Winter Journal #2: The Love Languages
While our parents may not have met our needs for attention and affection, marketers succeeded in convincing us that a $25,000 watch is an easy substitute.
Winter Journal #1: The Matrix
I saw The Matrix Resurrections — all two and a half hours — in the IMAX theater yesterday afternoon. Somehow, more than two decades have passed since I first (and last) saw the original. I would have never seen the reboot had a friend not invited me — a reminder that...
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.