Page Turner's Blog, page 80

It’s So Easy to Get Your Own Thoughts & Feelings Mixed Up With Someone Else’s, for Better or Worse

It’s Sunday morning. I’m wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt I don’t care about, and a head wrap that holds my hair out of my face. It’s not glamorous, but it’s functional. I’m dressed that way because I’ve been cleaning. Nothing major but the kind of light cleaning that doesn’t wait for a weekday to be done.  » Read more

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What Makes for a Genuine Public Apology & Will It Lead to People Being More Forgiving?

Although it’s been said that sorry is the hardest word, I’ve also heard the following many times: “It’s easy enough to say you’re sorry. Doesn’t mean you mean it.”

Or something like it. Hundreds of times at this point.

It’s a pattern I’ve seen in my own personal life,  » Read more

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What Does It Mean to Be Humble?

A great deal of time, energy, and attention are generally paid to psychology’s attempts to plumb the dark depths of the human soul. This is evidenced by how popular terms from abnormal psychology are when contrasted with terms that describe normative psychology.

A lot of lay folks know (and in fact use) terms like “narcissist,”  » Read more

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If I Told You That Life Had No Purpose, How Would You Feel?

If I told you that life had no purpose, how would you feel? Would you feel crushed? Or would you feel free?

For me, it all depends on the day. On whatever river of emotions I’m currently floating down.

Sometimes I’m gripped with sadness at this idea. With the realization that there’s no way to win at the game I’m playing.  » Read more

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The World Needs More Atypical Writers

People make a lot of assumptions about you when you have a large platform. Especially when you’re just starting to break through.

You get the strangest comments from people, ones that clearly assume things about your personality and intention for writing that aren’t in the pieces themselves. That are instead drawn from people’s opinions of what writers who have grown popular must be like personality-wise.  » Read more

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When You Ask Someone to Question One Thing, You May Be Asking Them to Question Everything

Upon hearing that I’ve written three books about polyamory and maintain a popular daily blog that heavily (although not exclusively) focuses on consensual non-monogamy, most people assume I must be some kind of polyamory fanatic.

They presume that I jumped into non-monogamy vigorously, happily, excited as heck. That I was an exuberant polyamorist,  » Read more

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The Very Presence of a Community and Other Voices Can Be Reassuring, Regardless of What They’re Even Saying

It’s been interesting, the past decade. Polyamory went from being a relatively obscure term, something that was only discussed in low-tech ancient discussion groups that looked basically like .txt files posted by a few obsessive outliers, to being covered by major news outlets. (The history of this emergence is well covered by Alan M’s blog Polyamory in the News)

While people disagree on whether consensual non-monogamy has caught on as a practice during that time (some people say no,  » Read more

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If I’m Ruining Fetlife, I’m Glad

I’ve been meaning to finish this particular post for a while, but I’ve held off.

This is primarily because I try very hard to not reward behavior that I don’t want to see again. The reason for this is simple. It’s essentially the closest thing to a fundamental rule in psychology: What you reward,  » Read more

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Why Do We Cry? Two Dueling Explanations

I am a champion crier. For real.

I cry when I’m happy. Cry when I’m sad. When I’m tired.

In my own case, it feels like there’s an emotional thermometer inside of me, and when the mercury in it rises enough (for whatever reason) to overwhelm the system and break the glass —  » Read more

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Huh. Apparently Optimists Live Longer.

As I’ve written before, research has shown that the most resilient people aren’t always positive. “Always” is the key term here. A generally positive outlook is helpful in responding well to life’s challenges; the important point is that while resilient people are generally optimistic they also acknowledge reality.

There’s no amount of positive thinking that’ll let you just gloss over the bad parts and have you rebounding easily from them in a meaningful way.  » Read more

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