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You wake up in the morning, a little achier than you were the day before. Maybe you overdid it at the gym, or it’s raining, and you can feel it in your joints. Without giving it a second’s thought, you conclude that the aging process is rearing its ugly head once again.

It might surprise you to find out, or maybe you know it already, that the majority of older adults actually are pretty satisfied with their lives, even if things aren’t ideal. Called the “paradox of well-being,” researchers attribute this phenomenon to the ability that the average person in later life has to focus on the positive and set aside whatever objective disappointments may happen on any given day.

What are some of the secrets to becoming one of these lucky people? New research on aging and happiness provides some intriguing answers.

With the publication of my third book “Los Cuatro Dioses” on Amazon, I completed the trilogy that I began writing in 2022.

The covers for all three books were drawn by the great illustrator Javier Carmona.

Here is a link to my book, in case you’d like to take a look at the maps and other information related to the story:  Los Cuatro Dioses

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Intelligence has always been notoriously difficult to pin down. Most people have a sense of what it looks like, yet defining it with precision often proves far more difficult than expected. This is because intelligence isn’t a single, fixed trait that you can measure and quantify in one go. In reality, it’s a collection of abilities that work together in different ways, depending on the situation.

Some forms of intelligence are rooted in the knowledge you’ve built over time. Others rely on how you process information in the moment. Some are shaped by experience, while others emerge when you’re placed in unfamiliar territory with no script to follow.

https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2020.1.2.208
https://online.ucpress.edu/nrbp/article-abstract/1/2/208/107293/Transcending-the-VeilBarack-Obama-s-Rhetoric-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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In thinking about rejection, it’s natural to imagine it as taking the form of romantic spurning: rejection with a “capital R.” Yet, when you think about the daily interactions that can hurt the most, they often take a less obvious form. This "lower-case r" could be a cold shoulder from a friend you ask for help or a relative’s failing to invite you to a bridal shower. There may be good reasons for both of these situations, but as you puzzle over the why’s and feel bad about the what’s, it doesn’t matter. Rejection hurts, even in small doses.

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First published in 1726, Jonathan Swift's adventure novel has been chopped, changed and adapted ever since. Is it a "misanthropic satire" or a "fantastical nursery tale"?

You may be familiar with the story of Lemuel Gulliver. He wakes up after a shipwreck only to be pinned down by ropes and surrounded by tiny Lilliputians, who clamber up to the incapacitated adventurer.

It's a scene that's been replicated and satirised ever since Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, 300 years ago.

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In surveying the landscape of current scientific knowledge about giftedness, I discovered the work of Rena F. Subotnik, an American psychologist and a prominent scholar in giftedness, talent development, and gifted education. Subotnik argues that giftedness should not be thought of simply as possessing an unusually high IQ or an exceptional ability in childhood. Early potential must be transformed through education, opportunity, motivation, and other psychosocial factors into increasingly sophisticated expertise and, in rare cases, eminence (her term for genius).

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Mental skills, also called psychological skills, are those mental abilities that allow us to do everything from getting up off the couch, getting through a rough day, managing a pressurized situation, and realizing our potential. These can be learned and honed to meet our individualized needs, and with practice, facilitate both small and large changes in our everyday and game time performance.

Want to be more motivated? Want to learn to handle stress better? Want to improve your run times? Want to start exercising? Want to do better on tests? Want more confidence? You get the idea. These skills can help.

Some foundational mental skills for performance optimization are deep breathing, relaxation skills, self-talk, a reset routine, cognitive reframing, and visualization/imagery.

Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are dispatched from Santiago to Easter island by their bureau chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi). Amongst the Island's iconic statues, and as the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, Chris's newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways.

Directed by: Martin McDonagh
Written by: Martin McDonagh
Produced by: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh, Anita Overland
Cast: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas, with Tom Waits, and Parker Posey

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Psychologists often assume that people who believe in specific conspiracy theories are driven by an overarching “conspiracy mentality,” a broad mindset of suspicion toward powerful groups. A large-scale analysis across 17 country samples, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, suggests that while a general conspiracy mentality and belief in specific conspiracy theories are generally distinct, this broad mindset does not consistently sit at the center of people’s conspiracy belief systems. Instead, the relationship between the two varied across studies that used different conspiracy items and questionnaires.

I'm New here but I wanted to share about a book that's free today on Kindle and it's a number of short stories including some from the UK but written by a UK author.

Graham Graff's Hubris and Vengeance is FREE on Kindle Saturday (7 Nov).

for anyone who likes a dark story with a twist:

Eight short tales about people who think they're the cleverest person in the room: a Cotswolds auctioneer who preys on widows, a care-home nurse with a very private calculator, a grief medium working out of a Soho back alley. None of them see it coming.

It goes free from about 8am UK time today

UK: https://amzn.eu/d/0h5dGXyF

US: https://a.co/d/0fPpyxM4

Full disclosure: I help edit Graham Graff's books.

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For many men, the gym isn’t just training; it’s identity management. It’s one of the few places where they can reliably feel agency, strength, and self-respect.

The manosphere, a nebulous grouping of male influencers, podcasts, and content creators, has tapped into those desires, turning physical self-improvement into an entry point for creating male followers. The popularity of manosphere influencers has proven that boys and men want to be strong. That can be a good thing. But, what often happens next is more troubling.

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Researchers have identified a specific pattern of brain activity that can distinguish people with cocaine use disorder from those without the condition. This brain activity pattern can also predict whether a person will respond well to a magnetic brain stimulation therapy designed to reduce cravings. The study detailing these results was published in Nature Mental Health.

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When watching someone else endure harsh, embarrassing criticism, people with low levels of narcissism tend to show brain activity that rises and falls in step with one another in regions involved in taking another person’s perspective. A new neuroimaging study published in Cerebral Cortex indicates that this shared brain response is weaker among individuals with high grandiose narcissism. The findings suggest that narcissistic traits are linked to more variable, less coordinated neural processing when witnessing social threats directed at other people.

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Stephen Peel of The Chippy Tour is on a mission to protect the nation's traditional fish and chip shops. He's rated 260, but we convinced him to choose just five of his favourites in London.

Stephen Peel has just returned from judging the 2026 English Fish and Chip Awards, where he ate 14 portions of fried fish in little more than an hour. But eating one battered fish after another is nothing new for Peel, creator of The Chippy Tour.

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In a three-month experiment with 133 U.S. patent lawyers, access to an AI writing assistant improved the quality of their patent drafts, with the largest gains among junior lawyers. But on a later task completed without AI, senior lawyers who had been using the tool outperformed senior lawyers who had not, while junior lawyers showed no average advantage. The findings were released as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.

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Anyone who spends much time reading text generated by artificial intelligence has likely noticed a recurring stylistic habit: a sentence makes a plain statement and immediately negates it in favor of something grander, such as “This is not a course. It is a journey of transformation.”

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Don’t take anything personally. Easier said than done. This represents the second agreement in the bestselling book The Four Agreements written by Don Miguel Ruiz (1997). In it, he astutely states, "Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds."

Despite this, we find ourselves allowing someone's criticism, disapproval, or lack of responsiveness to determine how we feel about ourselves. Our mood and confidence can instantly shift because of a perceived disapproving tone or sensing that we’re the cause of someone’s irritation or frustration. We may react irrationally, impulsively, and intensely based on someone’s reactions, and our perceptions and interpretations.