Mark Twain said: “I never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” Or at least that’s how the story goes. Evidently, we can’t be 100% sure whether the story is true or not. Storytelling is now considered to be an essential leadership skill, and for good reason. When we believe something […]

“We can produce more information, but that means there’s more information for us to process. Our processing capability is the bottleneck.” – Gloria Mark, author of “Attention Span” This passage comes from a May 28th, 2023 opinion piece by Ezra Klein published in print and podcast form in the New York Times with the title […]

塵も積もれば山となる。1) Write index cards for 5-10 new kanji and review of last 50 studied, 5 new verbs, 1 new grammar/usage point 2) read 午後の曳航, 雪国 or editorials for 30-60 minutes, using highlighter to identify 10-20 words to look up later, 3) Think in and shift conversations into Japanese. This was the routine I used in […]

Raise your hand if you love to work in a workplace full of complainers I’m guessing that most of us kept our hands as low as possible. Most of us don’t wake up thinking, “I sure hope someone gives me a big negativity boost today!” Being around someone who complains a lot can be a […]

Inter-dependability – A mindset through which we intentionally convert our inter-dependence (which is a given) into a renewable source of that which we need to survive and thrive. Inter-dependability is something that exists in the context of our relationships. Inter-dependability emerges when we embrace the paradoxical nature of being individuals who are fundamentally inter-connected with […]

There are many ways to think about inclusion, but the concept can feel a bit nebulous. Most models seem to focus on what those who already feel included can and should do to “make others feel less excluded.” Unfortunately, it can be difficult to extend this mindset beyond the classroom and into the workplace. Part […]

Guest post by Charles A. Cogan On September 30, Vladimir Putin gave a fiery speech about the Satanic West and Russia’s fight to overcome Evil (New York Times, September 30, 2022, “With Bluster and Threats, Putin Casts the West as the Enemy”). He also announced that the four regions of Ukraine that Russia had occupied […]

In this series of essays, I’ve been exploring how embracing the social aspect of self construction might alter our view of what it means to be an individual. In previous essays, I have introduced the “I/me” model of George H. Mead and the ningen model of Watsuji Tetsuro. In this essay, I introduce the thinking of a […]

From approximately 1203 to 1334, Japan was ruled by a family known as the Hôjô. Although Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura shogunate, the Hôjô became the real decision-makers of the polity after his death.  In form, the Hôjô were servants of the shogun, but by the middle of the thirteenth century they exercised virtually unchallenged […]

In the early decades of the 20th century, as G. H. Mead’s former students were documenting and organizing his ideas so as to ensure they would be available to later generations, halfway around the world in Japan, Watsuji Tetsuro was articulating his own vision of what it meant to be an individual in a world […]