Out of My Skull

Out of My Skull PDF Author: James Danckert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674984676
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of the Year A Guardian “Best Book about Ideas” of the Year No one likes to be bored. Two leading psychologists explain what causes boredom and how to listen to what it is telling you, so you can live a more engaged life. We avoid boredom at all costs. It makes us feel restless and agitated. Desperate for something to do, we play games on our phones, retie our shoes, or even count ceiling tiles. And if we escape it this time, eventually it will strike again. But what if we listened to boredom instead of banishing it? Psychologists James Danckert and John Eastwood contend that boredom isn’t bad for us. It’s just that we do a bad job of heeding its guidance. When we’re bored, our minds are telling us that whatever we are doing isn’t working—we’re failing to satisfy our basic psychological need to be engaged and effective. Too many of us respond poorly. We become prone to accidents, risky activities, loneliness, and ennui, and we waste ever more time on technological distractions. But, Danckert and Eastwood argue, we can let boredom have the opposite effect, motivating the change we need. The latest research suggests that an adaptive approach to boredom will help us avoid its troubling effects and, through its reminder to become aware and involved, might lead us to live fuller lives. Out of My Skull combines scientific findings with everyday observations to explain an experience we’d like to ignore, but from which we have a lot to learn. Boredom evolved to help us. It’s time we gave it a chance.

Out of My Skull

Out of My Skull PDF Author: James Danckert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674984676
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of the Year A Guardian “Best Book about Ideas” of the Year No one likes to be bored. Two leading psychologists explain what causes boredom and how to listen to what it is telling you, so you can live a more engaged life. We avoid boredom at all costs. It makes us feel restless and agitated. Desperate for something to do, we play games on our phones, retie our shoes, or even count ceiling tiles. And if we escape it this time, eventually it will strike again. But what if we listened to boredom instead of banishing it? Psychologists James Danckert and John Eastwood contend that boredom isn’t bad for us. It’s just that we do a bad job of heeding its guidance. When we’re bored, our minds are telling us that whatever we are doing isn’t working—we’re failing to satisfy our basic psychological need to be engaged and effective. Too many of us respond poorly. We become prone to accidents, risky activities, loneliness, and ennui, and we waste ever more time on technological distractions. But, Danckert and Eastwood argue, we can let boredom have the opposite effect, motivating the change we need. The latest research suggests that an adaptive approach to boredom will help us avoid its troubling effects and, through its reminder to become aware and involved, might lead us to live fuller lives. Out of My Skull combines scientific findings with everyday observations to explain an experience we’d like to ignore, but from which we have a lot to learn. Boredom evolved to help us. It’s time we gave it a chance.

Country of My Skull

Country of My Skull PDF Author: Antjie Krog
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307420507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country--one of spectacular beauty and promise--come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors? To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors. Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha's extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey. Country of My Skull captures the complexity of the Truth Commission's work. The narrative is often traumatic, vivid, and provocative. Krog's powerful prose lures the reader actively and inventively through a mosaic of insights, impressions, and secret themes. This compelling tale is Antjie Krog's profound literary account of the mending of a country that was in colossal need of change.

A Journey Round My Skull

A Journey Round My Skull PDF Author: Frigyes Karinthy
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1590172582
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The distinguished Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was sitting in a Budapest café, wondering whether to write a long-planned monograph on modern man or a new play, when he was disturbed by the roaring—so loud as to drown out all other noises—of a passing train. Soon it was gone, only to be succeeded by another. And another. Strange, Karinthy thought, it had been years since Budapest had streetcars. Only then did he realize he was suffering from an auditory hallucination of extraordinary intensity. What in fact Karinthy was suffering from was a brain tumor, not cancerous but hardly benign, though it was only much later—after spells of giddiness, fainting fits, friends remarking that his handwriting had altered, and books going blank before his eyes—that he consulted a doctor and embarked on a series of examinations that would lead to brain surgery. Karinthy’s description of his descent into illness and his observations of his symptoms, thoughts, and feelings, as well as of his friends’ and doctors’ varied responses to his predicament, are exact and engrossing and entirely free of self-pity. A Journey Round My Skull is not only an extraordinary piece of medical testimony, but a powerful work of literature—one that dances brilliantly on the edge of extinction.

Pebbles From My Skull

Pebbles From My Skull PDF Author: Stuart Hood
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571303730
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
'This enthralling autobiographical fragment by Stuart Hood, a World War II British intelligence officer, tells of his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Parma and his life on the run with Italian partisans in the Resistance.' New York Times 'I wanted to do two things. Firstly, give a picture of peasant life. I felt indebted to my peasants who had sheltered me, and admiration for them. The other thing was to make sense of what had happened. I discovered new facts I hadn't understood at the time. This in itself raised the question of remembrance and how one shapes memory, its truth and gaps.' Stuart Hood, 2002 'Combines the mesmeric readability of good modern fiction with a feeling of lived experience to which few novels can attain.' Listener 'A remarkable, haunting book.' Raleigh Travelyan, Sunday Times

Boredom

Boredom PDF Author: Peter Toohey
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300172168
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In the first book to argue for the benefits of boredom, Peter Toohey dispels the myth that it's simply a childish emotion or an existential malaise like Jean-Paul Sartre's nausea. He shows how boredom is, in fact, one of our most common and constructive emotions and is an essential part of the human experience. This informative and entertaining investigation of boredom--what it is and what it isn't, its uses and its dangers--spans more than 3,000 years of history and takes readers through fascinating neurological and psychological theories of emotion, as well as recent scientific investigations, to illustrate its role in our lives. There are Australian aboriginals and bored Romans, Jeffrey Archer and caged cockatoos, Camus and the early Christians, Durer and Degas. Toohey also explores the important role that boredom plays in popular and highbrow culture and how over the centuries it has proven to be a stimulus for art and literature. Toohey shows that boredom is a universal emotion experienced by humans throughout history and he explains its place, and value, in today's world. "Boredom: A Lively History "is vital reading for anyone interested in what goes on when supposedly nothing happens.

