Posted:
The Most Beautiful Places in the World
🏏IPL 2026: CSK vs KKR, 22nd Match,Chennai 14 Apr 7:30pm IST🏏
🏏IPL 2026: RCB vs LSG, 23rd Match,Bengalaru 15 Apr 7:30pm IST🏏
TRUTH IS OUT 14.4
MEHER's DEATH 15.4
Noyna signs off for now
Karan Johar meets Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep
Namit Malhotra To Take Forward Brahmastra 2
The Most Beautiful Places in the World
Fibremaxxing is everywhere, and most of us should eat more roughage, but your gut won’t thank you for overloading
Spain's first female astronaut: Sara Garcia Alonso
How we deal with our daily hassles can profoundly affect our health and relationships. Here’s how to do better.
https://psyche.co/ideas/intimacy-is-risky-but-its-the-only-way-to-true-acceptance
Intimacy is risky, but it’s the only way to true acceptance
by Jasmine Gunkel, philosopher of intimacy
Beyond the initial shame, there are rich rewards in sharing important, hidden parts of ourselves with others
We are, each of us, vulnerable creatures. We are fragile and fleshy, easily damaged by falling objects and viruses and the mere passage of time. We navigate the world with our vulnerability in mind: putting on sunscreen and seatbelts, directing our collective resources to develop vaccines, seeking warm and dry shelter. And it is not only physical threats to which we are vulnerable. We are also vulnerable to social exclusion, stern words, and grief. Though it’s intuitive that we’re vulnerable to these more nebulous forces, the mechanism by which they harm us is less obvious. Understanding the more indistinct ways we’re vulnerable is, I think, key to navigating them more successfully, both as individuals and institutionally.
Intimacy is one of these nebulous forces. But it has been severely under-theorised, and this conceptual gap has hampered our ability to fully understand both the value of intimacy and the ways it can harm us, particularly when it’s unwanted. Developing a theory of intimacy is crucial to fully understanding and better responding to human vulnerability. In what follows, I share three stories from my own life. Though they have little else in common, there’s something intimate about each of them. Taken together, these episodes help reveal the desiderata of an account of intimacy. We want an account that can capture intimacy in its many different forms, help us to identify intimacy in nonobvious places, shed light on how intimacy makes us vulnerable and why intimate violations are so particularly harmful, and help us to better navigate intimate interactions.
1.
At age seven, I make my first enemy. My mom, ever optimistic that goodwill can build a good relationship, insists that we invite her over for a playdate. I vaguely recollect cleaning my room as an excuse to be stand-offish. The classmate riffles through my things and finds my insufficiently concealed diary. The diary, behind my poorly scrawled warnings to keep out, contains the name of my crush. I demand a promise that she keep what she learned a secret.
Who we have a crush on is revealing. Knowledge of it gives some special insight into our person
In true enemy fashion, she does not. Days later, on the most mortifying afternoon of my seven years of life, my enemy reveals my crush to my crush. I still remember watching them laugh from across the classroom. I stared at the clock, watching each second tick by, desperate to flee the building.
From a young age, we often feel that there is something embarrassing about having a crush. It can make us feel silly, vulnerable, less in control. The embarrassment is not fully explained away by the fear of romantic rejection, as is evident in this childhood case in which I had no plans to make my crush known. It is also that who we have a crush on is revealing. It’s personal. Knowledge of it gives some special, vulnerable insight into our person: what attracts us, what we value. We develop crushes seemingly against our will and sometimes against our better judgment. Crushes peel back our most manicured, controlled self and reveal the messier being underneath.
2.
Years later, I’m headed to campus, for the first time taking the LA Metro by myself. Though the train car is practically empty, a man sits down next to me.
I wonder if he’s inching closer or if I’m imagining it. But slowly, the situation becomes unmistakable. Not only is he pushing against me, but he’s rhythmically moving his hand inside his pants.
I learn that my first reaction to a threat is not fight or flight but freeze. I look around the train car, but no one seems to notice what’s happening. I feel frightened. If someone would do this, what else might he do? His body blocks my exit from the row. I’ll have to squeeze by him to make my escape. Eventually, I do.
