Feb 19, 2016 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
“As a species we fundamentally evolved to care and nurture, initially our nuclear family, but ultimately our hunger-gatherer tribe, and that has imbued us with certain neural connections. And what I mean by that is that to have what we call a theory of mind, to have...
Feb 9, 2016 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
“Civilization is a series of techniques in which the hunter-gatherer brain teaches itself to rewire itself. And the sad proof that civilization is a composite of the higher and lower brain functions is seen when civilization breaks down in civil wars, and brutal...
Dec 8, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
“Every language belongs to a specific place. It can migrate, it can spread. But usually it’s tied to a geographical territory, a country. Italian belongs mainly to Italy, and I live on another continent, where one does not readily encounter it. “I...
Oct 9, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Hilary Mantel on the controversy around her short story ”The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher”: ”But is it the job of the writer to primarily consider questions of taste, or safety, or consensus, or being on the right side of the establishment? You...
Jun 12, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Catching ephemera. It’s sounds magical, mystical, even playful. And it applies to belonging. To start unraveling the web of silken debris that forms belonging and identity we must loosen our hold on the logical and run with instinct and intuition. We cannot grab...
Feb 25, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Have you ever felt invisible? Have you ever needed help, but didn’t want to ask for it, and a stream of strangers stepped around you like you were contagious? We all feel niggling moments of marginalization, even if we pretend not to. Belonging is such an important...
Feb 24, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Belonging is the most compelling question of the 21st century. Just look at the data. We have a record number of expats and immigrants across the world and those numbers are increasing every year. We also have the largest number of refugees, asylum seekers and...
Feb 18, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Have you ever wondered what you can do to make the world a better place? Most of us want to do something positive, to help, to make a difference and yet, at the same time, we have this nagging feeling that one person will never be able to change anything. We feel...
Feb 10, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Change is all around us and that means traditional ideas of belonging and how humans connect are being challenged. According to BBC Radio 3 host Philip Dodd, “Belonging is the most compelling cultural and political question of our time. Anywhere across Europe...
Feb 10, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
This started as a simple project in January 2014. A quiet search for a sense of belonging here in my fourth country, Australia. But like all significant projects it has changed me and over the months it has changed as well. I’ve become passionate about...
Jan 23, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
J’ai des amis à découvrir et beaucoup de choses à connaître Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Le Petit Prince Yesterday as I drove down the highway, I noticed lots of butterflies dancing in the air on the sides of the roads, over fields and buildings and above the cars. I...
Sep 22, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Pico Iyer’s TEDGlobal talk on the evolution of the meaning of home is a sonata to the idea of belonging and is particularly useful for those of us who are part of what he calls the ”great floating tribe,” or who don’t live in the country of our...
