Treading Lightly in Thin Places
A former barefoot guru explores the difficulty in articulating the experience of a spiritual emergency amid societal upheavals.
Read more
Essays
Letters to You
In this epistolary, Melanie Han reflects on her experiences with racism, intergenerational family dynamics, and tensions surrounding identity.
Read more
Existentialism in Children’s Film
Children’s films tend to emphasize the role of destiny or chance, but existential themes can be found in a few that highlight the importance of agency and defining the meaning of one’s own life.
Read more
Our Sacred-Scientific, Psychedelic Future
Fears halted research on psychotropic compounds in the 60s. The Second Psychedelic Renaissance is now validating their psychological benefits.
Read more
‘Corona, Corona’: In the Cycle of Grief
Finding herself abroad during the early days of corona, a traveler recounts the uncertainties and grief that followed her home.
Read more
All the Lonely People: The Atomized Generation
We’re not only facing a crisis of loneliness but we’re atomized. Our systems seem designed to further undermine social fabric and place.
Read more
The Locking Spine
Eating crab is a fitting tradition for an Appalachian community dealing with the intergenerational trauma connected to the opioid crisis.
Read more
Suspending Politics to Save Democracy
Just political systems secure the means of living satisfying private lives while political saturation crowds out key aspects of a good life.
Read more
America Needs to Build Strong Towns, Not More Infrastructure
The key to fixing our cities, to creating Strong Towns, is to treat them like complex, emergent systems capable of iterative change.
Read more
Can Social Technologists Solve the Atomization Problem?
To address rising atomization and alienation, we must account for radical inadequacy and experiment with more totalizing communities.
Read more
A Land Value Tax Fosters Stronger Communities
Not only is a land value tax economically efficient, it offers a development pattern and taxation philosophy that nurtures vibrant communities.
Read more