3.
More years later, I’m standing outside the hospital, looking confused, as I often look. A valet, trying to be helpful, asks me what office I’m looking for. I stare at him silently for a socially unacceptable length of time.
I have not told anyone, aside from my partner and a regrettably growing series of doctors that there is something very wrong with me. I can hardly sit, I can hardly walk, but I feel too mortified by the particulars to tell concerned professors, peers and loved ones what’s happening. I hope that my ordeal will pass before I’m compelled to explain it to those around me, but I spend my days scrolling through frightening online forums, fearing it won’t pass at all. It’s the waning days of COVID-19 shutdowns, so it’s easier than usual to disappear from campus life.
I eventually muster my courage and reply with my least favourite word in the English language: colorectal. I am pointed to the fourth floor.
Intimacy runs through all of these experiences, and helps explain why each was so affecting. Though the phrase ‘was intimate with’ implies sex, intimacy encompasses much more than that. Indeed, sharing these stories with you is intimate. I feel vulnerable talking about them, sometimes stomach-flippingly so, even years after they happened. Most of us don’t usually share intimate information in polite company, nor for the whole internet to see. Intimate matters are sensitive, and prone to making us feel ashamed.
We intuitively know that intimacy makes people vulnerable and demands care. But it’s less obvious exactly how and in what way it makes us vulnerable, and what precisely this vulnerability in others demands. There are lots of audacious ways we can intimately wrong each other, as the case on the train demonstrates. But there are many subtler ways we can inflict harm too.
Even though there is a huge and longstanding literature on the neighbouring concept of love (and, in more recent decades, on privacy), intimacy has received comparatively little philosophical attention. Philosophers have leaned on intuitive understandings of intimacy to make arguments about vastly disparate subjects, from abortion to humour to cultural appropriation. However, without a more systematic understanding of intimacy, it’s difficult to see the connections between these areas, to see how insights about one of them might illuminate the others.
In my paper, ‘What Is Intimacy?’ (2024), I develop what I call the Intimate Zones Account. Though it’s natural to think first about relationships when we’re trying to give an account of what intimacy is, this starting point leaves us ill-equipped to capture intimacy’s full scope. We can’t easily assimilate cases of good intimacy with near-strangers, nor does it help make sense of why intimate violations are intimate, and so particularly devastating. Instead, we better understand the complete picture when we think first about the intimate parts of persons. This helps us see the common thread that runs through all the cases with which I began.
If stigma attaches to a birthmark, it can come to be part of how we define ourselves
Intimacy exposes special, vulnerable parts of people I call ‘intimate zones’. These zones aren’t just physical parts of bodies but include nonphysical characteristics as well. To be an intimate zone, a feature must meet both what I call the Hiddenness Condition and the Importance Condition.
For a feature to be Hidden, we must have an inclination to hide it from general view because it feels psychologically uncomfortable to have it out in the open. Though one hides one’s social security number to protect against identity theft, it’s not Hidden in this technical sense. The financial consequences of having one’s SSN leaked could be psychologically uncomfortable, but it’s not merely having others’ eyes on it that concerns us. In sharing broadly, it feels as if there is some psychological barrier we’re overcoming. Of course, this discomfort doesn’t mean that we necessarily do not, in fact, share. (My writing this piece would otherwise be a counterexample to my own account – a philosopher’s shame!)
For a feature to be Important we must believe, worry or fear that it reveals who we are as a person. Important features are tied to our identity. My being a philosopher certainly meets the Importance Condition, but because it’s not Hidden too, it’s not intimate. Our occupation, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, religion, hobbies, significant likes and dislikes, and aspirations are commonly Important in this technical sense. But many seemingly less significant parts of ourselves are Important too. As Erving Goffman put it in 1963, stigma can feel as if it ‘spoils’ our identity. Though a birthmark does not have much objective bearing on who we are, if stigma attaches to it, it can come to be part of how we define ourselves.
