we might have done to provoke the problem. Our past gives us a disastrous tendency to think against ourselves – and give an unnatural degree of credit to the other. 

Looking after ourselves requires a rare skill: a capacity to disappoint another person in the name of our own protection. 

To remain sane, we may have to decline a friend’s suggestion – and in love, upset someone else substantially. 

To someone who doesn’t possess a full tank of inner love, how dare one turn down the love of another, even if it comes wrapped in tricky or poisonous elements?