On the Meaning of Life

A Personal New Year's Ritual

I share a personal New Year's reflection ritual involving three key aspects: challenging the status quo, celebrating successes, and recognizing lessons learned from the past year. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bassam.substack.com [https://bassam.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

On the Meaning of Life

I explore the profound question of life’s meaning, discussing how my circumstances and capacity shape my potential. I reflect on the importance of growth, doing good, and making the most of my opportunity. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bassam.substack.com [https://bassam.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Sense of Memory

The human mind, and its nervous system, are staggeringly impressive. For those of us with typical sensory access, this framework is familiar: 1. Sight 2. Smell 3. Hearing 4. Touch 5. Taste But I only recently came to appreciate that neuroscience recognizes at least five more: 1. Proprioception – the awareness of body position and movement without looking (e.g., knowing where your hand is in the dark) 2. Equilibrioception – our sense of balance and spatial orientation 3. Thermoception – sensing heat and cold 4. Nociception – perceiving pain 5. Interoception – sensing internal bodily states like hunger, thirst, heart rate, or fullness Even more fascinating: scientists are now debating four additional senses that remain controversial but compelling: 1. Chronoception – the perception of the passage of time 2. Magnetoreception – some evidence suggests humans may perceive Earth's magnetic fields 3. Chemoreception – the detection of chemical stimuli, such as CO₂ levels in the blood 4. Stretch receptors – in organs like the stomach and lungs to detect internal pressure or fullness I learned all of this while researching a curious question:Could memory be a kind of sense? After all, some memories feel so vivid I can see them, hear them, even feel them. They can bring tears, joy, even physical reactions. But scientifically-speaking, memory isn’t considered a “sense”—because senses perceive real-time stimuli, while memory is a reconstruction of past experience. And yet...Memory activates many of the same brain regions as direct perception. When we recall a moment, our minds can reimagine the light, the sound, the feeling. It’s not perception—but it’s astonishingly close. This video is from nearly 1,000 days ago, but I still feel this moment.I miss it. It was special. And I’m grateful that my memory still carries its senses. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bassam.substack.com [https://bassam.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]