Just Because An Idea Is True Doesn't

For Too Long, We've Assumed That There Is A Single Template For Human Nature, Which Is Why We Diagnose Most Deviations As Disorders. But The Reality Is That There Are Many Different Kinds Of Minds. And That's A Very Good Thing.

How Do We Regulate Our Emotions? The Answer Is Surprisingly Simple: By Thinking About Them. The Prefrontal Cortex Allows Each Of Us To Contemplate His Or Her Own Mind, A Talent Psychologists Call Metacognition. We Know When We Are Angry; Every Emotional State Comes With Self-awareness Attached, So That An Individual Can Try To Figure Out Why He's Feeling What He's Feeling. If The Particular Feeling Makes No Sense—if The Amygdala Is Simply Responding To A Loss Frame, For Example—then It Can Be Discounted. The Prefrontal Cortex Can Deliberately Choose To Ignore The Emotional Brain.

Distance And Difference Are The Secret Tonic Of Creativity. When We Get Home, Home Is Still The Same. But Something In Our Mind Has Been Changed, And That Changes Everything.

So Let's Not Pretend That Travel Is Always Fun. We Don't Spend 10 Hours Lost In The Louvre Because We Like It, And The View From The Top Of Machu Picchu Probably Doesn't Make Up For The Hassle Of Lost Luggage. (more Often Than Not, I Need A Holiday After My Holiday.) We Travel Because We Need To, Because Distance And Difference Are The Secret Tonic Of Creativity. When We Get Home, Home Is Still The Same. But Something In Our Mind Has Been Changed, And That Changes Everything.

Creativity Is A Spark. It Can Be Excruciating When We're Rubbing Two Rocks Together And Getting Nothing. And It Can Be Intensely Satisfying When The Flame Catches And A New Idea Sweeps Around The World.