Brad Barrish

when i'm tied up in consumption, creation is lost to me; i am no longer the writer, the creative, the poet, the artist, but the eater, the viewer, the listener, the reader. i am trying to befriend a balance between the taking in and the putting out.

A person spends years trying to become beautiful online. They finally achieve the exact face, body, lifestyle, and aesthetic they once fantasized about. Then suddenly their attention shifts toward maintaining relevance instead of enjoying existence.

Possession creates a new fear:

loss.

When American students want a safe space, it’s because they don’t want to hear threatening ideas. For Ukrainian students, safety means learning without bombs falling. Very different concerns.

We have to advance the public’s understanding of science. We need people to understand that when scientists change their mind, it’s a feature, not a bug. Scientists are supposed to change their minds.

Jon Carmanica spends the majority of his time fawning over pop-confections like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny or Kacey Musgraves. The pop that “matters” to Jon Caramanica is pop that matters, largely, for tween and teenaged girls.

Every phase of life can be shopped for at Costco. Where else can you purchase a wedding ring, a baby carrier, and a casket? It follows your own life story—one does not experience Costco the same way before and after owning a home, or before and after having a child.

I say please and thank you, not because I believe it matters to him, but because it matters to me. If I am going to use natural English to communicate for much of my working day, I do not want to bark orders meanly. It makes me feel like a jerk.

The hyperreal doesn’t mimic or imitate reality. It replaces reality altogether, making it nearly impossible for us to determine what is real, what isn’t.

The ability to enter into Bookworld is murdered by saying your account number out loud. I don’t know why that’s so, it just is.