Leading voice on how tech & culture shape the psyche. Psychotherapist | Consultant | Psych writer at GQ | Keynote speaker | Author of The Psychodynamics of Social Networking | aaronbalick.com
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I'm terrible at choosing titles for my articles. So I asked ChatGPT to offer some alternatives to the one I proposed and it said: “Let’s put this through the wringer so it doesn’t just sit there like Jung’s Red Book on a dusty shelf but actually gets read, shared, and subscribed to.” 1/2
I guess its wry sense of humour is back. If you’d like to read the enticingly titled: The Hidden Mystical Life of Carl Jung: From seances, dreams and the occult, to Eastern wisdom's place in Western psychology. It drops tomorrow at 11am UK time. newsletter.aaronbalick.com/p/the-hidden...
I'm terrible at choosing titles for my articles. So I asked ChatGPT to offer some alternatives to the one I proposed and it said: “Let’s put this through the wringer so it doesn’t just sit there like Jung’s Red Book on a dusty shelf but actually gets read, shared, and subscribed to.” 1/2
Oh good! I hope you like it
AKA: Reduce your wonderful complexity to a reductive caricature. More on this here: Forget ‘extroverts’ and ‘introverts’, there's a new way to categorise ourselves in town www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...
“It is perhaps difficult for the Western mind to appreciate that man develops by growth rather than self-improvement, and that neither the body nor the mind grows by stretching itself; as the seed becomes the tree. 1/3
😂
There is no question of higher or lower, better or worse, for the process is fulfilled in each moment of its activity.” - Alan Watts 3/3
It is not a question of improvement, for a tree is not an improved seed, and it is even in perfect accord with nature that many seeds never become trees. Seeds lead to plants, and plants lead to seeds. 2/3
“It is perhaps difficult for the Western mind to appreciate that man develops by growth rather than self-improvement, and that neither the body nor the mind grows by stretching itself; as the seed becomes the tree. 1/3
Would you consider your mostly Kleinian colleagues breast friends?
Fettuccine Alfredo, for me please.
“In the United States we are in serious social and political conflict because we think we ought to be living in a republic when the great majority of citizens believe the universe is a monarchy.” - Alan Watts 1973
No notes
When I was doing my PhD research I came across the phrase “father hunger” and it blew my mind. Just two words that crystallise so much so well. Watching the film “Bob Travino Likes It” brought me right back to that research.
Some Friday evenings I don’t know whether I watch a movie because I want to watch a movie, or I watch a movie so I can have popcorn. That I could make a big bowl of popcorn without an accompanying movie is, for some reason, unthinkable.
My local NHS surgery has just upgraded its triage. You go online and fill in a form and within hours someone has made a judgement to call you or invite you in same day or later. You can also manage all admin and repeat prescriptions online. Total game changer and massive improvement.
I’m aware - but I’ve only got direct experience of the UK and US.
Having grown up in the US and spent my adult life in the UK, I can only see the US “health system” as a form of brutality. The NHS may be far from perfect, but I’ll take flawed over brutal any day of the week.
If it is I think van der Leeuw still came first!
“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced “ - Gerard van der Leeuw
“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced “ - Gerard van der Leeuw
Thank you.
It’s ironic that we embrace broad identity labels to express how unique we are. Now we have a new one for people who don’t like groups, and share rare traits like authenticity and independent thinking. Call me anal but I don't think we need it. My GQ latest: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...
The seduction of personality types in the West goes all the way back to the ancients. In the fifth century BCE the medical-minded Hippocrates introduced the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic)
Final paragraph!
It’s ironic that we embrace broad identity labels to express how unique we are. Now we have a new one for people who don’t like groups, and share rare traits like authenticity and independent thinking. Call me anal but I don't think we need it. My GQ latest: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...
What’s that? Freud in GQ? My work here is done. www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...
I will neither defend nor justify “otrovert!”
