I have found myself, as I’ve eked on into adulthood, more and more fascinated by work. By the tasks and responsibilities people, billions of people, rise each morning (or night) to perform. How did they find this job? What does it mean to them? Is it what they envisioned doing? All the jobs I ever had before, in high school and college, were [...]
Tonight I brought my iPod on my run, because I wanted to hear Marketplace, the little gem of a show from 6:30 to 7:00 on NPR. It’s the prefect combination of economics and culture, delivered always in fabulously interesting reports. For such a short show, they manage to cover intriguing subjects and highlight aspects of the economy [...]
What follows is a lovely question and answer from a series of questions Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin recently asked Christian author Heather King. It made my day and I hope it makes yours, too. It’s on happiness, of course. And what happens, as your life progresses, when you change your expectations. Is there anything that you [...]
About a month ago my Dad and I sat down over a couple days, with the tape recorder, and he told me a few stories about his days as a detective in the Michigan State Police. We spent most of that time discussing one particular murder case, that he always thought would make a great [...]
The in-between: in which I have an emotional breakdown and lament on the trials of the day I hope that years from now this phase of my life seems really carefree, days upon days of taking time at my own pace, and that my worry and fear will appear silly in the face of the [...]
I am absolutely fascinated by the relationship people have with things. I am fascinated by the meaning and value humans add to otherwise meaningless objects. I’ve written about it before: Why do we keep what we do, discard what we decide we do not want? How do we use things to celebrate and make meaning in holidays? And [...]
Two things I love to talk about have collided: National Geographic has published in their July 2012 issue a stunning 33-page spread on the crisis small languages face in a world run by business, the Internet, and a demand for global citizens to all be able to communicate across political and cultural boundaries. On my [...]