We all have days in a typical year where we are taken back, on an annual basis, to a deeply significant event that fundamentally altered our wholly insignificant lives. Yes, I just put the descriptor “significant” with “event” and “insignificant” with “lives.” Doesn’t seem quite right, seeing as though we train ourselves to accept the […]

Read more "Anniversaries of Private Tragedies"

As I stood looking at a series of paintings which were recently completed by a dear friend, I was struck by the beauty of them and the shame they invoked in me. Art is supposed to make one feel expansive or introspective or soothed. While the art I appreciated today brought those emotions to the […]

Read more "If You Put Enough Wasted Days Together, You Can Fritter Away Your Whole Life"

For the last many months, I have been trying to focus my energies on being a curious observer instead of an emotional reactor. Such is not easy with a natural inclination toward activism and a daily deluge of calls to “do something.” Do something, anything. Don’t let this terrible event happen. Tell this powerholder that you […]

Read more "Of All the Hard Things, This is the Hardest"

I imagine that during the entirety of Icarus’s ascent, he was thinking to himself, “Look at me. I’m doing something people thought impossible.” When his wax wings began to melt from the heat of the sun, I wonder if he admitted how foolish he had been. Did he, in his final moments, say to himself, […]

Read more "The Hubris of Those who Claim to Know More than the Rest of Everyone"

We’ve all heard tragic stories about people being wrongly accused of crime and after years, even decades, of incarceration being released from prison when newly discovered evidence is found or someone else admits to having committed the offense. For the vast majority of us, we do not personally know these victims of our “justice system;” […]

Read more "Accusations & Honest Mistakes"

In a year where we have witnessed some very public deaths of people with whom we have a cultural connection, e.g., Prince, David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, and in a year that many of us have lost people close to us, I have a hard time feeling any shred of sympathy for people who are begrudgingly […]

Read more "The Alternative is Death"

We’ve all heard these before: “Be grateful for what you have.” “The secret to having it all is knowing you already do.” “The  best things in life aren’t things at all.” While we can intellectually wrap our minds around the merits of appreciation, simplicity and non-materialism–perhaps even try to get our children on board with these […]

Read more "Inadequacy in the Season of Excess"

While I am not someone who tends to believe that anything is preordained or controlled by fate, I do hold fast to the idea that there are no coincidences. Sure events “coincide” all the time. But I am referring to those things that set people back on their heels and lead them to say, “Wow, […]

Read more "There are No Coincidences"