Culture

The composition of household spending transformed completely. In 2024, food-at-home is no longer 33% of household spending. For most families, it’s 5 to 7 percent.

Housing now consumes 35 to 45 percent. Healthcare takes 15 to 25 percent. Childcare, for families with young children, can eat 20 to 40 percent.

If you keep Orshansky’s logic—if you... See more

The official poverty line for a family of four in 2024 is $31,200. The median household income is roughly $80,000. We have been told, implicitly, that a family earning $80,000 is doing fine—safely above poverty, solidly middle class, perhaps comfortable.

But if Orshansky’s crisis threshold were calculated today using her own methodology, that... See more

It’s not that most people can’t make heavy things. It’s that they don’t notice they aren’t. Lightness has its virtues—it pulls us in, subtly, innocently, whispering, ' Just do things .' The machine rewards movement, so we keep going, collecting badges. One day, we look up and realize we’ve been running in place.

And then you feel it: a quiet,... See more

At any given time, you’re either pre–heavy thing or post–heavy thing . You’ve either made something weighty already, or you haven’t. Pre–heavy thing people are still searching, experimenting, iterating. Post–heavy thing people have crossed the threshold. They’ve made something of substance—something that commands respect, inspires others, and... See more

Light things shape culture, but rarely shape us.

Creation isn’t just about output. It’s a process of becoming. The best work shapes the maker as much as the audience. A founder builds a startup to prove they can. A writer wrestles an idea into clarity. You don’t just create heavy things. You become someone who can.

The output matters, but the intention, the struggle, the care is what makes it count — what gives it weight.

We create more than ever, but it weighs nothing.

When literally everything becomes television, what disappears is not something so broad as intelligence (although that seems to be going, too) but something harder to put into words, and even harder to prove the value of. It’s something like inwardness. The capacity for solitude, for sustained attention, for meaning that penetrates inward rather... See more