Our individual history, psychological quirks, and the cultural milieu all affect what’s Hidden and Important for us. However, though the society around us is likely to influence what is intimate for us, it is not determinate. For intimacy to have the power over us that it does, it must play a particular psychological role, one that is only possible when we relate to cultural norms in particular ways. We must, to borrow the legal philosopher H L A Hart’s terminology, adopt ‘the internal point of view’ with respect to a norm to some degree, which means that we take the norm itself to have some authority over us, irrespective of enforcement mechanisms. With this account in hand, we can, with fresh eyes, think about the kinds of acts that expose Hidden and Important parts of persons, and approach them sensitively.
Together, Importance and Hiddenness set us up to be psychologically vulnerable to moral emotions. Of particular concern is shame. Whereas guilt tends to manifest when we feel badly about something we’ve done, shame is about who we are. We are liable to feel shame about features that we tend to hide (we often hide things we feel preexisting shame about, in fact) and feel are connected to our identity. Shame about such features, because of their close connection to our selves, is liable to deeply alter us.
There are elaborate social scripts which guide us, often below the level of conscious awareness, in navigating intimacy. When we lean in for a first kiss, the script tells us to lean only part way, to let the other person lean in too if they want to kiss us. When a new friend tells us an embarrassing job interview story, it’s appropriate to share an embarrassing story in return. Intimate scripts can be protective. But intimate scripts can also be tremendously harmful. As the philosopher Tom Doughtery argues, scripts can constrain agency and pressure people into continuing encounters they’d rather halt. By thinking carefully about intimacy’s risks, we’re better prepared to rewrite harmful scripts. Knowing of the risk of shame, for example, we can construct scripts that ‘scaffold against shame’ after intimate revelations. In doing so, we help others to see vulnerable features in a more positive or neutral light, or less indicative of who they are. In taking the latter path, we challenge a feature’s Importance (in the technical sense).
Thinking about intimacy as arising from ‘Hidden Importance’ also reveals another path we can take to temper vulnerability. Just as we can challenge, especially with the help of others, how central to our identity some feature is, we can also challenge its Hiddenness. As we make something more public, we experience more reactions to it. Though we risk negative reactions, we also open ourselves up to neutral and positive reactions: to nonchalant receptions, to kindness and support, to expressions of solidarity. Bringing something into the light is, often, an antidote to shame.
It is only through intimacy that we can be accepted in the fullness of our selves
Three and a half years ago, I wasn’t ready to utter the dreaded word ‘colorectal’ to a stranger. The stigma attached to such terms and the disgust I felt towards my malfunctioning body caught the word in my throat. But in the years since, I have begun to speak and write about my experiences. I have not, before this, put the words ‘Crohn’s disease’ in print. But people have reached out to me (reading between the lines) with their own stories of Crohn’s disease and of other life-and-body-altering illnesses. Often, it’s through knowing that others don’t deserve to feel shame that we learn that we, too, don’t deserve to feel shame. Publicness, as uncomfortable as it was to begin with (and as it sometimes remains), has bolstered me. Others have bolstered me. In sharing intimate things, we make ourselves vulnerable, but we also give others the opportunity to strengthen us. And we might likewise help to strengthen others.
We are, each of us, vulnerable creatures. To be alive is to be vulnerable to death and illness. To be in relationships with others is to be vulnerable to their needs and demands. To be known by others, which I think is the heart of intimacy, is to be vulnerable to judgment and rejection. But it is also only through intimacy that we can be deeply loved, to be accepted in the fullness of our selves. And so we must bear our vulnerability and help others to bear theirs too.
Jasmine Gunkel is assistant professor of philosophy at Western University in Ontario, Canada.
The jobs AI can’t do – and the young adults doing them
Slowjamastan: The new 'nation' hiding in the US
Asha Bhosle RIP 1933- 2026
I am taking time to write about this great singer, because i grew up listening to her late elder sister Lata Mangeshkar. in fact, yesterday morning I was hearing some of her songs and wondering as to how great music was back in the 70s, 80s and even 90s.
