Natalie Audelo

emotional hygiene is not another thing to do perfectly. it’s not about becoming immune to spirals or forever calm or unshakably centered. it’s about cleaning up often enough that you don’t mistake the mess for your personality. it’s about catching the overwhelm before it becomes a worldview. it’s about building the quiet skill of knowing when your ... See more

I saw something wonderful recently about how creatives should never apologize for taking the space to create. How wonderfully, stupidly obvious is that? Whether it’s your work or your pleasure, creating grounds us, fills us, lets the most alive parts of ourselves enter into the world to further germinate and flourish.

But if our fundamental goal is to create more relationships with each other, to build trust, enable collaboration and unlock creativity, we need to think more widely about the kinds of openness we need. We also need to consider the kinds of technological platforms, legal mechanisms and organisational structures that are necessary to support it.

Self-loathing is a rampant virus in our contemporary culture — so prevalent as to have become the default setting in most of our minds. Seldom do we even stop to question whether it is normal or healthy to live within a consciousness that is constantly attacking, judging, and insulting itself. But to condemn yourself as unlovable is to swallow a te... See more

At 97, Monti is animated and unstoppable. She runs Santa Maddalena as her personal passion project, accepting no applications and choosing writers according to her instincts, in consultation with her network of friends, publishers and other authors. Her taste, developed over a lifetime of nurturing and being nurtured by literature and art, is consi... See more

Do you know someone who sees the world in a way that reveals new hues to you? Whose sense of self-awareness leads them to move with arresting originality, and invites you to do the same just by nature of being in their aura? It’s that quality I’m increasingly drawn to during these times when it’s all too tempting to see life in dark shades and dull... See more

A brilliant 2015 essay by the economist Steven Horwitz argued that free play prepares children for the “art of association” that Alexis de Tocqueville said was the key to the vibrancy of American democracy; he also argued that its loss posed “a serious threat to liberal societies.” A generation prevented from learning these social skills, Horwitz w... See more