In 2022, I tried to be calmer. My perspective on things and the way I interacted with other people shifted as a result of my newfound commitment to meditation. I still don’t think I take it seriously enough. But meditation made me calmer. It had another effect. I realized it…

When meditation plunged me into depression, I realized that it was actually effective. I was never good at measure. I dove in headfirst, like a couch potato trying powerlifting. It’s been over a year since then. On my way home from walking the dog today, I got a sense of…

Twitter has ruined certain parts of modern academia for me. “But you deleted your account over 1.5 years ago,” I hear you say. That’s exactly why. I deleted my account, but Twitter continues to infiltrate my life because far too many academics are overly online on Twitter. …

How do you explain the past to a three-year-old? Over the last few days, I spent some time with my goddaughter. I had hardly seen her in previous years because of the prolonged and non-sensical US travel ban for Europeans during the pandemic. I am a non-immigrant visa worker going…

“And they all came to watch!” The young woman sounded incredulous and, at the same time, most thrilled about her own narration. She pointed at the imagined library ceiling that had burned down in a blazing fire in September 2004. The Anna Amalia library had been in the process of…

Whenever I read Oliver Sacks, I feel the desire to write myself. What strikes me with each of his sentences is his profound humanity. His essays convey a tone of conversation so strangely abandoned in current times. …

Where would you say your emotions are located? A year ago, I may have gestured to that rhythmic pounding in my left chest and the sometimes invisible but tense binder around it, the hot flashes in my lower face, or that mild warmth coming from the stomach when the mind…

Why does some wine smell like cat piss? Wine reviews often resemble a psychoanalytical character study: “Its dense purple color is followed by an extraordinary scent of charcoal, roasted espresso, blackberries, blueberries and a touch of wood,” wrote the critic Robert Parker of the Château Angélus in 2005. Other wine snobs are even more direct: a leather aroma…