When our lifestyle variables remain the same—or roughly the same—for long enough, it’s a simple matter (bordering on the inevitable—for some of us at least) to fall into what I like to call the “everlasting present.” This is a moment in which we have a good sense of what to expect each day, our norms […]

I’m generally skeptical about claims of silver bullet solutions to complex problems. Biological matters—our bodies aging, our brains not always functioning as optimally as we’d prefer—are foggy, multifaceted issues. Social matters, likewise, are muddled at best, and anyone who claims to have a simple solution to poverty, to pollution, to powering the world is probably […]

I’ve spent maybe too much time over the past several years thinking about society’s assumed, “normal” stages of life. This is partly (I suspect) because I’ve taken a somewhat unusual path (relative to what we might think of as the “default standard”) which means I’ve generally had to write my own manuals along the way; […]