Brandy Cerne

These struggles are not against other people. The line between ego and soul runs down the middle of every person. Most of us, from time to time, buy into a workaholic ethos that leaves us with little time for relationship. Most of us, from time to time, hew to a code of privacy that prevents us from actually knowing the people who live right

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People often confuse hospitality with luxury, but I could have given that table a bottle of vintage Krug and a kilo of caviar, and it wouldn’t have had anywhere near the same impact. Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful.

I struggle with the cultural push toward insularity and self-reliance. I suffer from the inertia of screens and the ennui of stuff. I indulge in the brief hit of dopamine comfort that comes from online shopping (the kitchen gadgets, the houseplants, the skincare products). I drink wine to unwind. I sip from the warm cup of promised safety and... See more

Whenever I treat another person as if he were a stereotype, I’ve ripped the social fabric. When I treat another person as an infinite soul, I have woven the social fabric. Whenever I lie, abuse, dismiss or show easy contempt for a person, I have ripped the fabric. Whenever I see someone truly, and make them feel known, I have woven the fabric.

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When things are going well, there’s a process weaving from the bottom to the top. When relationships are forming well, microscopic neural networks weave together in the brain, individual personalities weave together and are made stronger, families weave tight bonds and are made more resilient, neighborhoods become more coherent, towns more vibrant,

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I sense there is a shift happening where people are realizing that they are channeling an ambitious impulse - the desire to grow and evolve - into dumb goals. Rejecting legible ambitious might be the most ambitious thing you can do.

A shift from legible ambition (my parents can easily brag about me) to illegible ambition (no one, including me

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