Friends Just Get in the Way of Watching TV
The other night, in a moment of either deep cultural insight or total defeat, I found myself watching King of Queens while eating a bowl of cereal…
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How to Stay Sane in an Insane World: Lessons from a 4th-Century Truth Teller
In high school, I once got into an argument with a guidance counselor over the definition of the word “truth.” She said it was about facts. I…
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Living a Life Out of Context: Why Misfits, Exiles, and Outsiders Might Save Us
There are those who seem born already a few degrees off from the compass that most people follow. They live out of step, out of time, out…
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The Cost of the Mask
We are what we pretend to be. The trouble is, we have gotten very good at pretending. We wear the mask of confidence when we are unsure,…
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Helen’s Razor and the Tragedy of Idiotic Choices
I feel like there is a certain comfort in believing in malevolence. To think that some cabal of conniving overlords is plotting the slow erosion of our…
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When Truth Appears Between Sips of Beer
It was one of those accidental evenings that becomes permanent in memory, not because anything grand happened, but because something true did. I was sitting in a…
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When Walmart Mints Its Own Money
The phrase “too big to fail” once applied only to banks. Now, it may apply to retailers. When a company like Amazon or Walmart considers issuing its…
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We Will See: A Story About My Ankle, a Hamster Funeral, and the Entire Meaning of Life
When I was nine years old, I broke my ankle falling off a tire swing in my friend Dustin’s backyard. It happened on a Tuesday, which meant…
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Harbingers of Love
The other day I was having coffee with a friend who wears socks with sandals and still somehow pulls it off. One of those people whose spiritual…
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When Nothing Feels True Anymore, Try This
There is a room in the mind where silence waits. It is not a library. It is not a church. It is not the glowing blue rectangle…