I share with you some of my favorite Asha Bhosle songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ReU7xVQVys&list=RD5ReU7xVQVys&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMGYCKr5trw&list=RDzMGYCKr5trw&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seFeZOgyFsc&list=RDseFeZOgyFsc&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i65HIFzIfec&list=RDi65HIFzIfec&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vI9jqUdSo&list=RDC1vI9jqUdSo&start_radio=1
How to give a compliment
Delivering sincere compliments is a skill you can learn – and, done well, it’s an easy way to spread more joy in the world
by Lisa Pavia-Higel, communications teacher
I love the sparkle,’ I said in passing to a woman wearing a gold-sequin-bedecked abaya as she was leaving the restrooms at Mall of America. A few minutes later (it was a very long line), another woman with beautifully dyed rainbow hair passed. ‘Cool hair, friend!’ I said, almost without thinking. The lady behind me said: ‘You’re really owning the compliment game, aren’t you?’
Suddenly self-conscious, I hurriedly explained: ‘I realised I was spending too much time on my phone in public, so I started making a point to compliment strangers, to help me stay grounded and bring a little joy to the world, you know?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s actually kinda cool.’
When I adopted a personal discipline of complimenting strangers in public about five years ago, I worried, like many of us, that my comments might seem insincere or intrusive. Perhaps you have some reservations about giving compliments, too – you might worry that it’d feel awkward to give unexpected praise to a stranger, coworker or even a friend, or that your words won’t come across the way you intend. However, I haven’t let those worries stop me, and you shouldn’t either.
Giving more compliments has brightened my life. I think it could also be a small part of the solution to the social disconnection, loneliness and tension that so many of us live with. Right now, with the uncertainty of the political climate, limiting our exchanges with people we don’t know well might seem the safest course. But reaching out in small ways – to friends, family members, acquaintances and, research suggests, even strangers – can bring much-needed moments of kindness, happiness and belonging to our lives. I propose starting with the practice of giving good compliments.
Why? Sincere, well-delivered compliments make both the receiver and the giver feel good. That happens, psychologists have found, even when the compliment-giver feels anxiety about it beforehand. Compliments also reinforce the receiver’s sense of self through a process called ‘reflected appraisal’. To understand the process, imagine you are walking down the street thinking that you look particularly lovely or handsome today. As you pass another person, they nod and smile in your direction. That nonverbal feedback connects to your perception and internal self-talk, reinforcing your sense that you are, in fact, snappily dressed. This kind of interaction, which reflects back not only outward appearances but also things like character traits and accomplishments, shapes our sense of who we are.
The converse is also true. Just as you are shaped by how you’re treated, you contribute to the self-concepts of others with every interaction. This is another reason why I adopted my compliment habit. When I’m preoccupied, I have a pretty mean resting face, and I’m sure I’ve negatively reinforced someone’s self-concept as a result. Rather than adopt a fake smile, I’ve found that taking out the earbuds and pausing the doomscroll, when I have the social battery to do so, allows me to more genuinely participate in the positive give-and-take we all need to feel fully human.
Beyond the effect on how people see themselves, giving compliments models positive norms for social behaviour. Kindness, compassion, and care are virtues we need in a functional society. As David Brooks put it in The Atlantic in 2023, a moral culture is ‘a community of common values, whose members aspire to earn one another’s respect.’ These small acts of kindness show that respect and contribute to a culture of welcome.
So how can you implement your own compliment practice – not just dispensing compliments more freely, but doing it in a way that will give both you and the recipient a boost? In the next sections, I will outline some ‘rules of the road’ for compliment-giving, informed by research and what I’ve seen work (or not) over the years.
Key points
Compliments can boost mood, build connection, and shape self-image. Well-delivered ones make both the receiver and the giver feel good. Through reflected appraisal, they positively reinforce a person’s sense of self.
Choose your situation. A compliment can be a good conversation-starter, or something you give in passing.
Check your intent. Good compliments are other-focused and given without expecting something in return.
Be authentic. To avoid off-putting flattery, give compliments only when you sincerely mean them.
Use shared interests as an opportunity for compliments. Highlighting signs of common passions or experiences can pave the way for conversation.
Focus on what someone has chosen to show. It’s safer to compliment what one purposely does, displays or achieves than the visible characteristics they didn’t choose.
Don’t complicate the compliment. Avoid qualifiers (eg, ‘You did a great job, for a ___’) or other unnecessary additions that could trample on your intended meaning.