Shaving the Inside of Your Skull

Shaving the Inside of Your Skull PDF Author: Mel Ash
Publisher: Tarcher
ISBN: 9780874778410
Category : Change (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An instructive, proactive, and highly entertaining work of counterculture philosophy, alternative psychology and in your face spirituality, this book descibes how readers can rid themselves of limiting beliefs so that they may experience the fresh breezes of their uniqueness.

Getting It Through My Thick Skull

Getting It Through My Thick Skull PDF Author: Mary Jo Buttafuoco
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0757396003
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
"I think, every once in a while, about the life I should be living, the one I fully expected to be enjoying right about now. In the life I was supposed to have, my husband and I would be admiring the view from our waterfront home in the town where we were both born and raised. Good friends and neighbors would be next door, up the street, and all over the neighborhood. Our parents would live only blocks away, in our childhood homes. We'd be taking our grandchildren to the beach club on weekends, enjoying the fruits of our labors and looking forward to a peaceful retirement. That was the plan, anyway . . . but the whole world knows how that turned out." Mary Jo Buttafuoco's anonymous life as a suburban wife and mother in sleepy Massapequa, New York, on Long Island, ended in May 1992, when she was shot in the head on her own front porch by her husband's sixteen-year-old mistress. The 'Long Island Lolita' saga sparked a media frenzy that continues to this day. As the years passed and Mary Jo steadfastly stood by her man, Joey Buttafuoco, while he and Amy Fisher continued to make headlines, one question lingered in the minds of people everywhere: Why did she stay for so long? In Getting It Through My Thick Skull, Mary Jo finally answers that question fully and convincingly. The answer is simple, yet it took almost three decades of turmoil to discover for herself—she was married to a sociopath. Using her tragic and triumphant life lessons and never-before-told accounts of life with Joey, Mary Joe helps readers undrestand sociaopathic behavior and the emotional traps it springs on willing partners, and offers hope and help for the millions of people caught in the cycle of toxic relationships. In addition, readers will meet a new-and-improved Mary Jo, confident and at peace with her new life, and will be inspired by her comback. Through private details of the resiliency and rebuilding she has forged over the past seventeen years, Mary Jo shares for the first time: Her addiction to painkillers and her recovery through the Betty Ford Center Her overdue decision to leave Joey and start over again in California—3,000 miles from her support system Taking control of her physical, spiritual, and emotional health and learned to feel attractive and in control again Her highly controversial forgiveness of Amy Fisher The letters she recieved from both Amy and Joy, and her reactions to both How she found the courage to trust, believe, and find hope in a committed relationship once again The details of the new love in her life and the joys and challenges of raising a Brady Bunch—style family Includes a 16-page color insert from the Buttafuoco family album.

Skull Session

Skull Session PDF Author: Daniel Hecht
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918020
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Back in print and accompanied by its prequel Puppets, the bestselling Skull Session is a classic tale of suspense. Despite his brilliance, Paul Skoglund hasn't held a steady job for years, partly because of his Tourette's syndrome. When his eccentric, wealthy aunt asks him to take on the repairs of her magnificent hunting lodge, he is in no position to refuse. But then he finds that the rambling old house has been savagely vandalized: he discovers a scene of almost superhuman destruction, a violence mirrored by a series of disappearances and grisly deaths haunting the region. Paul delves into the wreckage, wondering what dark passion-and what strength-could cause such chaos. As state police investigator Mo Ford pursues the mystery through official channels, escalating events force Paul deeper into his family's past and into the darker aspects of his own nature.

Party Wolves in My Skull

Party Wolves in My Skull PDF Author: Michael Allen Rose
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621050063
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Norman Spooter awakens one morning to find that his eyeballs have fallen in love with each other. They proceed to tear themselves out of his head, steal his car keys, and take off for parts unknown... So he does what any of us would probably do in that situation... he goes back to bed, hoping it'll all resolve itself. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, a pack of WOLVES moves in. The worst thing is, they're party wolves... BUT they gave him a security deposit, so he decides he's going out to get his eyeballs back. He joins forces on his epic quest with a woman named Zoe, who has a mysterious secret almost as crazy as Norman's Party Wolves. Besides, she needs him too... She's on the run from her psychopathic ex-boyfriend, who happens to be a dangerous sociopath, a classic car enthusiast and, worst of all, a fully grown walrus. The road trip/chase novel is flipped on its head with everyone chasing everyone... explosions, battles and madness are the drivers in this particular race, along with a few stops in such places as the Motel Sick and a cult town in North Dakota featuring some dangerous hooded guys who'll pretty much marry anything to anything. With violence and insanity nipping at his heels and a race against the clock to get his body parts back, this could turn out very badly for Norman Spooter.

The Cultural Gutter

The Cultural Gutter PDF Author: Carol Borden
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557958393
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Science fiction, fantasy, comics, romance, genre movies, games all drain into the Cultural Gutter, a website dedicated to thoughtful articles about disreputable art-media and genres that are a little embarrassing. Irredeemable. Worthy of Note, but rolling like errant pennies back into the gutter. The Cultural Gutter is dangerous because we have a philosophy. We try to balance enthusiasm with clear-eyed, honest engagement with the material and with our readers. This book expands on our mission with 10 articles each from science fiction/fantasy editor James Schellenberg, comics editor and publisher Carol Borden, romance editor Chris Szego, screen editor Ian Driscoll and founding editor and former games editor Jim Munroe.