The temperature aboveground was brutally frigid. Levi — who for the past two nights had been laid out on a bench inside a heated train car on the A, C, and E line — lowered his eyelids protectively over his retinas and climbed out into the low winter sun, stumbling onto the sidewalk and falling... Continue Reading →
Playing Cards
During the stay-at-home orders, I’ve developed a semi-addiction to solitaire. While I was celebrating a win, lining the cards up ace through king by suit, I stopped short at one of the queens, lying just below the king of opposite color. In a measure of protest, I decided to put the queen on top of... Continue Reading →
Three Tables
About twice a week, I take a walk down Chambers street to a small square park spanning two streets lengthwise and two streets widthwise. At the left corner of this park, a two-seater bench faces the northern façade of a local bar. Its convenient location across from four large windows allows you to study the... Continue Reading →
A Borderline Society
I have recently become an active social media user. And in the countless hours a day that I spend online building an audience for these essays, I have realized something quite stark about the nature of the world today: the lack of emotional depth in our daily lives has left us with a borderline society.... Continue Reading →
We are Punishing the Wrong People
A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary about the HSBC money laundering scandal. For those of you as unfamiliar with this scandal as I was, essentially the powerful international bank, HSBC, was knowingly manipulating regulations to funnel drug cartel money from Mexico and Colombia through the U.S. financial system. Being a bank that is... Continue Reading →
Does the Anti-Photoshop Trend Negatively Affect Body Positivity?
On the phone the other day, my mother expressed her excitement about the new CVS Photoshop-Free campaign. Like my mother, I support the anti-Photoshop movement. I believe it is a positive start in rectifying our body image issues. Yet despite the fact that I approve of companies, celebrities, and influencers jumping on the anti-Photoshop bandwagon,... Continue Reading →
Reconsidering the Modern Growth Model
The majority of world societies (at least the ones that interact on a global scale) have an obsession with unbridled growth. In the past centuries, a countries reputation, status, influence, and power comes primarily with an increase in GDP, an increase in productive labor, an increase in population, an increase in medical and technological advancements,... Continue Reading →
More than an Empty Hospital Room
“I started realizing that people who are sick, and nurses and doctors as well, everyone in the medical community, everyone in the healthcare community, had been so stuck in this notion that a hospital room is this cold, sterile, white place where we go to be sick. And that that’s all that it can be.... Continue Reading →
The Power Of Asocials
There are many speculations out there regarding the current president’s psychological state. Some type him as a narcissist, and many others as either a sociopath or a psychopath.[i] I cannot assert my own assumption on his psychology with conviction, as I have never been that interested in Donald Trump as a person. Although he became... Continue Reading →