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Disturbed Mind

A Little Push...

While we often think that behaviours of humans are more often shaped by oneself than anything else, and that perhaps all psychological issues stems from innate factors, there appears much cases of the otherwise. Apparently, it now appears that a common parasite of humans could be responsible for behavioural changes in human beings and even some psychological issues. Even then, Toxoplasma gondii should not be an excuse for any sort of such problems one faces.

The concept that humans are mere expression of genes and subjected to the whims and fancies of little parasitic organisms, cells and organelles or even the greater, more subtle system of evolution is naturally disturbing. It is important that we do not see things this way. Even though we can be prodded to do things we think we have decided to do purely out of free will, we are very much in control. Richard Thaler's Nudge gives us a good sense of what tricks us and what sort of weaknesses we have and how we can discipline ourselves to make the choices we truly want to make and live a better life. In that sense, we remain in control.

Richard Thaler is one of the behavioural economist whose research and experiments have been widely quoted by popular economics and sociology books. Journalist like Malcolm Gladwell probably loves him and so do other economist book writers like Tim Harford and Freakonomics author Steven Levitt.