Recently I suggested that social distancing and the world-wide economic shutdown may be driving us collectively crazy. This week I saw some concrete proof of it. scene of the crime I was running one morning (okay, mostly jogging) in north Toronto’s Earl Bales valley, on the beautiful path shown in the photo. The air was … Continue reading Rescuing Reality | Covid 19 and mental health | Seniors vs Millennials and the Future
Rescuing Reality | Why Black lives should matter to everyone
Though I try to stay away from social issues on this site, especially from politics, sometimes there is no choice. I have been married for a long time to an Afro/Carribean woman. We have two daughters of mixed race. I’ve been close not only to my wife's family, but to the West-Indian community in Toronto … Continue reading Rescuing Reality | Why Black lives should matter to everyone
Why did I write The Shyness Guide?
Why did I write another book about shyness when there are over 600 books about it published already? How could there be anything left to say? Well, because shyness is almost never understood the way I understand it. From the day I entered kindergarten I was acutely aware of how different I was. In my … Continue reading Why did I write The Shyness Guide?
Who is Alan Conrad?
Alan Conrad is me, though Alan Conrad is not my original name. During my last years investigating accidents and personal injury claims, when I was about to publish The Birdcatcher, a book that reveals some of the dark side of the personal injury business, I had to use a pen name to keep a lower … Continue reading Who is Alan Conrad?
Loners |The one place where society welcomes them |Anneli Rufus and her book Party of One
Loners have a hard time in the modern, day-to-day world, yet not in fiction and film. Solitary men - who I think are shy and/or autistic men - are heroes in literature and the movies – James Fenimore Cooper's Natty Bumpo in The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans. David Copperfield in the Dickens … Continue reading Loners |The one place where society welcomes them |Anneli Rufus and her book Party of One
Autism | Weak Central Coherence | Who can’t see the forest?
In her 2008 book, Autism – A Very Short Introduction, psychologist Uta Frith discussed the "weak central coherence" theory. This is related to the tendency of autistic people to focus on detail. Walking through a forest an autistic person will see the trees and things on the forest floor – ferns, horsetails, fungi, insects, tiny … Continue reading Autism | Weak Central Coherence | Who can’t see the forest?
The Big Five Personality Traits | Where did the introverts go? What about autism?
Recently I re-examined the 'Big Five' personality traits. This was in a 2007 online article by psychologist Nathalie Nahai (A Large-Scale Personality Research Method, also published in the 2017 anthology, Know This, edited by John Brockman, published by Harper Perennial and the Edge Foundation). They aren't new. The idea began in United States Air Force in … Continue reading The Big Five Personality Traits | Where did the introverts go? What about autism?
Loners | Introverts, or ‘auties’ on the spectrum?
Some years ago I discovered that there was no website devoted to solitary people. So I created one and called it Loner's Highway – my previous blog that concentrated on the nature and life-experience of loners. But most loners are shy, and I began to regret leaving other shy people out, so I returned to … Continue reading Loners | Introverts, or ‘auties’ on the spectrum?
Paranormal World |Reincarnation | Dolon Champa Mitra
Hoping to escape from the depressing ongoing events of the Covid 19 corona virus pandemic, I returned this week to thinking about those remarkable children who speak of past lives. Among the cases studied by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, there is one that stands out for me because of something unique about the memories of Dolon … Continue reading Paranormal World |Reincarnation | Dolon Champa Mitra
