The constrained and unconstrained views
By Jennie S. Bev
Raphael’s painting The School of Athens depicted Plato pointing to the sky and Aristotle pointing to the ground. It encapsulates the two approaches in how we perceive the world: perfection and grounded reality.
These perspectives divide the world into unconstrained and constrained views, using terms used by Harvard professor of behavioral studies Tal Ben-Shahar.
In psychology, they become perfectionism and optimalism; in politics, they become communism and capitalism; in everyday arguments, they become can-do and cannot-do. Read the rest of this entry »
