The Painting of My Life (Now with Extra Beige)
I once had a therapist (I’ll call him Stuart, because that was his name) who told me that life is like a painting. “It’s your canvas,” he…
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The Art Beyond the Instrument
…this is one of my photos, by the way There persists, in every era, a quiet but stubborn prejudice: the belief that the value of a creation…
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Running From a Lion That Isn’t There
At some point in the last ten years, I realized I no longer know how to relax. I don’t mean in the cute, candlelit, bubble-bath sense. I…
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Toward a Status Economy
We tend to think of economies in terms of money. Monetary systems, markets, prices; these are the structures we’re taught to see. But what if we’ve been…
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Perfectly Bored to Death
Let me just say right off the bat: perfection sounds lovely in theory. Like a beach vacation where you never get sunburned and the waiter always knows…
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A Little Help Here?
Let’s talk about co-dependence, shall we? That word usually shows up in therapy sessions, pop psychology books with vaguely floral covers, or during Thanksgiving dinner right after…
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The Sacred Weight of Everyday Things
We don’t usually think of brushing our teeth, sending a text, or walking into a room as anything special. Our days are filled with automatic actions like…
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Is Civilization Following a Script?
The arc of human history often feels like a story we’ve already read, even as we live it. Every age believes itself to be teetering on a…
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Beyond Buzzwords: What Power, Empowerment, and Social Change Reveals About Real Transformation
Power, Empowerment, and Social Change; Edited by Rosemary McGee and Jethro Pettit In the sprawling and often self-congratulatory literature of development studies, “empowerment” has become one of…
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The Art of Stepping Sideways: How to Exit the Rat Race Without Going Off-Grid
Most people think escaping the rat race means buying goats. The fantasy goes something like this: you sell everything, move to the country, get some chickens, and…