A while, not very long ago, I took a train to the Gorenjska region of Slovenia, EU. I saw a kestrel flying over a corn field and I remembered a kestrel nesting on our balcony years ago, when I was still working in the city, commuting by train every day. The year I started to work at home on the slightly remote outskirts of the city, the kestrel chose another place to nest. Probably due to being too timid. I saw a farmer digging out potatoes. And I thought to myself: Is he going to sell them on a farmers market? Or is he going to cook enough jota* for all the perky grandchildren? What you really need...

If any of the international bloggers writing about mental health and other psychology issues knows about lack of compliments ─ than it is me. Why so? Because I am Slovene. If you give a compliment in Slovenia, you are most likely going to sound suspicious. People fear that you have something up your sleeve. No wonder there are so many extreme sports people in Slovenia, but also many alcoholics. Nothing can supplement the lack of compliments from parents in childhood, except maybe if we learn to compliment each other on a daily basis. We can re-learn our habits. I am sure there are compliments...

I don’t mean to criticize the younger generation, but in my opinion jogging with music in your ears through a forest is not a very good idea. Why? I have recently discovered that human beings have a need for silence. If we knew how to incorporate some silence into our lives, we would not need that much psychotherapy and tranquillizers. Really? What am I talking about? Meditation in Eastern/Asian sense is based on silencing first your surroundings and consequently your mind. The final goal of meditation, reached only by monks, is a state without thoughts. We live in a crazy world, where we have to...

I read an article about new developments in virtual reality technology. I would like to quote Palmer Luckey, where he gives a definition of virtual reality: “At the bare minimum there’s some threshold you cross into a sense of presence, being in a space and forgetting that it is not a real space but a virtual one.” (Total Immersion by Jerry Beilinson, Popular Mechanics, June 2014, p. 76─81, 118─120) Having had experience with hallucinations my first reaction was fear that such technology might disrupt my brain. I actually never tried any of it. But then again my fears are just my fears....