I’ve visited New York City more times than I care to remember—always for work. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes not. But I always know for sure: I’m not part of those who live and work in that city. Living in … Continue reading
Two of the best years of my life were spent at the Indiana Academy, which is a public residential high school for juniors and seniors (at Ball State University campus in Muncie, Indiana). I wrote a brief personal essay about … Continue reading
On the last day of April 2008, I launched my first professional blog, There Are No Rules. Every day since then, I’ve thought about what to tell writers that would be helpful, insightful, and a little bit provocative. While I … Continue reading
“Compassion is the chief law of human existence.” —Dostoyevksy Everyone has a breaking point, or a point of no return, even if they say they don’t. For example, your partner says, “I’ll always love you.” They certainly think they do … Continue reading
When I was young, I highly anticipated the holidays. It wasn’t about the gifts—it was because my five older siblings came home to visit, all at once! (I grew up as an only child, the only offspring of a second … Continue reading
I was informed once that I couldn’t properly understand the movie Swingers because I’m not a man. For those who haven’t seen Swingers, it’s set in Los Angeles, and follows the lives of young, out-of-work male actors as they try … Continue reading
My high school sweetheart ended up attending the same college as I did. We both knew it was a bad idea (we had widely different interests), but ah, young love, right? It didn’t take long before he transferred to a … Continue reading
In middle school, I had a best friend who my mother deemed a bad influence. Twenty years later, I take this to mean that I behaved more like an immature teenage brat while cohorting with this friend. My mom had … Continue reading
From The Way of Zen by Alan Watts (which I find myself re-reading and re-reading for fuller comprehension): We learn, very thoroughly though far less explicitly, to identify ourselves with an equally conventional view of “myself.” For the conventional “self” or … Continue reading
I’ve been keeping a journal off and on ever since I was about 12 years old. The earliest journals, written in hand, survive. During high school, for a brief period, I switched to disk, and promptly lost every disk by … Continue reading