Braindump of my thoughts

Autism as a de facto disorder, a safe but dangerous definition?

The big "answer" to the question "who or what are we?" after interviewing many people — mixed with consciousness-altering experiences, smarter writers, and a good therapist.

(Recent clients: P&G;, Hubspot, Argenta, Nexxworks etc.)(For other neurodiversity-related work, look here) My mission is to help create an environment where neurodiverse people like me feel it's "safe" to stay true to who they are, where they know the...

Naar aanleiding van Taboe met Philippe Geubels: waarom mijn continue analyse van sociale situaties net het tegendeel van asociaal bewijst. (Verscheen in Knack en De Morgen.)

I always think that we have a very cliché image of anxiety, depression, trauma etc. We are used to the image presented on television, whilst the reality of it is much more subtle. I think a lot of people are anxious a lot of time during their day and h...

The last few weeks, I have done some thinking on the origins and function of the mind. I of course, did this thinking with my mind. Or at least, that’s the feeling that the “I” doing the thinking has. But where did the “I” come from? Did the thinking c...

The way I see my autism, is that I have a lack of automaticity in my brain. It goes from A,B, C.... to Z. Neurotypical people normally go from A to Z directly (also interesting to see that on a fMRI there's literally less highways between the different...

With this article, I want to provide you with a brief summary of one of the most profound experiences of my life. It took place in the middle of the Amazon, in a wooden circle-shaped building. Inside were me, my girlfriend, a shaman, and some other not...

Neurons, lightningLove, fearThere you appearLife, people, a worldFor you to puppeteerBlinded byThe world you createRunning away fromYour final fate

Having a diagnosis of the “mental disorder” popularly known as autism, the whole social conventions world has always been mysterious to me. As a child, I didn’t have the privilege of my brain adopting automatically everything people threw at it, so I w...

If you are like most people, you want to be “happy”. A word that’s being used with the same level of non-thinking like “hi” or “how are you?”. But do you really want to be happy? Or do your misfortunes give you purpose? Who would you be without your li...

In physics, stress is when a force is exerted on an object in two incompatible directions at once, causing the material to transform or break. I have been wondering for a while now how much that is a good metaphor model for psychological stress as well...

These are very uncertain times, and I feel my brain doesn't know how to cope with it. Where there were plans, there are now questions. And what I always took for granted (e.g. the freedom to go where I want), is now being questioned.I have some cogniti...

It is interesting how animals seem to be satisfied once their basic needs of food and shelter are met.However, most of us, animals as well, have the luxury of having these basic needs easily obtained. Through human history, there has never been a momen...

I joined my podcast guest Jelle Veyt (you can listen to the episode here), on his bicycle trip through Africa. Being the nutcase as he is, he's on a quest to cycle all the way to the Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.Myself, a nutcase as well, but in a "differen...

It would be interesting if we could share among each other what we learned in this year’s trip around the sun, and making it a bit more meaningful than just a night of decadent partying.Here’s what I learned looking back:- I don’t exist. I’m just a men...

It feels about time to write something again. I know so many people have been waiting impatiently for my next post, hitting the refresh button of my website in a constant state of neurosis. To be honest, I can't wait to publish this post myself. I h...

Before one steps out of his door and starts to travel, one has expectations of these life-changing insights that are bound to happen when one embarks on a big unknown adventure. Well, that’s a load of crap.My best insight so far has been that my intest...

I have had the unique opportunity to have come into contact with some unique specimens suffering of "Assholism" during my professional career..After some careful analysis, I inferred that having this medical condition really has some benefits. Therefor...

** I wrote this some years ago when I was tired of an unmeaningful work experience. I didn't share it publicly because my fear of getting negative reactions. Ironically enough that is actually the main reason I got burned out in the first place. **As a...

I was having a conversation with a friend last weekend (whom I met through Couchsurfing, really cool how this enables you to meet all kinds of people). We were talking about meditation and how our sense of self can give us constant stress. But then the...

Next time you are on a train, in a pub, just a very social place, take a look around you.. Do you see any addicts around you? Maybe you may see some drunk people, maybe even a drug addict! They should be ashamed of themselves right!How about people on ...

For the past few months, I have grown a keen interest into Buddhistic meditation.I'd like to share my experience in the hope that it might benefit you as well (and to be honest I just want to recap it for myself).To be clear, I don't believe in the rel...

"Start saving some money for a house!""You should get that promotion in 3 years!"We have been primed since our childhoods to think in terms of predefined goals. Life is a series of goals, and once you achieve one, you have another that's waiting inp...

** As appeared in Belgian magazine Datanews (Roularta) **Iedereen van ons maakt honderden beslissingen per dag. Niet alleen in het echte leven, maar ook in onze virtuele interacties. En net zoals we in real-life beïnvloed worden door externe factoren i...

Our decisions can be made using 2 processes, System 1 and System 2. This is called “dual-process" theory and was first layed out by Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. The fact that he won his Nobel prize in economics – not psychol...