Psychology · Philosophy · Self-awareness
You already know this. Sitting with it is the hard part.
A working library of ideas about how the mind behaves and how a life is best spent — essays, field notes, single facts, and short films. Added to every week.
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Self-awareness
The fundamental attribution error
October 15, 2026 · today’s idea
Their behaviour is a character flaw. Yours is a bad week. Both cannot be right.
Where it comes from
Ross, 1977, naming a tendency shown repeatedly in social psychology — though it holds less consistently across cultures than first assumed.
What it looks like
The driver who cut you off is reckless. When you did it, you were late for something that mattered.
The question
Who have you filed under a permanent label based on a temporary situation?
Threads
Everything here hangs
off one of four hooks.
Nothing is new. It's the same handful of ideas, turned over until one of them lands on a day you happen to need it.
The library
Read it, watch it,
or take one fact and go.
Worth knowing
What actually works, and what doesn't.
Self-improvement with the evidence rating printed on the front — including the popular advice that has been tested and failed.
Approach the thing you are avoiding, gradually
Avoidance is what maintains anxiety. Not the fear itself. Weeks, uncomfortable Read it Mood StrongMove your body when your mood is low
Comparable to some first-line treatments for mild to moderate depression, and free. 20 to 40 minutes Read it People StrongInvest in relationships like it is a health behaviour
Social connection predicts survival at a magnitude comparable to well-known clinical risk factors. Ongoing Read itLexicon
A word for it makes it
easier to notice.
Terms from psychology and philosophy, in plain language. Once you can name a pattern, you start seeing it everywhere.
Philosophy
Ataraxia
A settled, untroubled state of mind — the goal of the Epicureans and the Sceptics alike. Not pleasure, and not numbness, but the absence of disturbance.
In practice You don't need the day to go well. You need to stop needing it to go well.
Psychology
Cognitive dissonance
The discomfort of holding two beliefs that don't fit, or of acting against what you claim to believe. The mind usually resolves it by quietly editing the belief rather than the behaviour.
In practice Notice the moment you invent a reason. That is the tell.
Philosophy
Negative capability
Keats's phrase for the ability to sit in uncertainty and doubt without grabbing for a tidy answer.
In practice Most bad decisions are made to end the discomfort of not deciding.
Psychology
Anhedonia
A reduced ability to feel pleasure in things that used to provide it. A symptom rather than a mood — and worth raising with a professional if it persists.
In practice Flatness is different from sadness, and it is the one people miss.
Philosophy
Eudaimonia
Aristotle's word for a life going well overall: flourishing through activity that expresses your character. Not a feeling you can chase directly.
In practice It is assessed across a life, not across an afternoon.
Psychology
Metacognition
Thinking about your own thinking — noticing how you're reasoning, how confident you are, and whether that confidence is earned.
In practice The gap between feeling sure and being right is where most errors live.
Philosophy
Apatheia
The Stoic aim of freedom from destructive passions. Often mistranslated as apathy; it is not feeling less, but not being governed by what you feel.
In practice Feel it fully. Just do not hand it the steering wheel.
Psychology
Loss aversion
Losses tend to loom larger than equivalent gains. From Kahneman and Tversky, though the size of the asymmetry is actively debated.
In practice You will defend what you have far harder than you'll pursue what you want.
Behind the page
I keep this mostly for myself.
A mirror doesn't tell you anything new. It just puts you where you can see it.
This started as a notes app full of half-finished thoughts — things I'd read, patterns I'd caught in my own head, ideas I kept forgetting and having to learn again. Writing them down properly was the only way they stuck.
There's no programme here and nothing to sign up for. Just a place to slow down for a few minutes and leave with one thing worth carrying into the rest of your day.