Be conscious of social and power dynamics. Be aware, not afraid. The best place to start is a point of commonality.
Don’t overthink awkward responses. Compliments sometimes won’t connect, but you can practise taking it in your stride.
Choose your situation
Look for moments when there are few distractions or sources of tension that could get in the way of your message. If you’re having a bad day, it might not be the best time to practise giving compliments, as your state of mind will likely come through nonverbally. If someone is in the middle of a conversation, interrupting to give a compliment will rarely be well-received. Similarly, compliments are best postponed in situations where the focus is meant to be elsewhere, or a comment would interrupt the purpose of the gathering. (At a recent funeral, I saw a step-cousin for the first time in a while and stopped myself from blurting out: ‘Wow, you look amazing!’)
Some situations lend themselves well to the conversations that can grow out of compliments. If you are mingling and don’t know how to start a conversation, an honest compliment, especially about something you can talk about in more depth, can be an excellent opener. For example: ‘I loved the question you asked during the talk.’ This not only provides positive feedback, but encourages further questions and conversation.
If you see an opening to compliment someone, but you’re concerned about getting roped into a long conversation, consider delivering a compliment the way I do much of the time – while moving through or leaving a space. Just a quick, genuine comment (‘I like your bag!’) as you pass could be a great way to practise.
Check your intent
You can never know for sure how someone will react to any statement, including one meant as a compliment, because we all interpret messages through the filter of our experiences. But there are ways you can craft your compliments to give them the best chance of being taken well. One precaution is to check that your intent in giving a particular compliment is altruistic. In my experience, good compliments are other-focused and given without the expectation of getting a compliment or reward in return.
Your motivation can colour how your compliment is delivered and how it is perceived. If you’re feeling genuine warmth and friendliness – or you’re cooly waiting for a ‘thank you’ – your emotional state is likely to come through nonverbally in your facial expressions and body language.
Be authentic
The thin line between compliments and flattery is formed by sincerity. Flattery is rarely welcome, and if the comment clashes with someone’s sense of self, they are more likely to reject the comment as insincere. For example, I once heard a man tell an elderly woman in a wheelchair: ‘Oh, that’s your granddaughter? I thought it was your sister.’ While the woman laughed politely, the matching eye rolls from both the woman and the teen (after the man left) made it clear what they thought of the flattery. A compliment will usually be better received when you sincerely mean what you say. And, of course, the wisdom that ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ applies.
Use shared interests as an opportunity for compliments
If you want a compliment to spark a conversation, consider focusing your comment on something that indicates a shared interest. Pins, stickers and apparel are great clues as to what sort of thing someone will welcome a compliment or conversation about. In fandoms, these things are sometimes called ‘geek bait’, and they are partly intended as signals to other fans. Last week at the library, the clerk behind the counter had a pin showing a hand in the Vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ salute from Star Trek. My compliment (‘Oh, I love your pin’) evolved into a long conversation about the new Star Trek offerings, which left us both happy to have geeked out together.
While visual cues are the most common and easiest entry points for a compliment, someone’s behaviour can be an even better one. I used to visit a small game store where staff members specialised in helping people find boardgames they would like. They listened carefully, matched the person to a game, and then showed them how to play. As both a boardgame nerd and a teacher, I made sure to tell the owner: ‘Hey, I love how you help people find games that will suit them. I know that’s not easy, and I’m so impressed at how well you listen to your customers.’ This led to a friendly conversation. In other cases, the spark might be another parent’s deft communication skills, the chops of a fellow cooking enthusiast, or the song selections of someone who loves music as much as you do.
Focus on what someone has chosen to show
Interest-based compliments work well because they are based on a person’s choices. Conversely, it’s best not to comment on a person’s height, weight, hair texture or any other visible characteristic that they didn’t consciously choose. While most of the previous guidelines are suggestions rather than rules, commenting on someone’s body is generally something to avoid (especially with people you don’t know well).
Apart from shared interests, compliments should ideally focus on things like accomplishment, effort or a talent that someone has demonstrated. For example, my teenage daughter posted a video on social media where she recorded herself several times to create a layered harmony for a song she likes. I made sure to not just ‘like’ the video, but to tell her face-to-face how much I admire her skill and talent. Since then, she has asked me to hear other recordings she’s working on. That one compliment opened up a whole new way of connecting with my teen.
