We can describe one route to spirituality as “storming the front gates.” This “front gates” approach is fairly straightforward. It happens when someone hears about spiritual or religious ideas. They “click,” the person hears them, adopts them, and applies them in life. Everyone basically lives happily ever after from there. But for some, that route doesn’t really work. This “front gates” approach sometimes leads people to reject spirituality and religion.

Is there a better approach to “mental health”? This might seem like a strange question. Hardly anybody argues that our current approach is the peak of perfection and couldn’t possibly get any better. But is there a chance that our current approach to mental health, broadly speaking, is at least partly flawed, right from the start? “Perhaps in…

How a prophetic Stephen King movie can explain today’s world — An old Stephen King movie can help us understand modern times. Once upon a time, there was a small, quiet, sleepy little town. It wasn’t perfect. It was full of regular, complicated folks with regular, complicated relationships. But overall, things were pretty good. - at least compared to what was about to happen. By the end of the story, most of…

NXIVM, Dilbert, and why good people do weird things — People are often terrified of cults. This fear isn’t entirely unjustified. Nobody wants to wind up spiritual cannon-fodder for some slick-talking guru on an ego trip. But it happens. Not often. But when it does, we hear about it. In this way, cults are sometimes like plane crashes: we only hear about them when they go…

A brief look at depression as an “Everything Problem” — Understanding depression can be a challenge. It’s a complex topic. It can be difficult to even talk about, for several reasons. One thing is clear. Lack of data isn’t the problem. There’s a flood of information about depression. Making sense of all of that data, though, and figuring out what it all actually means, is a…

A practical guide to anxiety in 7 steps — This is a short article on how to cope with anxiety. To keep it brief, this “nutshell” approach won’t go into much of the “why” behind it. It won’t explain why this approach is recommended instead of others. It presents “answers” without “showing the math.” It’s offered as if it came up in a friendly chat over coffee or a beer…

Meaning in life can be a tricky thing. Some folks are bugged about “the point of it all.” Others aren’t. Those who aren’t often seem baffled by those who are. The “unbugged” often seem to view the “bugged” as wrestling with an unnecessary problem with an obvious solution which, for some inexplicable reason, just doesn’t occur to them…

Maybe you’ve heard about it: “The mother of all problems.” That’s how one guy described it. Another was a bit more subtle: “the greatest event in recent times.” What are they talking about? “The Death of God.” (Or as Nietzsche said it, with his graceful sledgehammer: “God is dead.”) But what does that mean? Are…

Lots of “answers” to the meaning of life are zinging around these days. And for good reason. After all, we need a reason to get out of bed in the morning. We have to fight gravity just to stand up. And we need a “why” for that fight. Otherwise, gravity wins, and we just stay in bed. But the question — THE Question…