Now, the GoFundMe and DonorsChoose thing is closely related, but it gets its own throughline. These platforms emerge to seemingly supplement gaps in the public safety net for things like education and health care. But instead, they’re in a kind of enabling feedback loop: instead of your taxes ensuring that kids have desks and cancer patients can ge... See more

I’m uncomfortable with the idea of going public, but only because I haven’t been practicing. I guess I have to suck it up and accept that my practice now entails growing my capacity to deal with the unknown variables of other people even more than I already have.

We love to convince ourselves that things are circumstantial. Like, I love painting, but I don’t paint anymore because I’m too bus y. Like, I’m not really happy with my suburban life, but I’m trapped in it indefinitely . But what if these things aren’t circumstantial? Instead of blaming the external world, imagine believing that some part of me wan... See more

Answers rise or fall to the questions they meet. And it is a deep, deep truth in science as in life that at any given moment we are being shaped as much by the questions we're carrying as by the answers we have it in us to give. Those moments when a new question rises up in us, stops us in our tracks, those are pivot points. Those are moments when ... See more

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners – and I could list a hundred mo

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In French, “cultiver son jardin intérieur” means to tend to your internal garden—to take care of your mind. The garden metaphor is particularly apt: taking care of your mind involves cultivating your curiosity (the seeds), growing your knowledge (the trees), and producing new thoughts (the fruits).

“beauty is supposed to serve power’s interests.”

The things we think will make us feel happier – acing exams, securing a dream job, buying that dress – usually don’t, but small habits can make a big difference. One of them is talking to strangers.