Adrian Schug
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How I Study for the Most Important Exam of My Life âď¸
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 090 I am now in the intense phase of my preparation for the board certification exam in March. For me, this marks the formal completion of my academic training, which has lasted two decades!(8 years of secondary school, 6 years of medical school, 6 years as a resident.) The practical part of the state exam at the end of medical school was very open-ended and therefore felt quite arbitrary, which made preparation difficult. Only on the evening before the exam did I find...
The Discovery of the Future đŽ
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 089 When There Were Still Dragons đ Our ancestors saw the sky as a beautiful dome, with the stars arranged in meaningful symbols. The world was a disc, from whose edge one could fall into chaos and corruptionâat least catching a glimpse of the giant on whose shoulders the Earth rested. Unexplainable natural events (including oneâs own life) were personified as the works and reflections of gods. These beliefs were not merely thoughtsâthey were reality. Real-Life...
Boredom as a Tool đŞž
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 088 The Hunt Because his brother had been injured during the hunt the day before, he was out alone today. He had left the camp before sunrise, spear over his shoulder, his breath visible in the cold air. The ground was frozen hard, the grass gray and brittle. A time between times. At the edge of the plain, he stopped. At this time of year, a small reindeer herd usually passed through here. The tracks in the ground provedthat. But now the plain lay still before him. No...
The Consistency Model đď¸
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 087 Mental Health At the beginning of my psychotherapy training, I felt intimidated by the complex classification of mental disorders. While attending different therapies as an observer during my medical onboarding, one question kept occupying my mind: What are we actually treating here? Only after a few weeks did I find a model that gave me a sense of orientation. In a depression group, we discussed the âCBT triangle,â consisting of thoughts, feelings, and behavior....
Suffering Is Optional đ
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 086 Yesterday, my wife asked me why talking about consciousness is so important to me. Despite this topic being my focus for many years, I couldnât give her a satisfying answer straight away. She kept pushing me, and together we managed to flesh out three ideas that I found life-changing when I first explored them. There's no match for the kind of freedom thatâs unlocked by understanding the principles of consciousness. The best part? You can easily test all of these...
Stop Hiding đŠ
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 085 As every week, I find myself facing the empty page. At the beginning of this project, that stressed me out. Now Iâm sitting in my favorite corner of a cafĂŠ, wearing noise-cancelling headphones and listening to my favorite playlist for thinking and writing. The white page looks back at me, challenging. As always, I donât know what I will fill it with. By now, though, I know that I will fill it. Publishing a short text every week has become a non-negotiable part of my...
Navigating the Fog đ
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 084 Garden and Fog One of my deepest convictions can be put very simply: my world consists only of consciousness. Everything I experienceâcolors, sounds, doubts, chairsâappears there. There is no other place where perception could occur. Even the idea of an âexternal worldâ appears only as content of consciousness. Reality is far too complex for a finite being to fully comprehend it. And yet we face the task of navigating itâfor that, we have to represent it. The...
This Year, Iâm Becoming a Philosopher đłď¸
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 083 Itâs 2026 â Happy New Year! This beginning always feels to me like the strike of a gigantic bell tower, measuring time in years. Itâs an invitation to pause, orient, and realign. This time, the theme that emerged for me was identity. When Atomic Habits was published in 2018, I was still in medical school and felt rather overwhelmed by James Clearâs encouragement to build good habits around an identity. According to this idea, you shouldnât try to make yourself read...
Augmentation with Music đ§
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 082 Augmentation (from Latin augmentare, âto increaseâ) means enlargement, amplification, or extension. Examples: Flashlights: enhancing our ability to see in the dark. Bicycles: expanding our radius of movement. Paintings: creating atmosphere and telling stories One exciting new development is so-called augmented psychotherapy. Here, classical therapeutic approaches are complemented by consciousness-expanding methods. This includes not only substances such as...
Conditioning đŞ
LIFE ON URTH - Episode 081 Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is a central concept in behavioral psychology, shaped by T. S. Skinner (1904â1990). According to this model, the probability of a behavior is influenced by its consequences: reinforcement increases the behavior, punishment decreases it. A distinction is made between positive and negative reinforcement, as well as between two types of punishment. Positive reinforcement means that a pleasant stimulus (e.g., a cookie or a...
Subscribe to my newsletter and get weekly insights about the mind. I've been sending a new episode each Monday for more than 80 weeks! đ