I’ve got a confession: I love end-of-year best-of collections. It reminds me that we shape our tastes, influences, and outputs slowly and cumulatively. Here are some of mine! In the coming weeks, I might expand on some of these items. But for now… Podcasts There are so many podcasts…
I distinctly remember playing board games with my mom, dad, and sister when I was growing up. We kept them in this tiny, narrow crevice under my bunkbed, which usually meant we'd play the games in my bedroom. We played Monopoly, The Game of Life, Connect 4, and various other…
I’ve had trouble with conforming to society’s expectations for my entire life. When everyone in art class drew a picture in elementary school, I wrote a poem (in a cool font, I might add). When everyone learned Dave Matthews covers in high school, I was writing my own…
January is the worst month. It’s a slog. It’s unreasonably cold (relative to your usual weather). It’s long (31 days). There’s only one holiday (after a couple of months of many days off). But then March comes. And at some point, there will be a temporary…
The secret to eating better was lost on me for years. I tried diet plans, reducing calories, time-restricted eating, the works. What eventually worked for me was learning to cook intuitively. I started to understand what went into making meals: some kind of protein, a starchy carb or vegetable, and…
Well, here we are: we have a new child in the middle of a turbulent global moment. Please welcome my second son, Roshi Cadence Hassan. His middle name, Cadence, has meaning in the musical sense: it usually refers to a sequence of chords that end a musical phrase. But it…
Imagine if you arrived and were handed a number. You sit down and watch the numbers scroll through, one by one. You’re #45, and they’re on #17. No problem, you think. It’s a long wait, but it keeps getting closer. But this isn’t what happens at…
These are two separate ideas and require two different skillsets. The psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt describes the human brain like a rider on top of an elephant. The rider takes information and makes sense of it. The rider is logical and rational. The elephant, on the other hand, is…