Plus the lesson it taught me — A couple of months ago, I wrote an article that did pretty well. So well, in fact, that it ended up getting over 15k views, which is… more than I’m used to. By a fair margin. For reference, I get excited when an article breaks 150 views. So when this…

The beginner’s guide to greener grocery bags — Zero-waste, to me, sounds way too intimidating. As someone who’s just beginning to look at decreasing my waste, it’s like walking up to me and asking if I’d like to live on Mars. Low-waste, though, is something that catches my attention. This, for me, has been a much less intimidating…

The human instinct for storytelling is stronger than we give it credit for. — Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seems to be an unspoken stigma surrounding fiction. Often, the people who look down on it are the overly analytical, no-nonsense, rise-and-grind types. Why waste your time on literature? Why bother with a story, why dream up a fairytale? In my experience, these…

The episode that showed me where my self-talk goes wrong — This summer, my mental health has been suspiciously good. Day in and day out, I was feeling stable, clear-headed, and motivated. I was even sleeping well, for once! It had gotten to that infamous point where I started to ask the question — Did I even have depression? …

And how they could become the key to detecting Alzheimer's disease early — In the Middle Ages, Italian women started doing something a little strange — they started dropping extracts from nightshade, a deadly poison, into their eyes. Why? Because they understood a few things about the eyes that very few of us know today. In fact, by “reading” one’s eyes, you can…

Science-backed reasons your living room needs more greenery — Perhaps this is the Gen Z in me speaking, but I’d rather have a plant than a kid any day. Hell, I’d rather have a plant than a dog. Don’t get me wrong, I love a cute dog. But however cute and loveable they are, they’re also loud, expensive, and…

Thoughts on Ted Chiang’s “Hell is the Absence of God” — I don’t like short stories. I don’t not like them, per se. Most of the time, I just find them unremarkable. This isn’t the writers’ fault, it’s just an inherent fault of the form — how does one connect with a character in only a few pages? Yet, even for…

How joining the circus taught me how to learn — Two years ago, I decided to join the circus. Well, kind of. After falling down a YouTube rabbit hole and sending several hours in a mesmerized daze watching every video I could find on the topic, I decided to try my hand at a particular circus apparatus called the cyr…

Lessons from Buddhism and Science — Matthieu Ricard has been dubbed the happiest man alive. That’s why it was a surprise that, when this monk was asked to engage in empathy meditation for a neuroscience study, he found it unbearable. Instead, he preferred another method, one that left him energized, happy, and able to help others…