Isolation during the coronavirus prompted me to explore why touch is so important — Living in New York City, I have always liked the subway. Packed together like sardines, I feel the intimacy of our shared frustration aboard the train. I smile as we share the discomfort of our closeness, of commuting, of yet another signal delay. Though perhaps half my head is adrift…

Elena Ferrante Knows and Shares in My Brilliant Friend (L’amica Geniale) Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (L’amica geniale), the first novel in the Neapolitan Quartet, is an exercise in excelling from the sidelines. Unable to make herself the main character despite being the protagonist, Elena Grecco, or “Lenù,” comes of age in 1950s postwar Naples, where her passivity in encountering gross…

Is molecular biology our era’s tool to explore the philosophy of identity? Over the past decade, public interest in DNA technologies has reflected the significant strides of scientific research, and curiosity shows no signs of stopping. …

These hacks are a nightmare, but at least you’ll have his approval before he kills you Do you want to date and never be rejected? You’re not alone. Or, maybe you are, but it’s only because you haven’t learned these hot tips yet. …

Does muscle really matter when it could look like fat? Excuse me while I adjust my male gaze: No. — Ladies, put your strengths aside and forget what you heard about “internalized misogyny” at those women’s groups. I heard they’ve been very violent and smelled terrible since 1914! No need to look it up. I know I’m right. And even If I’m not, I already know your “opinion” on the…

In Haruki Murakami Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド, Sekai no owari to hādo-boirudo wandārando), the reader is presented with two realities. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, we are introduced to the Calcutec. He was engineered to be a data encryption unit. In The End of the World, we…

Billing students sticker prices for online courses is only one of the dangerous ways in which nonprofit colleges paint themselves as businesses first, educators second. — Many schools are preaching about the importance of diversity while the average family income of an American college student remains at just over $150K/year (The New York Times, 2017). Significant fees lumped on top of college tuition creates an exceptional burden for low-income college students, many of whom utilize scholarships…

Self-care and empathy are the anecdote to trauma within a generation that has been constantly shamed. — The direct correlation between shame and wellbeing is epitomized by millennials and the industry of self-care. Millennial consumer habits are tied to the self-care industry, which exacerbates the derogatory stereotype of the “Millennial Snowflake”. …

It is no surprise that Trump had an unhappy childhood. Were his social and emotional skills fostered? No. Were the majority of American male children of his generation nurtured with a loving kindness from both parents, due to inherited emotional wisdom, spanning across decades of Puritanical inbreeding? No. Are all…