Mind over Manner: Explorations in Neuroscience, Current Events and Philosophy

  We all want people to love us, and we want to love. That’s just part of life. We all want to feel validated by someone other than our family. However, I think some of us are far too desperate for a relationship, and yet remain uneducated and emotionally immature. What I’m going to talk about here isn’t sugar coated. I’m not trying to soften the blow. Gen Z has lost the plot for good connections, and I’d like to explain why. In the past few years, a myriad of convoluted terms have popped up on social media platforms to justify people’s behavior in unfulfilled relationships. Let’s discuss a few. The first is the concept of a “situationship”. It’s a relationship, but without any of the communication and commitment. This is just friends with benefits. The idea of this is that you get the validation of a relationship, but still being able to hit on other people. You might be asking, “What’s the difference between this and an open relationship?” Well, it lacks communication and clarity...

  In recent years, mental health has become a hot topic of discussion, mostly among those who don’t know much about it. It’s become a generalized reason for our behaviours, but what is “mental health” really? How has our discussion of it shifted its meaning, and has this meaning shift affected us?      The term initially indicated “absence of illness”. As such, mental health used to mean  lacking  an abnormal mental condition. Now, we use it to describe our minds writ large, which bleeds into our emotional experiences as well. If you ask anyone what “mental health” is nowadays, it’d be hard to give a cohesive definition. Honestly, it’s far too vague, now being associated with the good and the bad parts of our minds. The idea behind this meaning shift was good. It was supposed to reduce the stigma behind more socially acceptable mental illnesses, like anxiety and depression. But for those who face less “glamorous” illnesses, like schizophrenia or bipolar, th...

  Alright, I know this topic is a contentious one. There’s a reason so many wars are waged over religion; people feel intrinsically attached to their beliefs, and have unfathomable levels of fear for their gods. Religions are a key part of culture and society at large; they’ll never leave, and I don’t think it should. The purpose of this is not to bash any one religion, as I don’t think there’s a single religion to blame for the issues of them all. (Except maybe Christianity, but hey, as an ex-christian, I feel like I can bash it a little.) Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism all have possible benefits, I just believe that the structure and influence of these groups has been taken down the wrong path. For context, I attended an Episcopalian elementary school through 6th grade. That’s eight years of school spent attending chapel every morning. We had a separate Religious Education class built into our school curriculum, reading psalms and all that. I frankly don’t ...