What’s that? Freud in GQ? My work here is done. www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/a-ne...
#Hostage moves so quickly from the totally implausible to the impossibly implausible that I can hardly keep up.
#Hostage moves so quickly from the totally implausible to the impossibly implausible that I can hardly keep up.
and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.
as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night… 7/8
As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; 6/8
Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. 5/8
This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. 4/8
The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. 3/8
“With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. 2/8
This is why you should read the classics. Otherwise you’d never know how a whale was rendered on the deck of a 19th century ship - nor encounter such a poetic way of conveying it as Herman Melville in Moby Dick: 1/8
When you imagine yourself to yourself, how old is that version of you? open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
When you imagine yourself to yourself, how old is that version of you? open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
You spend your teens wishing you were older and your 30’s and beyond feeling like you’re younger than you actually are. For the briefest period in your mid to late 20s you feel age-aligned. Why? open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
You spend your teens wishing you were older and your 30’s and beyond feeling like you’re younger than you actually are. For the briefest period in your mid to late 20s you feel age-aligned. Why? open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Better now I see you’re here! It’s been a time!
Hi Valerie!
My instagram is telling me that I’m not getting enough fibre, protein, prebiotics, probiotics, collagen, creatine, chia seeds, electrolytes, and NAD+. I must be broken. Fortunately, by replacing any one of the things I’m missing with a pouch of magic powder, I can cure them all!
The one fashion trend I’ve been ahead of. Since 1988.
Last week this exchange with Leonardo DiCaprio in Esquire went viral: Interviewer: I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer as quickly as you can. If you didn’t know how old you are, how old are you right now? DiCaprio: Thirty-two. www.esquire.com/uk/culture/f... 1/4
In my next Substack post I ask, "Why do we feel younger than we are?" It drops first thing Saturday morning. Subscribe now (free!) to get it straight to your inbox. newsletter.aaronbalick.com/p/why-you-st... 4/4
We tend to feel the same way about ourselves. Some time after our mid-twenties our subjective age begins to lag behind our actual age. We do, in fact, spend more time in asynchronous age delusion than we do feeling our own age. 3/4
I don't think that DiCaprio is alone on this one. In fact, being such a public figure I would say that WE ALSO think DiCaprio is 32, which is why we're continually surprised that he looks older than we think he should. 2/4
Last week this exchange with Leonardo DiCaprio in Esquire went viral: Interviewer: I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer as quickly as you can. If you didn’t know how old you are, how old are you right now? DiCaprio: Thirty-two. www.esquire.com/uk/culture/f... 1/4
That anybody seeing Zelenskyy and Trump in the same room and chooses team Trump makes my brain explode. That so many people do makes all the exploded pieces of my brain explode.
That anybody seeing Zelenskyy and Trump in the same room and chooses team Trump makes my brain explode. That so many people do makes all the exploded pieces of my brain explode.
Depth psychology, because being human is more profound than the shallows of its symptoms.
Depth psychology, because being human is more profound than the shallows of its symptoms.
The fact that “introvert” and “extravert” have become identity categories is the antithesis of what Jung intended. He encouraged us to develop our inferior functions, not identify with our superior ones. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
The fact that “introvert” and “extravert” have become identity categories is the antithesis of what Jung intended. He encouraged us to develop our inferior functions, not identify with our superior ones. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the dentist…
Thank you Suze
You already know what you’re good at. Make some time for what you’re bad at. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Favourite book.
The Rascal, when falling from the “fully climbable” tree… 40 years ago: “Mommy! Mommy!” Today: “My hip! My hip!”
“… it is necessary for the development of character that we should allow the inferior function to find expression. We cannot allow one part of our personality to be cared for symbiotically by another” - C.G. Jung open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
“… it is necessary for the development of character that we should allow the inferior function to find expression. We cannot allow one part of our personality to be cared for symbiotically by another” - C.G. Jung open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
The silver lining of evil reels algorithms is almost definitely redeemed in clips of children’s reactions to surprise pet dogs.
