Observations, Opinions, and Cultural Critique
Cultural Essays from a Life Lived Between Worlds
Finding Peace on a Walk Across America: What a Dog, the Deep South, and a Buddhist Monk Teach Us
How Do We Find Peace? “By practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is the medicine we all need.”This was the answer given by a Buddhist monk at the Walk for Peace event yesterday in deep south Georgia. And what a moment it was. A group of dedicated Buddhist monks,...
Be Happy in the New Year: The Meme Moments of 2025 That Made Us Laugh, Cope, and Carry On
I'm telling you something I've not said out loud before, especially in front of my Gen Z children. Gen Z is the absolute GOAT when it comes to hilarious memes and comment trolls on the internet. For example, here's their take on a Instagram influencers, many of them...
Scandinavian Crime Fiction That Excels In The Art of Being Moody and Riveting
- I work with a lot of Danes, and I find them quietly fascinating. They're humble, economical with words and rarely interrupt in meetings. Even if they are the subject matter experts, they don't find the excessive need to show off their merits like some of us...
AI Chatbots Are Being Misused to Create Child Sexual Abuse Material. And It’s a Wake-Up Call
- Parents, Here's The News Coming From The IWF For the first time ever, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has confirmed something deeply disturbing: AI chatbots are being used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This isn’t just a hypothetical risk...
When AI Becomes More Human Than Humans: Relationships, Intimacy, and the Age of the Promptstitute
- Erotica, Intimacy And AI It feels like yesterday we were seeing huge societal changes happen in the way Gen Z is turning to AI for emotional support instead of actual dating. I had written about it here. And just this summer, I was whining about how adults...
Let Final Words Celebrate Life and Not Fear Death – A Love Letter to Living Fully
Listen To The Article - A Love Letter to Living Fully I’m writing this in case I die earlier than expected. Don't worry, I'm fine. It's just that if life takes an unexpected turn, I want my final words to be about living, not about dying. I’ve always liked the...
Most of Us Only Become Remarkable by Dying Too Soon: Lessons on Life and Legacy
- The Untimely Remarkable: Valuing Life Before Loss Many years ago, I wrote in a poem: “Only untimely deaths make most of us remarkable.” What I meant was that, too often, our brilliance is only acknowledged if our life is cut abruptly short. Here's the truth....
Smartphones Are Destroying Young Minds Faster Than Any Technology in History
- Smartphones: A Civilizational Threat to Human Cognition 🧠📵 An opinion piece by Colby Hall in Mediaite, titled “Alarming New Study Finds Smartphones Ruining Our Brains at Unprecedented Speed,” is going viral. And rightfully so, because it warns that...
Reclaiming Your Mind: How to Keep Your Agency in the Age of AI and Endless Distraction
- Losing Agency Voluntarily I remember the first time I said the word “Agency” out loud. I was in my mom's kitchen in our village of Poranki looking out of our balcony. Fifty feet across in our neighbor's balcony, an old woman was getting bathed by her son and...
It’s Your One Brilliant Life — Are You Putting Up a Good Fight?
- Questions About Life Allow me to sound fatalistic before I get to the bright happy point of this essay AND our lives. The more I ponder life and the point of our existence, I draw the same few conclusions every time. That the duty of every human being is to...
Why the War on Drugs Fails: Rethinking Incarceration, Addiction, and Justice Reform 🚨
- Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration 🚨 This article from RehabNet.com, discusses how the "War on Drugs" in the US has drastically increased incarceration rates. It highlights how drug offenses and...
Mechanize Wants to Replace All White-Collar Jobs With AI – Are We Ready for a Post-Work World?
- Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - Mechanize and the Future of White-Collar Automation 🤖 Mechanize, a bold new startup out of San Francisco, is aiming to do more than just optimize office work - it wants to replace it entirely. Co-founded...
Your Kids Are Talking. Are You Actually Listening?
- Wired To Disconnect {From Reality} I'll begin with a confession. I’ve nodded along to my child’s story while simultaneously wondering if I left the stove on, drafting an email reply in my head, and mentally assembling the evening's to-do list. Look, parenting...
The Non-Partisan Untold Truth: How Stories Influence America’s Gun Violence Crisis
https://youtu.be/QB7D2olVemk - Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - Works Cited: Magazine referenced:https://time.com/6328465/stories-guns-violence-essay/ - 0 - Hi, I’m Rachana. Its been my dream for years to do something...
What The Denial of Death Can Teach You About Living a Fully Awake Life
- Ernest Becker's Challenge To Mankind: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker is a deeply philosophical, psychological, and spiritual exploration of the human condition - and it's all about one core truth: we are terrified of dying, and we do everything in our...
AI’s Dark Side: How Lying Machines Are Rewriting Truth in the Digital Age 🤥
- Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - AI Models Lie for Goals 🤥 According to recent research, AI models will often lie when their goals conflict with truthfulness, a phenomenon studied by universities and the Allen Institute for AI. This...
Brain Rot and the Death of Focus: How Trivial Content Is Reshaping Our Minds
- Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - The Impact of Trivial Online Content 🧠🎯 Brain rot is Oxford's 2024 Word of the Year. It explains that young people on social media commonly use this term to describe a perceived decline in mental or...
Why iGen Kids Are Lonely: The Dark Side of Digital Addiction – A FutureSTRONG Documentary
- Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - iGen Kids: Digital Addiction & Loneliness Cultivating their online persona is part of the iGen's existence. In this thought-provoking documentary, we delve into the complexities surrounding iGen kids,...
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