There’s a certain kind of quiet that arrives just before something unusual happens - an expectant hush, like the universe clearing its throat before attempting a joke it isn’t sure anyone will understand. Most of us miss it. We’re too busy scrolling the latest scandal, counting the minutes until the kettle boils, or buying whatever promises a fuller life in four easy installments. But every so often, the cosmos taps a fingernail against the window, and for a moment we remembe

The recent U.S. government shutdown has been described in many ways - tragic, frustrating, avoidable - but perhaps “instructive” is the word we’ll go with today. It’s a rare moment when one can observe bureaucracy in its natural habitat: immobile, unfunded, and loudly self-congratulatory about it. Watching politicians argue over which essential services should continue, one begins to wonder what exactly “essential” means in the first place. And that, fellow taxpayers everywhe

There was a time when leaving meant something. Trains hissed and wept, ships wailed into the fog, and real people stood waving until the figures blurred into landscape. Saying goodbye was an event then, not an afterthought. It required presence, patience, and a willingness to ache. Now, we vanish with the subtlety of a software update. Conversations end mid-bubble; relationships expire with a “seen” and no response. We don’t leave anymore - we evaporate. The only thing we see

There’s something almost touching about humanity’s obsession with permanence. We stack stones, pour concrete, and weld steel as if the sheer weight of our buildings might keep time itself from slipping away. Each civilization, in its turn, has left its calling card - a pyramid, a wall, a canal - saying, we were here , in case the future should forget. Of course, the future always does. Yet we keep at it. We drag rivers from their beds, slice mountains in half, and pave desert

There are few things more dependable than a man with power mistaking attention for admiration. History is a long parade of them - waving, saluting, grandstanding - all convinced the crowd came for the show, not the message. Perhaps they did, at first. But then someone squints, someone snickers, and before long the emperor’s fine regalia has slipped into costume territory. Spectacle, as it turns out, ages faster than sincerity. Mussolini had his balcony; Richard Nixon had Laug

There are few words as elastic, as slyly evasive, as spirit.  It can mean the dead, the drunk, or the divine - and on certain nights, all three at once. The word itself feels distilled - boiled down from something raw and unruly into essence: what’s left when you’ve burned off everything else. Across centuries, we’ve been bottling our ghosts, decanting our gods, and pouring our grief into glasses, as though intoxication and recovery were just another kind of resurrection. Hum

There’s something faintly absurd about the way we pursue fun - like a cat chasing a laser pointer it will never catch. Modern leisure has...

The history of human persuasion is a long con dressed up as progress. Nations have been built, wars justified, and empires sold not with...

There are things one doesn’t talk about in polite company: politics, bowel movements, and other people’s children. The first two are...

There are questions that have no business being asked, and yet humanity keeps asking them. Why is there something rather than nothing?...

It’s a curious fact of modern life that we are never content to let a thing simply be . Every object, every gesture, every hiccup in the...

The world has many great monuments to human ambition: the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower. And then, in the hills of the...

Sociologists are telling us that Americans are drinking less, partying less, and generally turning into beige furniture. A recent Gallup...

A popular rallying cry of radio spin-doctors and nativist pundits alike is that in America people should just “ speak English .” The...

There are certain mysteries of human history we no longer question. Why did we build pyramids? Why did we invent mayonnaise? Why did we...

There’s something almost touching about the human obsession with order. We alphabetize spices we haven’t used in years, color-code sock...

I’ve been called many things. Some say I’m just a nut. A punchline in a tiki shirt. Something to stick a paper umbrella in while you...

There’s a peculiar sort of theater to the modern resume. It’s a place of minor fictions and quiet omissions, a curated collection of...

There are rituals, and then there are pastimes that dress themselves as  rituals - quietly asking to be taken seriously while wearing...

There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are only two kinds of people, and those who quietly suspect the...