The Power of Pausing In 1961, The New Yorker made the decision to have Hannah Arendt cover the trial of Nazi SS officer Adolph Eichmann. Arendt was a German-Jewish immigrant who’d fled Nazi persecution decades before. …

(or You’re Bad. Go Away.) I love walking alone in storms. The feel and sound of the water beating down, the thunder, the solitude, untangles everything within me like an ocean wave. It quiets outside voices and frees me to find my thoughts. Connection & Silence But connection is currency in today’s world…

3 Short Reasons to Stop Being PC Why do people get upset over political correctness? Isn’t is good not to offend anyone? Yes. And no. Offending people just to offend them is rarely a good idea. But it’s a boundary people often cross, especially online. When we don’t have to…

Bottled Water, Humility & Cross-Cultural Grace I went to this woman’s house in Jodhpur for dinner. Hers was a Muslim family not far from where we stayed in the hostel at the fort. She cooked the food on this little stove and served it in communal dishes. We sat in…

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” The Afghan peace process remains uncertain. As the Taliban gains ground in strategic locations, pandits debate whether President Biden should completely withdraw troops according to the May 2021 timeline. The argument itself indicates a larger disagreement about America’s…

How to Build a Thicker Skin (& Where Maybe You Shouldn’t) It’s human nature to want connection and affirmation. To hope that your writing will resonate with others. That it will teach them something, bring healing, entertain, etc. …

The K-Pop in Politics What are sasaengs? They’re obsessive stalker-fans/stans who track down K-pop idols in airports or break into their hotel rooms. They’re also the ones willing to do anything for them … from twisting real events to making up elaborate lies, using an invisible vigilante justice to take…

My Love-Hate Relationship with Brené Brown Just Be Yourself? Standard advice to awkward kids is “Just be yourself.” Dr. Brené Brown made a whole career out of encouraging this kind of authenticity. Out of freeing ourselves from the shame that can hold us back and prevent change.

When S. Korean Soft Power Comes in Different Colors There are people in the world being tortured for wearing lipstick or a hairstyle that’s not state approved. When I was sucked into episodes of the popular K-drama Crash Landing on You, I didn’t think about the parts of it that…