Conversation in the time of Covid: needy extroverts and empathetic introverts
It took me 40 years to realize that I don’t owe anyone an audience. Life is too short to become captured.
Deep Reading as Secular Spirituality
“Intellectual stimulation is an emotional experience for me,” remarked the mathematician and polymath Eugenia Cheng. Her words have stayed with me. Around 7 this morning I was sipping my favorite brew of coffee in the living room, listening to the ambient...
A few thoughts on beginning the second half of life, part 1
The Internet is so saturated with unsolicited life advice; why would I ever share my midlife self-absorption publicly? In case it serves someone else, as Steven Johnson’s birthday reflection from 12 years ago served me then, and served me again today.
A review of Cool Gray City of Love
Call it historical schadenfreude: I’ve been greatly comforted over the past couple of months by reading historical accounts of just how much worse things used to be a hundred years ago.
Highly Recommended: Audiobook of Trevor Noah’s Memoir
I was one of those overly ironic Gen Xers who stopped watching the Daily Show after Jon Stewart retired and a millennial took over. So I didn’t know much about Trevor Noah other than the occasional YouTube clip that made its way across my social media feeds. But...
Why is Karl Ove Knausgaard Afraid of Therapy?
How were these writers able to endow their characters with such sentimentality while totally cutting themselves off from the emotional lives of their loved ones in real life? Or is it the inverse? Perhaps the well-adjusted person, who shares his vulnerabilities honestly in the social world, lacks the burning impulse to produce great writing.
Bringing a Little Wild to the City
Why not experience this elevated attentiveness to the beauty of nature every day instead of the constant hustle to get ahead in the city, to get more money, more followers, more fame, more power?
Bicycle Diaries Part 2: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
We still structure our days this way, exchanging criticism, complaint, and conflict during the day and mythic stories at night. We stare at the glowing embers of our flat screen TVs and handheld devices.
Bicycle Diaries Part 1: Esprit de Corps
A group of cyclists riding together is called a peloton, from the French word for platoon. And that’s how it feels, like a platoon of soldiers or a pack of wolves spreading out in search of something. Our bikes are within inches of each other, sometimes mere centimeters, as we travel 25mph down a country backroad.
Reflections on 15 Years of Blogging
I don’t have any fantasies of writing the 21st century Moby Dick, but I do aim to be more disciplined about writing 500 words every day.