Every experience you have ever had has been shaped by your mind. Every relationship is as good or as bad as it is because of the minds involved.
“Thus, essentially every aspect of your childhood—good, bad, or in between—factors over which you had no control, sculpted the adult brain you have”
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
“We as mental-health care providers have become so caught up in the practice of empathy that we’ve lost sight of the fact that empathy without accountability is a shortsighted attempt to relieve suffering. If the therapist and patient re-create a story in which the patient is a perpetual victim of forces beyond their control, chances are good that the patient will continue to be victimized.”
― Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
― Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
“Let me state this most broadly, probably at this point too broadly for most readers: we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.”
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
“MODERN POLITICS presents another obstacle to the acceptance of Stoicism. The world is full of politicians who tell us that if we are unhappy it isn’t our fault. To the contrary, our unhappiness is caused by something the government did to us or is failing to do for us.”
― A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
― A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
“Just to show the scale of epigenetic complexity, differences in mothering styles in monkeys cause epigenetic changes in more than a thousand genes expressed in the offspring’s frontal cortex.”
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
― Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
Robert’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Robert’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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