Keely Adler

what I’m talking about is food that’s made to close the gap between homes: a critical need when one lives in exile. It’s hard to give it a label, but other immigrants and children of immigrants recognize it when they see it. Unlike “fusion,” which is often focused on aesthetic innovations and mashups, these immigrant dishes are more like culinary... See more

If some part of your body, speech, or demeanor falls short of respectability norms, you get it. The way we labor and struggle (and are variously able) to bridge that gap is never the same but it is always, in some way, painful. The pain is at once celebrated and invisibilized; within our social rubric, suffering is a fair price for perfection but... See more

“I think it’s really important for every community, even if it’s led by a brand or platform, to have a telos or raison d’être."

“... the movement of people, the convergence of science, and the leap of computation are giving rise to more intersections than ever [and] the individuals or teams who find these intersections are likely to be the ones who radically change our world.” Exactly the domain of generalists. -- Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect

Perhaps the smallness is the point: as if only at a particular scale can we see human relations in their fullness.

Total efficiency constrains us. We become super invested in maintaining the status quo because that is where we excel. Innovation is a threat. Change is terrifying. Being perfect at something is dangerous if it’s the only thing you can do.

When we constrain our self-care practices to avoid something bad from happening, we deprive self-care of its fundamental value in our lives. It turns self-care into an obligation, a purely defensive maneuver, or a method of somehow recovering a lost sense of motivation, morale, and hope for the future.