Brian Wiesner

I was not able to find any other Western country that has the combination of long summer breaks, no mandated paid vacation time, minimal subsidized options, and a dominant cultural belief that kids need constant supervision, especially in public places. Clearly articulating all of these factors really helps me understand how we find ourselves in Hu... See more

Stuart Andrew, the British minister for loneliness, told me that one of the challenges of loneliness is the stigma that surrounds it.

More important than beanbags and coffee machines (though they are nice), are how employers recognise the needs for work-life balance, the importance of time for child-rearing and family life, and the ability of workers to easily move between the spaces of their lives. Employers should be asking how they fit into the ecology of everyday rhythms of t... See more

Cities, like the residents that call them home, tend to run on distinct circadian rhythms; internal, collective clocks that dictate when the streets and town squares come alive, peaking with movement and activity, and when they eventually begin to quiet down, the bars, cafes and clubs emptying.

Having temporarily relocated from Berlin to Sydney, I’v... See more

A Time We Never Knew

"Phones? No. We had each other."

In many ways, we are very similar to mycelium.

We need the right conditions to survive and a constant flow of oxygen. We need to communicate to grow.

We need to connect to live.

A good connection is how quickly your world can change when you meet the right person.

I struggle to understand why this feeling moves me so much, but there is just nothing else like it. From being so immersed in a conversation that you leave a changed person to getting a job through a friend of a friend.

These precious, golden moments. Sometimes it feels like fate, like we were just in the right place at the right time, sometimes li... See more

she suggests, this is because people have an internal alarm clock that goes off at big life events, like turning 30. It reminds them that time horizons are shrinking, so it is a point to pull back on exploration and concentrate on the here and now. “You tend to focus on what is most emotionally important to you,” she said, “so you’re not interested... See more