Most of what I think

is still moving.

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Unsorted thinking, published anyway. The thought from a walk, the argument that doesn’t finish. No schedule, no subject, and I reserve the right to change my mind by next week.

What this is

Recent Thoughts

  • A man seen from behind walks a hazy autumn woodland path with a pack on his back and a steel helmet hanging from his hand, while pieces of worn plate armor lie along the path behind him
    The Path of the Solitary Man
    After trauma there are two ways out: collapse, or come through. Coming through splits again, into self-reliance or armor, and from a distance they look the same. Who shows up for the crisis and who for the chore, why men stopped asking, and what walking alone actually costs.
  • A bare room with a row of mostly empty wall pegs, cast-off clothing and a wedding band on the floorboards, three wheels of stone, solid wood and spokes leaning against the wall, and an empty chair facing a window
    Who Am I Now?
    Son, brother, father, husband, provider. I’ve lost every role I used to define myself, and the obvious remedy, reinventing myself, turns out to be the same wheel in a different material. What remains once the dressing comes off, and why I’m in no hurry to put it back on.
  • A living room table arranged with everyday objects as a certain kind of memory insists they were: a children's book, a video case, a plush toy, a board game box and a white T-shirt, each printed with the version people remember rather than the one that exists
    I Can Still See It
    In 2022, YouGov asked Americans about the Fruit of the Loom logo. 55% said it had a cornucopia; 21% got it right. What follows is the memory research, four experiments on shared false memories, the actual physics of many worlds, and an argument I keep having with myself about a horn of plenty I can still see.
  • A black-and-white aerial photograph of a nearly empty city square lying on a lit light table, with a red grease-pencil rectangle drawn around the one small cluster of people in it
    Your Opinion Is Not Your Own
    J. Jonah Jameson never had to invent a photograph; he only needed the right caption. I set out to prove what I already believed about the big outlets, ran the ratings against the audience numbers, and found the measures won’t combine. What survived is narrower and more useful.
  • A smoke detector lying face-down on a lamplit nightstand, its battery compartment open and the 9-volt battery removed beside it, in a dim bedroom at dusk
    Love Yourself Exactly as You Are
    In 1986, California created a task force to raise its citizens’ self-esteem. The evidence turned out thinner than the promise, but the message stuck. Somewhere along the way, the discomfort that used to say something’s wrong got relabeled as harm, and people started switching it off.