By Troy Headrick I’ll start this one off with a confession.  Lately, I’ve been feeling depressed and overwhelmed.  These feelings are a byproduct of what I see happening in America, the place I currently live, and elsewhere, especially in parts of Europe. As everyone certainly knows, America’s president is Donald Trump.  (Just having to say... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick I had been thinking for several days about the possibility of writing something about automobiles and driving and the impact these things have on our mental health and happiness, and then I saw that Betul Erbasi had published this piece on slowing down.  As someone who writes regularly for Pointless Overthinking, I... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Several days ago I needed to leave the writing center I manage and walk to the college library to pick up some reading that is relevant to some research I am doing.  So I turned the center over to my very capable tutors and began the ten-minute stroll across campus to the... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick To be human is to have limitations.  Some of our limitations are physical.  For example, in my case, I know for a fact that I cannot run a marathon, nor can I lift a barbell loaded with two hundred pounds over my head (even though I’m fairly fit).  We are also intellectually... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick I want to begin this one with a story.  Years ago, back when I first started my career as an academician, I had this strange midlife crisis.  I call it “strange” because I wasn’t anywhere near the middle of my life at the time it occurred. It manifested itself in this way: ... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick About a week ago, I wrote (and published) “Freewriting:  A Great Writing Tool (Part One.”  Today, I’m ready to follow up with part two. Lots of people commented on the first installment.  For example, deelib68 asked, “Is freewriting meant to be read afterwards?  I did it once and it was very stream... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Writing!  A topic of great interest at Pointless Overthinking.  In fact, Bogdan has written a number of blogs about writing and the psychology of putting things down on paper.  For example, there’s this one which begins by asking if the act of writing helps writers write better.  (I would answer such a... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick I’m incredibly busy right now.  (That’s one of the reasons I sometimes don’t publish here as often as I’d like.)  I work full-time as the director of a writing center and I help my wife run her small business.  On top of all that, I’m a writer and an artist—one who is... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Not long ago, I had a very interesting conversation with someone I’ll call “John.”  The two of us talked about many subjects during our meandering dialogue.  At one point, to my complete surprise, John said, “I don’t need to question things.  Why would I want to do that?  My head already feels... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick At work, as part of our professional development, I (along with several colleagues) have been reading and talking about Make It Stick, a book written by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel, on the psychology of learning. The other day, I was given the task of leading the discussion on chapter... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick I want to preface this by saying that I’m an American who spent nearly two decades living outside his home country.  I resided for two and a half years in Poland, four years in the United Arab Emirates, four years in Turkey, and seven in Egypt.  During the expat period of my... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Those of us who write autobiographical pieces have one thing in common.  We are willing to open ourselves up, to expose our inner workings to the public because we understand that doing so is cathartic.  We know, deep in our bones, that this kind of sharing helps, often in the same way... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick It’s funny how my memory works.  I can recall long-ago glimpses of things and fragments of conversations.  I am able to conjure up sounds, smells, and feelings associated with past experiences.  These must have made a strong impression because they got stuck in my memory bank (very much like a kind of... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Edward de Bono, the creator of the concept “lateral thinking” and author of the highly acclaimed Six Thinking Hats, has written approximately sixty books on all sorts of subjects, making him both prolific and wide-ranging.  Having read several of his works and finding them both profound and incredibly accessible, I recently decided... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick Most thoughtful people would agree that being able to think critically or “outside the box” is something one should aspire to.  I don’t see any sort of controversy associated with such an assertion. One of the things I do as the director of a writing center at a community college in Texas... Continue Reading →

By Troy Headrick I realize that this blog is not primarily a place for political writing, but bear with me for a paragraph or two.  Though this piece is going to have a political start, it’s going to end up being about culture and human relations and teaching.  In it, I’ll even make a recommendation... Continue Reading →

Troy Headrick's personal blog can be found at Thinker Boy:  Blog & Art. In politics, I’m something of a progressive extremist.  But in my approach to living, I’d say I’m something of a moderate.  I mean, by that, I believe in achieving balance.  Extremism may be good in politics—especially if one advocates extreme liberalism and... Continue Reading →

Troy Headrick’s personal blog can be found at Thinker Boy:  Blog & Art. I’m quite close to someone who recently lost a beloved family member.  The dearly departed was a septuagenarian who had battled a case of metastasized cancer that finally got the best of him.  To respect my friend’s privacy, I don’t want to... Continue Reading →

Troy Headrick's personal blog can be found at Thinker Boy:  Blog & Art. In my last blog, which was about teaching and learning, I asked, down in my conclusion, the following question: Is there anything bigger (or more important) than knowledge when learning, and if so, what might this bigger (and more important) thing be?... Continue Reading →