Cooking Up Joy: A Meditation On Life’s Smallest, Greatest Pleasures

A reflection on the simple pleasure of grocery shopping.

Earlier this week I read a piece in Refinery29 by famed former Vogue Paris editor and authoress Joan Juliet Buck. Titled "Advice To My 26-Year-Old Self", the work was a reflective letter from a wisened woman who saw much in her life and found clarity as a result. Perhaps because I am the age cohort …

Hear Me Out: Let’s Talk About Love Without Attachment

For a long time I have been thinking about the concept of "love without attachment", and though I do not misunderstand this thinking to mean "lightness" or "avoidance", I still think that the concept deserves some re-examination. I understand it when people say, "How you feel, how I feel, that isn't our responsibility to one …

Learning to Set Things Free

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been teaching my global literature students the work of Yiyun Li. In particular, we've been reading her collection of short stories, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl—as well as from her various pieces in The New Yorker. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is a challenging read for my students because much of the content is bleak in a …

What I Will Not Do Anymore

I am a remarkable human being, but I am no longer interested in allowing that to be the barometer by which I measure my sense of self-worth or joy. The idea that we must be these perfectly efficient, dynamic, palatable beings at all times is a scam and I won’t be putting my cognitive energy into this psychic racketeering job anymore.