RKS 2024 Film: “Our Time to Be Kind”: Of Tears and Trust: Of Science and Hysteria

“Our Time to Be Kind”, a Canadian documentary, is ostensibly a profile of Dr. Bonnie Henry the Provincial Health Officer of the Canadian province of British Columbia during that time of COVID pandemania where science and hysteria co-existed. As a Torontonian, British Columbia is a 5-hour flight away but Dr. Bonnie Henry was often onContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Our Time to Be Kind”: Of Tears and Trust: Of Science and Hysteria”

Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: Stimulation

“Once you understand introversion and extroversion as preferences for certain levels of stimulation, you can begin consciously trying to situate yourself in environments favourable to your personality-neither overstimulating nor understimulating, neither boring or anxiety-making. You can organize your life in terms of what personality psychologists call “optimal levels of arousal” and what I call “sweetContinue reading “Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: Stimulation”

Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: The impossibility of multitasking

“Indeed excessive stimulation seems to impede learning: a recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street. Another study, of 38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers toContinue reading “Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: The impossibility of multitasking”

Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: Open plan offices

“Open plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated and insecure. Open plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worryContinue reading “Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: Open plan offices”

Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: The creative advantage of introverts

“But there’s a less obvious yet surprisingly powerful explanation for introverts’ creative advantage-an explanation that everyone can learn from: introverts prefer to work independently and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation. As the influential psychologist Hans Eysenck once observed, introversion “concentrates the mind on tasks at hand, and prevents the dissipation of energy onContinue reading “Susan Cain’s “Quiet”: The creative advantage of introverts”

Susan Cain’s “Quiet”; Introverts as second-class citizens?

“Introversion-along with its cousins, sensitivity, seriousness and shyness-is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like a woman in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing style, butContinue reading “Susan Cain’s “Quiet”; Introverts as second-class citizens?”