inkbluesky

japanese garden after the rain.

Mind Reading

Every day, whether we’re pushing for a raise, wrestling with the kids over homework, or judging whether a friend really likes our latest redecorating spree, we’re reading each other’s minds. Drawing on our observations, our databank of memories, our powers of reason, and our wellsprings of emotion, we constantly make educated guesses about what another person is thinking and feeling. Throughout the most heated argument or the most lighthearted chat, we’re intently collecting clues to what’s on the other person’s mind at the moment. “It’s a perceptual ability I call mindsight,” says Daniel Siegel, UCLA psychiatrist and author of The Mindful Brain. “It allows your brain to create a map of another person’s internal state.”

Mind reading of this sort—not to be confused with the infallible superhero kind of telepathy—is a critical human skill. It’s the way we make sense of other people’s behavior and decide on our own next moves. (emphasis mine)

A few years ago I read a study that attempted to explain the real basis for what we call intuition. After reading this article and what Dr. Siegel describes as mindsight I couldn’t help but think that every few years some ambitious psychiatrists just renames things to sell a new round of books. Mindsight or intuition is an interesting phenomenon in that we pick up small clues from the people around and us and after enough of those clues accumulate suddenly a light goes on that maybe something is up.

Michigan GOP activist gets 5 years for sex assault. We should all understand that people of every political stripe commit crimes, as does every religion, ethnicity etc, but this stuck me as especially weaselly,

Corrigan sentenced Flory, the longtime head of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans, to five years in prison. That’s the maximum term for the offense.

“I’m sickened that he is an attorney,” Corrigan told the victim and a packed courtroom.

Flory’s wife, Erin, sitting on the defendant’s side of the courtroom, rolled her eyes, shook her head and then sobbed as Flory expressed “deep, profound remorse” for what he did and pleaded with Corrigan for probation for the sake of his 4-year-old son.

“My son needs his father,” Flory said.

If Flory cared so much about his son and wife he should have thought of that before he committed rape. To hide behind his son at the sentencing just adds despicable behavior on top of despicable behavior.