casts love as something that happens to us passively and by chance, something we fall into, something that strikes us arrow-like, rather than a skill attained through the same deliberate practice as any other pursuit of human excellence. Our failure to recognize this skillfulness aspect is perhaps the primary reason why love is so intertwined with frustration. That’s what the great German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher Erich Fromm examines in his 1956 masterwork The Art of Loving (public library) — a case for love as a skill to be honed the way artists apprentice themselves to the work on the way to mastery, demanding of its practitioner both ... posted on Jan 12 2016 (19,224 reads)

it as high as it would go. One of them climbed to the top. "It was like saying, 'Look, you're on your way to heaven," Trujillo told HuffPost. Toward the end of the visit, Bopsy turned to Fireman Bob. "Am I a real firefighter?" he asked. "Well, yeah," Walp responded. "Of course you are." Bopsy passed away the next morning, with his mother, grandmother and aunt by his side. After Bopsy's death, Trujillo distracted herself with work and graduate school. She earned her PhD in 1991, became the first chairwoman for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona in 1994, and was hired as a professor of American Indian education at Northern A... posted on Feb 4 2016 (18,549 reads)

to Darshan. “This is the moment that changed me forever. The smile on the faces of those children left me touched. And that is when I decided to do something about it,” he says. Thus, the BhookMitao campaign was born. On June 7, 2015, Darshan and his friends went and fed a couple of children in a slum in Vadodara, Gujarat. Today, the BhookMitao movement provides nutritious lunch to as many as 1,200 children in Vadodara. How they do it? As the volunteer network grows, Darshan has divided it into groups. Each group takes up a particular spot in the city. For instance, in Vadodara there are 10 spots, usually in slums, where the children are fed. Volunt... posted on Feb 6 2016 (25,214 reads)

to Kolkata? How often do you go to India? My parents left Kolkata when I was two years old to settle in the United States. We were the only ones from our family living in the U.S. so we would travel back to India every four years or so to visit relatives. I grew up speaking Bengali at home. What prompted you to tackle the project now? My brother was getting married in Kolkata and my children had quite a bit of time off for winter vacation. Also, my husband had a break from his hectic work schedule and could help document the project. A good friend of mine and talented photographer, Julie Black, agreed to accompany us. I had just quit a very stressful job producing a live news radi... posted on Feb 27 2016 (11,642 reads)

Pete Hagerty founded a Russian-American yarn company during the height of the Cold War, he wasn’t trying to save the world. He was trying to save himself. The sun is just beginning to cut through the chill autumn air as Pete Hagerty, founder of Peace Fleece in Porter Maine, begins his daily chores. Moving with an agility that belies his 64 years, he tugs on a pair of worn leather work gloves, pulling them up over the cuffs of his blue and white checked shirt and faded wool sweater. Beneath a well-worn cowboy hat, his gray hair and mustache are neatly trimmed, framing delicate Irish features made rugged by years of outdoor labor. His expression is echoed in a framed black... posted on Mar 1 2016 (11,270 reads)

to undo the socialization of perfection, but we've got to combine it with building a sisterhood that lets girls know that they are not alone. Because trying harder is not going to fix a broken system. I can't tell you how many women tell me, 08:00"I'm afraid to raise my hand, I'm afraid to ask a question, because I don't want to be the only one who doesn't understand, the only one who is struggling. When we teach girls to be brave and we have a supportive network cheering them on, they will build incredible things, and I see this every day. Take, for instance, two of our high school students who built a game called Tampon Run -- yes, Tampon Run -- to figh... posted on Mar 25 2016 (25,937 reads)

we revel in but hide from others, the confused self we re ashamed of, and even the downright crazy self we sometimes are. But it also includes the Other Side: what-we-don’t-know-or-suspect in ourselves. By this I mean the forces that come up under us and get us to say or do things we truly didn’t mean or want to do. Sometimes it’s hard to believe how much more there is to us than the day-to-day solver of our life’s problems. While certain parts of ourselves are at work every day, pushing the darker aspects aside whenever they pop up, there are friends within that we never think to contact. Perhaps because we don’t believe they are there or maybe because w... posted on Mar 26 2016 (16,713 reads)

rent Renters around the country are financially and physically vulnerable. While half of them pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent, according to the Center for American Progress, they have nothing to show for it on the other end compared to homeowners, who build equity as they pay down their mortgages. Renting Partnerships gives Cincinnati renters a third option: Build equity through social capital. In exchange for fulfilling commitments in an equity lease agreement—like work assignments on the property, timely payment of rent, and participating in resident meetings—renters earn financial credits. Money saved by low turnover is invested in a financial fund. Afte... posted on Mar 31 2016 (14,943 reads)

here? I wanted to know their stories.And as the prosecutor read the facts of each case, I was thinking to myself, we could have predicted that. That seems so preventable... not because I was an expert in criminal law, but because it was common sense. Over the course of the internship, I began to recognize people in the auditorium, not because they were criminal masterminds but because they were coming to us for help and we were sending them out without any. My second year of law school I worked as a paralegal for a defense attorney, and in that experience I met many young men accused of murder. Even in our "worst," I saw human stories. And they all contained childhood trauma... posted on Apr 3 2016 (15,682 reads)

am a second-generation Mexican American leadership coach and elder living in California. I experienced so much prejudice and racism during my young adulthood that for years I avoided even being in the presence of white people. Finally, well into my 30s, I realized that the wounds and pain I carried were robbing me of my full potential. I could do better than be angry at other people; I could work to transform the ignorance beneath the racial injustice. During the ensuing years, while I grew to accept the love within me, I also realized the necessity of extending this love to all others. I decided to make my daily conversations opportunities to learn and heal. Racism is extremely complic... posted on Apr 8 2016 (11,048 reads)

