Womankind August 2020

In this increasingly connected world, some people are finding more reasons to disconnect. There are more reasons to ‘unfollow’, to take offence, to be disappointed, to throw one’s arms up in the air and declare that the “world has gone mad and I want none of it”. There are more reasons to shut others out because they don’t represent “who I want to be”, they don’t say the right things, or think the right things, or be the right people. This pushing away is evident in today’s highly-fractured world. But when it comes to happiness studies, it’s ‘relationship goods’ that comprise the bulk of what makes us happy, time and time again. You could be filthy rich with an enviable lifestyle, but be poor in social capital, and chances are…

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Antonia Case:  Antonia Case is Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director of Womankind, Editorial Director of New Philosopher, and co-convener of the discussion series Bright Thinking. She was awarded the 2016 AAP Media Professionals’ Award for excellence in the presentation of philosophy in the media. Her forthcoming book Flourish will be published by Bloomsbury Sigma. Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore: Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore writes for New Philosopher, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Statesman, New Internationalist, The Huffington Post, and Time magazine. Niamh Boyce: Niamh Boyce was named Newcomer of the Year at the 2013 Irish Book Awards for The Herbalist, her first novel. She won the 2012 Hennesssy XO New Irish Writer Of The Year Award and Emerging Poetry Award for her poem Kitty. Her second novel,…

It’s the one question that we’d all like to know the answer to, so we could just get on with it - the living part, that is. If we knew what the ‘good life’ entailed then we could shun the rest, and just concentrate on the important bits. But society has a tendency to derail us. We’re repeatedly told that the good life is about making loads of money, having a successful career and buying as much as we can possibly shovel into our houses and garages. Some are convinced that they need to be famous and get their name up in lights for the good life to kick in. It’s worth remembering that the phase of flight for the Kunanyia stephaniae butterfly lasts a mere 14 days, long enough…

“It takes courage to be creative.”- Ellis Paul Torrance How do you see yourself in five years’ time? Or ten years into the future? Where are you living? How are you spending each day? Having an image of your future self, and falling in love with this picture, is, according to late American psychologist and creative researcher Ellis Paul Torrance, a strong predictor of creative achievement. “One of the most powerful wellsprings of creative energy, outstanding accomplishment, and self-fulfilment seems to be falling in love with something - your dream, your image of the future,” he wrote in his paper, The importance of falling in love with something. To test his theory, Torrance, in 1958, began studying children in fourth and fifth grade. “I asked these children what they were…

• Grizzly bears dig a winter den, where they hibernate for between three and seven months each year, living off stored fat. • During hibernation their heart rate drops by half, although they are not in a deep slumber - having been known to wake up as unsuspecting visitors walk by, or if food supplies are plentiful. But once spring arrives, grizzlies can be fairly active all hours of the day and night. • A distinguishing trait of the grizzly bear is a large hump on their shoulders, a powerful muscle employed for digging, ripping, and tearing apart their environment in search of food and for digging their winter dens. • Grizzlies can run at a cracking pace, hitting speeds of 56km per hour, which would see them outrun the…