How Valentine's Day Became Secular

Our Program: Valentine's Day is currently not a religious holiday, yet its origins were religious. Thomas Dixon will take us on a Valentine's Day journey: how it started, the path the holiday took, and what our celebrations of love on Valentine's Day look like now. He will talk about how holidays are far from static and how they change over time.

Our Speaker: Thomas Dixon is the author of a memoir, I'm Sorry... That's Awesome!: Inventing a Solution for Memory Loss.

The Zoom link for this event is:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88193881833

Note the start time. It is 3:00 PM Pacific Time/6:00 PM Eastern Time

In November 2010, Thomas was out for a run when he was struck by a car sustaining life-threatening injuries. Since that day, his episodic memory hasn’t been the same– specific, autobiographical details like where he was, who he's met, what he ate and the like – has been compromised by the traumatic brain injury he sustained that afternoon.

He invented [ME.mory](http://me.mory/) – which is a digital memory mobile application/service which he uses in his own life. Thomas speaks and writes on the role of technology's benefits for faulty episodic memory. His memory challenge has not slowed him down! Thomas enjoys spending New Year's Eve in a new country each year to make sure he travels the world, learning along the way what he has been mistaken about.

While living in his native city of Philadelphia he continues to explore the intersections of cultures and memory. He has taught ESL in South Korea.
He appeared on a television show The Doctors, where he impressed viewers with his rationality and the way he went about creative problem solving to overcome his memory difficulties.

Since then, his writing has appeared in a range of publications – including the American Humanist Association magazine, The Humanist, and the journal of American Mensa.

Thomas has written pieces for Global Vantage, the Association of School Psychologists of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the American Humanist Association and others. He has presented and/or taught at institutions including the Epilepsy Foundation of Eastern Pennsylvania, Temple University, Pennsylvania Council on Brain Injury, Penn Museum, and the Geographical Society of Philadelphia. Media pieces about his life have appeared through a variety of groups including American Mensa, No Barriers, BuzzFeed, The Pulse, NewsWorks and DIRECTV.

As a world traveler he has been to over twenty countries and looks forward to visiting many more. This event is co-sponsored by the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara and the Freethought Society.