Why We Need Friction
A meeting on Zoom sounds like a relief until I remember I hate it. Texting keeps me in touch with friends so swiftly and constantly, I forget how much I miss them.
By Jeannette Cooperman
What We Need to Thrive
Some of us need to be in a certain place, or with certain kinds of people, or in a certain emotional climate....
And if AI Writes a Good Parable?
Last week, I read a delightful story on a friend’s Facebook page, full of specific details about a farmer who realized that someone was taking eggs and potatoes from his farm stand without plunking any money into the honor jar. She was hungry and broke—times were increasingly hard—and too proud…
Horror Is Becoming Our Favorite Entertainment
The masochism of it never sat well with me. Watch, on a screen, your nightmares acted out? Fix your eyes on that screen while your heart pounds faster and faster, your breathing shallows, your guts clench, and the worst possible things happen? It sounded like a mad scientist’s torture experiment.
The Tyranny of Masculinity
Today’s influencers, panicked by AI and its ability to mimic or replace us altogether, preach a new vitalism. Often masculine, sometimes misogynist, this energy is wild and brave and noble, a birthright that cannot be replaced.
Where Did I Put My Glasses?
It was all so amusing when it happened to other people. To old people. Such fun to say dryly, when one’s parent scrambled, frantic, to find their glasses, “They’re on your nose.” But the other day, I was the one hunting for the glasses on my nose. Granted, I have…
What Killed the Cat
I was railing again about Eve. For Eve. Why should she take the rap for humanity’s fall, just because she had a healthy curiosity? Then I remembered Pandora, whom we blame just as angrily for the unleashing of our woes. But think of living with that box, gazing at it…
Why Not Pink and Brown?
The unbearable whiteness of being....
The Best Questions Are Not Good
“But, it would seem, there is no getting around explanations, we are constantly explaining and excusing ourselves; life itself, that inexplicable complex of being and feeling, demands explanations of us, those around us demand explanations, and in the end we ourselves demand explanations of ourselves, until in the end we…
How We Could Keep Holy
The tech bros must have stumbled onto Abraham Heschel’s book about the Sabbath.
Ritalin Works–But Not the Way We Thought
ADHD, sleep deprivation, amphetamines and the truth of why they work.
How Tough Should Journalists (or Any of Us) Be?
Can truth be found gently? What about hope, and grit?