Why We Are Always Trying to Measure Up
Overused, measurement drowns out intuition and prevents us from deeper exploration. We forget how to feel our way, trust our instincts. And we go to absurd lengths trying to quantify what cannot be counted.
By Jeannette Cooperman
Capturing the Queen
Figureheads are carved to endure storm-tossed seas, and they are set at the ship’s prow, visible and exposed, recognizable by all. They are not the engines that move the ship forward. They serve a different purpose, one that is easy to overlook if you have been trained to resist what seems merely decorative. In the States, we have substituted flags and parchment for flesh and blood, reluctant to elevate any family to permanent majesty. But while flags can be burned and parchment amended, neither is animate, conscious, and dedicated entirely to our welfare. Those we entrust with our welfare must scrabble for the privilege, often hollowing their souls in the process.
Spoiler Alert
What would truly spoil a dog is if you broke his spirit, crushed his hopes, destroyed his enthusiasm. A ruined dog would no longer race to greet, beg to play, roll over to have his belly rubbed. But I have yet to see tender attention make a dog passive, bad-tempered, or even greedy. Their species is far better than we are at knowing when they have had enough (play, food, petting) and walking away to take a nap.
The End of Manual Labor
Society categorizes us, and then we obey its categories. After centuries of prioritizing sedate mental work, we who are wedded to our screens turn our Roombas loose and then jog at our standing desks, desperate for a little balance. If we were never seduced into the life of the mind, we sit idle and fume, because the physical work is drying up fast.
A Deeper and More Dramatic Look at the Already Dramatic Life of Frank Lloyd Wright
In the end, Paul Hendrickson’s quest does succeed—just not in the way he leads us to expect. Throughout the book, he refers to “the back of” Wright’s life, as though it is an edifice. But it is the edifices Wright designed that reveal his humanity. We hear it when he articulates his vision; we hear it in Hendrickson’s descriptions of the structures.
Philosophical Resignation
If you train your mind to think deeply, you are not predestined to be a blazing success in our culture’s material terms. You are likelier to wind up juggling data in the tech world or doing slightly blurry, multipurpose work supporting a nonprofit. If you are really lucky, you might get to brew beer.
Tea, Cozy
In my Irish family, strong tea was inseparable from emotional crisis, and my hand moves the dishtowel faster, nervous at the thought of all the unknown upset ahead. Grief and distress are far more likely to require this kettle’s services than an unexpected home birth.
How Caution Divides Us
Take the right precautions, and you are acting out of an abundance of care. You need not remain cautious, your steps slowing as you peer nervously ahead. You can move ahead with relative confidence. Nonetheless, you will still be mocked.
Firsthand: Life Without Democracy
If the regime becomes repressive, Mohammed Mupenda added, “you can make a few good career moves snitching on your colleagues and neighbors, doing little else.” And there are cosmetic improvements: “Noisy minorities, bums, and panhandlers disappear from the streets, which visibly enhances the urban environment.”
How COVID Stole Everybody’s Sense of Smell
I miss hugs, an accidental brush against a stranger’s arm, the downy head of a friend’s baby as I curve my hand to support it. But above all, I miss how people smell. The soft, milky smell of that baby’s skin. Exhalations of coffee, garlic, chocolate. The drench of heavy…
The Art of Sauntering
So often we walk at someone else’s pace, keeping up with a companion’s long strides or the pedestrians jostling alongside us. Sauntering requires a deliberate aimlessness, an ease.
A Delicate Constitution
The theme is coming clear: Principle is sacrificed in order to either amass money or protect money. But what about the tortuous pursuit of equality and justice in the United States? On the surface, that does not fit the pattern.