The world is awash with grand announcements of spiritual rebirth, Armageddon scenarios, and self-help commercialism that are forming a global skin that circumscribes our entire mental world. Political theorist Benjamin Barber has noted that the commercialism behind the global takeover of the mental sphere amounts to a kind of "default totalitarianism." If we are not [...]

'If you never change your mind, why have one?' – Edward de Bono There is a story that is told about a wandering stranger who once stopped a king in the street. Furious, the king shouted, ‘How dare you, a man of little worth, interrupt the progress of your sovereign?’ The stranger answered: ‘Can you [...]

As celebrated thinker Edward de Bono notes: ‘If everyone is going in the same direction, then anyone who is going in a different direction is “wrong”. The other direction might be better – but it is still wrong.’ Such is the powerful pull of social conformity. People cannot be fully trusted to say and do [...]

There is a famous 13th Century Persian poem that tells the story of an old woman whom upon encountering an eagle on her window sill captures it for she has never seen an eagle before. The old woman looks at the strange bird and finally says ‘what a funny-looking pigeon’! She then proceeds to clip [...]

The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges once famously wrote of a great Empire that created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map itself grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire finally crumbled, all that remained was the map. [...]