Oct
27
Love Coffee — but not like that
Coffee does much more than get us through the day (or night), but it can't be rushed.
4 min read
Ideas & Culture
"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys. How’s the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'"
– David Foster Wallace
Oct
06
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
How we react to someone’s behaviour has a lot to do with the stories we tell ourselves. How can we tell better stories?
3 min read
Sep
29
Mulan: Love Across Cultures
Some 20 years after Disney's animated Mulan release, my thoughts on the movie have changed.
9 min read
Sep
15
Learning from Used Books
Used books, like the used and repair economies in general, call into question the value of production for production's sake.
3 min read
Aug
25
Music & Melancholy
Music has a profound ability to shape our experience of the world.
3 min read
Aug
11
Finding Myself in the Stacks
The shaping power of my little library goes beyond the suggestion to bury myself in Dostoevsky. The library is my life history collected across volumes; these are the ideas and stories that have formed me.
3 min read
Jul
30
Buildings, Rooms, and Anton Ego
When you’re largely stuck indoors, even the building next door becomes special. And I see how this house blocks the sun, how it abuts the little walkway between our buildings that makes me feel cramped and unwelcome. No wonder I rarely step through here.
3 min read
Jun
23
Another Dream for the Home Compost Heap
There are days I think it would be easier if I wasn’t such a hopeful person. It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t have such strong desires. If I could just be nonchalant about outcomes.
4 min read
Jun
18
Love Takes Time
Relationships are a natural and essential part of being human. Because they happen naturally, it's very easy to take relationships for granted. Our culture of busyness doesn't help.
3 min read
Jun
09
Weighing Our Troubles Rightly
Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the need to right-size our suffering. To make a practice of seeing it clearly and proportionally. To regularly seek to understand stories that are different from our own.
3 min read