Latest thinking

Getting to the point

Blog

04 Apr 2012

A change in my behaviour which people have urged on me is to write shorter posts; so – following a fascinating conversation on the topic with a new Fellow - here are ten points about behaviour change in just over 500 words.

Nature Deficit Disorder

Blog

30 Mar 2012

Jonathan Rowson

Alas, no time to blog in detail today, but very much wanted to share the idea of 'nature deficit disorder'. The national trust cites evidence revealing:

Decoding Decoupling: Why the planet depends on it.

Blog

28 Mar 2012

Jonathan Rowson

In response to my last blog on the understandable madness of economic growth I received the following comment, which I think gets to the heart of the sustainability challenge:

Re: The Understandable Madness of Economic Growth

Blog

27 Mar 2012

“I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better.” This ‘brilliant insight’ by Sophie Tucker is one thing that came to my mind reading Jonathan Rowson’s blog about a major economic/environmental conundrum. We are running out of planet due to our exploding consumption but we don’t yet have an economic model that would be stable without this on-going explosion. Yet, I believe, the real challenge here is not a technical one but an adaptive one. Most likely we will have to go to being somewhat poor again eventually.

The Understandable Madness of Economic Growth

Blog

26 Mar 2012

Jonathan Rowson

Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must. - Tim Jackson

What do financial bubbles and the human mind have in common?

Blog

21 Mar 2012

Before I studied psychology, I also had a chance of working for an investment bank. One thing that the two areas have in common is inherent instability of the ‘systems’ that they deal with: financial markets and the mind. George Soros claims that this insight into workings of markets allowed him to become a billionaire. He calls it reflexivity. Luckily, unlike with markets, there is a practical solution how to deal with this conundrum of the mind.

Mindfulness as becoming the ‘whisperer’ of J. Haidt’s elephant

Blog

13 Mar 2012

I find the metaphor of an elephant and a rider, which has been used by psychologist Jonathan Haidt and embraced by Mathew Taylor, to be especially useful in thinking about the mind. This is how J. Haidt describes it:

Obstacles to Mindfulness as a Key to a Healthier Society

Blog

13 Mar 2012

Before I launch my series on how, in my view, mindfulness is a very powerful tool for closing what the RSA calls the ‘social aspiration gap’, I want to bring some perspective. I want to list the main reasons why mindfulness – if it is actually as great as I will argue it is – is not so popular yet:

Mindfulness as using Kahneman’s ‘fast and slow thinking’ skilfully

Blog

02 Mar 2012

Recently I attended a mindfulness training day and instead of actually doing the practice, which is much about spending less time in our heads and more time in the real world, I found myself  analysing the training itself. I was sitting on a meditation cushion and doing old-fashioned left-brain-type analysis. I found myself making different connections between mindfulness and brain-related sciences. I thought I had found some interesting links between mindfulness and Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s ‘fast and slow thinking’. This led to me to believe that one way of looking at mindfulness is as a skilful engagement of Kahneman’s both ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ thinking. Also, sitting on that cushion I came to believe that mindfulness is an important part of closing the RSA’s ‘social aspiration gap’ to become more of a person one wants to be.