Last November, I found a dead body inside the freezer that my roommate keeps inside the garage. My first thought was to call the police, but Jignesh hadn’t paid his share of the rent just yet. It wasn’t due until … Read more
Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle
The road to happiness is paved with sorrow: Why we need conflict in stories, explained by neuroscience
Veronica Roth argues that “if there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading.” Not only do I agree with her claim, but I would extend this argument to any experience. Games, hobbies, and even chores performed … Read more
Heartbreaking. Gut-wrenching. Devastating. Why do we like sad stories?
This is a digested version of my —very long— doctoral dissertation.
The “sadness paradox,” deriving pleasure from the consumption of sad stories, has intrigued philosophers and psychologists for a very long time. Why do we enjoy consuming sad stories when … Read more
Can immersive media be more engaging than traditional media?
This post summarizes a study I did at Vertebrae, Inc. last year: Interactivity and Realism as Determinants for Engagement: A Comparison Between Immersive and Traditional Media Effects.
Most successful advertising relies on a storytelling format and persuading via modeling, consumers … Read more
So you want to upload your “consciousness” to the cloud?
The year is 2045, and you just watched a marathon of Black Mirror. Feeling that the end is near but that you still have much to accomplish, you decide to upload your consciousness to the cloud, so that a virtual … Read more
Chapter 5. In which the mother finishes her confession
The priest seemed to have aged a decade.
“Two years?”
“She deserved twenty. She remained in that cage until she grew too big to fit in it and she merely broke the crate from the inside.”
“But—” The priest stole … Read more
A Physiological Model of Boredom and its Relationship with Depression: A research Proposal
Abstract
Based on empirical evidence that suggests that failing to recognize a stimulus as emotionally relevant results in hypoactivity of the orexinergic cells in the hypothalamus, this article proposes a physiological model of boredom that makes depression a consequence of … Read more
My definition of Love
Berscheid (2010) argues that love is difficult to define because of all the instances of love that exist: romantic love, fraternal love, friendship, which vary in much more than a degree of liking. Love is easy to recognize, nevertheless, so … Read more
How to deal with your racist uncle
I see people constantly shaming other peoples’ identities on social media about racial issues (i.e. if you voted for Trump you’re racist) and I think: that ain’t going to help. So I wrote this, an explanation of why shaming doesn’t … Read more
The War on Love
I got this crazy idea about how to include men in the fight for women’s reproductive rights, and so I wrote a paper about it, below.
On October 6, 2017, the Trump administration rolled back the mandatory provision of the … Read more