Of course, when you’re complimenting someone you don’t know, appearances might be all you have to go on. If that’s the case, stick to things that someone has consciously opted to wear, carry or have with them.
Don’t complicate the compliment
The early morning free-weights bros at my gym know how to give a compliment. Regardless of the amount of weight lifted, if someone seems to have just gotten through something difficult, they look at the person, nod and say ‘Nice,’ then continue on with their own workout. It’s a simple and effective way of acknowledging effort and expressing welcome.
The weightlifters’ short-and-sweet comment demonstrates another best practice: know when to stop. Any compliment that includes the words, ‘for a…’ is not a compliment and is unlikely to be taken well. For example, some of my Black female friends report that when a non-Black person compliments them, it too often ends with ‘for a Black woman’. They additionally mention unpleasant follow-up questions to compliments that highlight stereotypes or differences, such as ‘Is that your real hair?’ or ‘How long did that take to do?’ Extra words can also transform a compliment into passive-aggressive criticism. ‘Hey, good job on that presentation’ is great. ‘Good job on that presentation – see what happens when you don’t procrastinate?’ is going to backfire. Remember: a good compliment can stand on its own, without qualification.
Be conscious of social and power dynamics
Communicating across gender and cultural differences can be complicated. Being a middle-aged woman with strong mom vibes, I probably scan as ‘harmless’ to most people, especially when I’m out with my family. However, I still take care when complimenting people who might differ from me in terms of social identity. In this, I usually advise folks just to be aware, not afraid. Again, the best place to start is a point of commonality, which could be one of the shared interests we discussed earlier.
When it comes to gender differences, a typical worry some people, often men, have is that a well-meaning compliment will come across as a pick-up line. If that’s your concern, keep the stakes of the conversation low, and make sure the person can easily end it. Focus on shared interests rather than physical traits.
If you feel uncertain about what you intend to say, one way to check your word choice is to imagine that your compliment will be on everyone’s social media feed. If what you are about to say were shared and seen by others, would you be proud of it?
Don’t overthink awkward responses
As a socially anxious person, I know the risk of rejection can create enough social friction to keep you silent. Compliments sometimes won’t connect. But that’s all right – you can practise taking it in stride. If your well-intentioned compliment is rejected or ignored, you needn’t try to persuade someone or force them to engage further. If you say: ‘Your watch is cool’ and they reply with: ‘Oh, it’s a knock-off,’ it’s enough to simply nod and move on.
If you’re already in a longer conversation with someone and a compliment lands awkwardly, just ask another question or change the subject to give the person some breathing room. This signals that the compliment was not intended to be the centre of the conversation. Or, if someone’s reply to your compliment is incredibly personal – if they say something like: ‘Oh this, it belonged to my father, he died’ – resist the urge to apologise for bringing it up. Instead, you could say something like: ‘I’m glad you have it then, it’s beautiful,’ and then change the subject. This allows you to acknowledge the implied emotion without centring it, giving you the best chance of making the conversation continue smoothly.
Another possible side-effect of complimenting strangers is getting trapped in an unexpectedly long or unwanted conversation. If this happens and you want to exit gracefully, I’m a fan of: ‘I do need to get going, but have a wonderful day.’ It offers a kind and concrete ending without the need for insincere comments about how much you ‘enjoyed the chat,’ or ‘hope to talk again soon’.
Final notes
In your effort to give more and better compliments, you might make mistakes. I know I have. But as with all skills, you cannot improve without practice. One of the lovely things about compliment-giving is that you are in control. You can pick the situation timing, and recipient, and if you focus on positive intent, being sincere and keeping it concise, you will likely gain far more than you risk. You might encounter someone today who would appreciate a small touch of kindness. Try it, and see how it makes you feel.
Lisa Pavia-Higel is an assistant teaching professor of English and technical communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She has taught communications, public speaking and media literacy at the college level for more than 15 years.
If you want to see trending posts, you might want to check r/popular instead.
Noyontara
Hindi TV Shows
