Sam & Sara #388: Cruciality Sara: He says being vegetarian isn’t crucial at all! Sam: He should tell that face to face with the animals about to be killed for him. Sara: If they could, what might they say? Sam: They would say eating them isn’t crucial at all! Sara: While...

A friend remarked, ‘It is depressing to know that many suffer from depression.’ This is surely nothing to joyous over, but should we grieve along? The Buddha would empathise, but not lament or even sigh, and simply contemplate skilful action. If we become depressed too, how can we...

‘A Study in Scarlet’ is the debut Sherlock Holmes story. It is a good reminder of several truths… The plot of how things came to be is usually thicker than we superficially assume. This does not just pertain to criminal matters. There is always tragedy behind crimes which...

If you don’t like yourself, why don’t you change yourself? If you can change yourself, who is really your ‘self’? - Stonepeace Reflections from watching ‘A Ton Image’: If your clone vies for attention of your beloved, would you be jealous – of your...

To empathise is to civilise. To civilise is to empathise. - Jeremy Rifkin As mentioned in the video, ‘We are soft-wired to experience another’s plight [or joy] as if we are experiencing it for ourselves.’  Interesting. The monkey experiment illustrates the power of empathy...

There was a discussion with friends from Vegetarian Society over coverage of boycotting shark-fin soup for wedding dinners in the news… about whether it involves etiquette in rejecting invitations that include the dish and speaking against the dish during such dinners. Here is my...

The maniacal Joker in ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland tries to make Commissioner Gordon snap mentally by giving him physical and mental torture, while proclaiming that ‘All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. ...

Some lyrics from R.E.M.’s ‘Everybody Hurts’: Well, everybody hurts sometimes. Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes. And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on… Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on… Everybody hurts. You are not...

I once listened to someone’s grievances overnight. She was planning to kill herself. When dawn broke, she felt reborn. I didn’t give much advice because I didn’t know what to say. In fact, I shared my grievances too. (We wept hard.) It was the power of empathy, of being...

A Tit for a Tat (77) Tit: I think he suffers from some mental disorder. Tat: Which one? Tit: It doesn’t matter. Tat: What do you mean? Tit: Can you imagine the days when disorders like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD… weren’t well researched? Tat: Yes, but...

A Tit for a Tat (26) Tit: In case you don’t know, he’s not ‘normal’, in the sense that he suffers from a mental disorder. Tat: I see… that explains some of his less than normal behaviour. Tit: Do be more patient than normal with him. Tat: Yes, it’s would...

Inspired by the existentialist novel, The Outsider (L’Étranger) by Albert Camus: Sometimes we remark that someone is strange, as if it’s a fault of theirs. But it’s often our fault too, for not seeking to understand why they seem strange to us. Not trying to understand those...