Every time you outsource a piece of creative or intellectual work to AI you exchange a small piece of your soul for a momentary convenience. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Choose carefully where you cut corners with AI - otherwise you may just assist yourself out of your own existence. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Choose carefully where you cut corners with AI - otherwise you may just assist yourself out of your own existence. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
I love Richard Rohr. And I’m an atheist.
In July’s GQ I said we need to find our inner masochist to survive the AI age. My latest Substack takes it further: why doing hard things keeps you sharp — and how AI’s “friction-free” world can quietly make you dull. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
In July’s GQ I said we need to find our inner masochist to survive the AI age. My latest Substack takes it further: why doing hard things keeps you sharp — and how AI’s “friction-free” world can quietly make you dull. open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
If someone can locate a link to the original study please share!
It’s in the Weekend FT but it’s paywalled. I haven’t been able to locate the link to the study the article is regretting to.
I think the opportunities to develop it are diminishing.
I’d prefer a bit more conscientiousness in public policy, scientific research, public health, journalism, governance, law enforcement, medicine, environment, regulation, business, law, just to name a few areas to address the state of the world.
Someone who scores high in conscientiousness is someone you can generate confidently delegate stuff to if you want a job done to a high standard and on a deadline.
It’s a “big five” measure - highly validated measure of five traits - conscientiousness includes high levels of reliability- timekeeping, organisation, attention to detail, that sort of thing.
Shocking but not surprising. A chart in the FT Weekend showing a steep decline in conscientiousness & uptick in neuroticism (big 5 measure) over the past decade (US study).
File with: Agreeableness is linked to more frequent dreams about people being kind
Shocking but not surprising. A chart in the FT Weekend showing a steep decline in conscientiousness & uptick in neuroticism (big 5 measure) over the past decade (US study).
I see flakes of rock salt.
In order to have fairplay, you need to have consensus. Without a critical mass of consensus, there is no fairplay. That’s why fair play is so fragile. Sadly, it’s generally not the consensus seekers who seem to know this - that or who are mad enough to dispense with consensus so cavalierly.
Beggars belief from even the deepest cynic.
One of the benefits of reading classic fiction is a renewed gratitude for modern medicine. If we want to overcome anti-science, we should socially prescribe the canon.
Just had the holy crap moment that the chief of police in the original Naked Gun is Tony Soprano’s mother.
Rediscover classic literature, cure for our times. It’s quiet contemplation. It develops discipline from distraction and connects us to our common humanity across history and culture. Why doom scroll when you can read a classic? Also, best value for money on the planet. What are you reading?
“In this world … sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.” - Herman Melville
In this world, having the capacity for critical thought is a lot more painful than not having the capacity for critical thought.
Withholding a spoiler - there’s an unforgettable moment in Haneke’s Caché that’s utterly utterly shocking. That and the first death in Hereditary.
In this world, having the capacity for critical thought is a lot more painful than not having the capacity for critical thought.
The more AI tempts us to take short cuts to make life tasks easier, the more we should connect with our inner masochist: My latest for GQ: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/ai-i...
The more AI tempts us to take short cuts to make life tasks easier, the more we should connect with our inner masochist: My latest for GQ: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/ai-i...
In can’t remember when I last read a book to page 800 with still some way to go!
Intuition is a great source of data to support your thinking - especially when out comes to making big choices Only it doesn’t come preprogrammed to always be right. Here are some pointers on when to trust your gut, when not to, and how to improve your intuition open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Intuition is a great source of data to support your thinking - especially when out comes to making big choices Only it doesn’t come preprogrammed to always be right. Here are some pointers on when to trust your gut, when not to, and how to improve your intuition open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
Trust your gut? Maybe - maybe not. Intuition may br mysterious, but that doesn’t make it always right. My latest Substack: open.substack.com/pub/appliedp...