had to. His internship at New York's St. Vincent's Hospital paid nothing. With his championship belt, he wrestled in big-ticket venues, like Madison Square Garden, against big-time opponents, like Everett "The Blonde Bear" Marshall, or three-time world champion, Angelo Savoldi. The matches took a toll on his body; he tore hip joints, fractured ribs. One night, The Terrible Turk's big toe scratched a scar like Capone's down the side of his face. The next morning at work, he had to wear a surgical mask to hide it. Twice Bonica showed up to the O.R. with one eye so bruised, he couldn't see out of it. But worst of all were his mangled cauliflower ears. He said ... posted on Apr 12 2016 (14,310 reads)

have no choice but to express their lives,” Anne Truitt wrote in her penetrating reflection on the crucial difference between being an artist and making art. This creative inevitability is at the center of artistic endeavor and has been articulated by a multitude of humanity’s most celebrated artists. “Every good artist paints what he is,” Jackson Pollock asserted in his final interview. So why, then, do we so readily reduce works of art to objects and commodities, forgetting that they are at heart transfigurations of lived human experience? My recent conversation with Amanda Palmer about patronage and the future of a... posted on Jun 26 2016 (12,388 reads)

If we say of law that "life comes from it," then where there is hurt, there must be healing. To the Navajo way of thinking, justice is related to healing because many of the concepts are the same. When a Navajo becomes ill, he or she will consult a medicine man. A Navajo healer examines a patient to determine what is wrong, what caused the illness, and what ceremony matches the illness to cure it. The cure must be related to the cause of the illness, because Navajo healing works through two processes: it drives away or removes the cause of illness and it restores the person to good relations in solidarity with his or her surroundings and self. Patients consult Navajo he... posted on Jun 30 2016 (22,972 reads)

that endorphins produced in singing can act to draw large groups together quickly. Music has also been linked to dopamine release, involved in regulating mood and craving behavior, which seems to predict music’s ability to bring us pleasure. Coupled with the effects on endorphins, music seems to make us feel good and connect with others, perhaps particularly when we make music ourselves. But music is more than just a common pleasure. New studies reveal how it can work to create a sense of group identity. In a series of ingenious studies, researchers Chris Loerch and Nathan Arbuckle studied how musical reactivity—how much one is affected by listen... posted on Jul 16 2016 (23,719 reads)

front of the nursing home as I pulled up. My chest tightened. The reality here is that people do not necessarily get better – they come here to die. Still, after visiting almost 6 months now, I have come to care for the residents. It always makes me sad when someone passes. Inside, I half expected there to be a rush of firemen or paramedics shouting, “Code blue” or “Clear the way!” but that is only on TV. Here, it is business as usual – all in a days work. Down the hall, Mr. Le was propped up on the sofa, his one foot in his wheel chair. He has good days and not so good, today was a sad one. I sat with him while he spoke to me in Vietnamese wit... posted on Jul 22 2016 (15,965 reads)

a story: A man has a burning question. He decides to seek out a famous Hasidic teacher, a man everyone says is the wisest person of his era. For a long time he walks by foot, carrying his question. He gets rained on; he gets hungry. He keeps walking. Finally, he arrives in the village where the teacher lives. The students, though, won't let him into the study house. How can this man's question be serious, when he has just arrived? They've been working for years to be found worthy of the teacher's attention. Finally, the man's question is stronger than his politeness. He breaks in, corners the teacher and asks, "What is the essence of truth?" The teach... posted on Aug 1 2016 (19,756 reads)

partnership in which both the patient and the care provider have something to offer in pursuit of the patient’s optimal health. The care provider embodies not only clinical knowledge, which is the result of his or her training, but also qualities not always associated with experts. These include curiosity, emotional support, collaboration, humor, and the ability to articulate options and alternatives without judgment. Patients are participants as well, offering knowledge of what has worked for them in the past, providing information that can't be quantified on a medical report, and finding meaning and purpose in their response to the challenges faced when confronted by illnes... posted on Aug 4 2016 (16,562 reads)

Sagar Kabra was a family medicine resident at Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS), an organization dedicated to serving the rural poor in Chhattisgarh, India. He was killed in a road traffic accident on May 9, 2016. In rural India, it is not uncommon for a person to pass before their time, their life cut short by the injustices of poverty, hunger, accident, and disease. Often these deaths go unnoticed, and the stories of these lives unheard. Sagar Kabra was familiar with this reality from his time working as a resident physician at Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS), an organization through which he and his colleagues provided healthcare to some of the poorest and most marginalized communities in India.... posted on Aug 5 2016 (18,765 reads)

voice. Some of my early influences and the people who encouraged me was my good friend Ingrid and the books on Franz Marc, Kandinsky, Basquiat and art history books that she would send me, as well as the art sections of newspapers clandestinely passed from inmate to inmate as passing newspapers here is illegal. For a long time, I spent my time dealing with difficult emotions within the space of my art. Most of it was filled with pain, anger and sadness and in no way could I say that the work would serve as balm or inspiration. It was simply my worst in image form. Then, after some years of this and after reading Alex Grey’s book The Mission of Art, I realized that art can be... posted on Aug 9 2016 (16,059 reads)

KINGSNORTH explores the ways we can improve our relationships with others at home, at work and with friends, by improving the way we communicate. 1. An intention for connection. Aim for a respectful and compassionate quality of connection, so that everyone can express themselves, be heard and understood. Trust that the connection is more important and more nourishing than being right, or even just having your say. Connection means to try to be open and stay in touch with what matters to the other person – and to yourself – in each present moment. 2. Listen more than you speak. We have two ears and one mouth – a reminder of what is important! Listening is... posted on Aug 20 2016 (178,096 reads)