Sheryl Hill

“But the princess had to learn to walk, before they could be married with any propriety. And this was not so easy at her time of life, for she could walk no more than a baby. She was always falling down and hurting herself.

“Is this the gravity you used to make so much of?” said she one day to the prince, as he raised her from the floor. “For my part, I was a great deal more comfortable without it.”

“No, no, that’s not it. This is it,” replied the prince, as he took her up, and carried her about like a baby, kissing her all the time. “This is gravity.”

“That’s better,” said she. “I don’t mind that so much.”
― George MacDonald, The Light Princess

“Sometimes we're responsible for things not because they're our fault, but because we're the only ones who can change them.”
― Lisa Feldman Barrett, Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain

“Today, many of us feel like we live in a highly polarized world, where people with opposing opinions cannot even be civil to each other. If you want things to be different, I offer you a challenge. Pick a controversial political issue that you feel strongly about. […] Spend five minutes per day deliberately considering the issue from the perspective of those you disagree with, not to have an argument with them in your head, but to understand how someone who’s just as smart as you can believe the opposite of what you do.

I’m not asking you to change your mind. I’m also not saying this challenge is easy. It requires a withdrawal from your body budget, and it might feel pretty unpleasant or even pointless. But when you try, really try, to embody someone else’s point of view, you can change your future predictions about the people who hold those different views. If you can honestly say, “I absolutely disagree with those people, but I can understand why they believe what they do”, you’re one step closer to a less polarized world. That is not magical liberal academic rubbish. It’s a strategy that comes from basic science about your predicting brain.”
― Lisa Feldman Barrett, Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain

“An organization called Seeds of Peace tries to change predictions by bringing together young people from cultures that are in serious conflict,”
― Lisa Feldman Barrett, Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain