I’m all for globalization on a number of fronts, but there’s one effect that’s got me up in arms these … Continue reading Tragedies of Globalization

Something liberating happens when you cast off years of accumulated shoes, crystal wineglasses, and boring acquaintances. Traveling with nothing more than a backpack and a limited plan reduces life to its basic elements: where are you going to sleep tonight; what will you eat; what will you do when you get lonely? I can’t recommend enough packing your junk into storage and flying the coop … just to see.

On the spectrum of craving freedom versus stability I tend to stand closer to freedom, but anyone can benefit from pushing their comfort level: doing scary things delineates how limited we can become in our daily lives. We rely on the job we’ve had for years, the friends we made in graduate school, the same food from the same grocery store. For some people this is comforting. A friend of mine tries to find what he thinks is the best of everything, then sticks with it no matter what. I have this irrational fear that my neural pathways will harden and then I won’t be able to adjust to new circumstances unless I’m in the habit of adaptation. Or maybe I just get bored. Continue reading “On Being Temporary”

I’ve never had one discrete group of friends. Instead, I’ve preferred to rotate between athletes and intellectuals, programmers and party … Continue reading The Social Chameleon