We live in a time of large-scale democratic reckoning, coupled with crumbling trust in public institutions and their elite functionaries. More people will cast electoral votes in 2024 and 2025 than at any other moment in human history...
In the 2010s, affiliate marketing became a dominant strain of online business models. The Wirecutter, which sold to the Times in 2016, made money by driving its visitors to retail Web sites like Amazon or Best Buy, taking a small cut from any purchase of items it recommended.
Back in July, the journalist Ezra Klein interviewed Elaina Plott Calabro, a staff writer at The Atlantic, on his popular podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.” Calabro had profiled Kamala Harris the previous year, and Klein wondered whether the Vice-President was “underrated” as a potential challenger to Donald Trump.
The first time it happened, it was an accident. But every dream is. It would have been my last REM cycle of the night, had I been able to sleep. Instead, for the previous six hours, I had counted sheep, had dressed for imaginary occasions in my mind, had tried the Army sleep techniques, alternately imagined myself in a black velvet hammock and in a canoe on a calm, still lake.
A flurry of book bars has recently opened that prioritize solo time as much as low-key conversation, offering a fun alt-combo to record bars and libraries. These spaces for reading, drinking, listening to music, and chatting with other book lovers (or not) are a post-shutdown pivot from social distancing.
P WAS telling me about a terrible tragedy involving an uber-wealth couple who had it all. He was in real estate, and she was an lifestyle influencer who ran an Instagram account showcasing their vast wealth, traipsing between Manhattan and the Hamptons, and their home in Miami.
In fact, this is perhaps the most insidious thing that people tell us—or that we tell ourselves—when we feel sad or insecure. It provokes enormous cognitive dissonance: “This is perfect?” you think (after the brief glow of the compliment wears off). And that suggests one of two logical conclusions: Either you face a bleak status quo with no hope of self-improvement, or the outside world must be to blame for your unhappiness. The first conclusion leads to utter darkness; the second to angry rebellion against a malevolent universe. The truth is that you are not perfect, and neither is anyone else. And this is incredibly good news: If you can accept this reality, you will have hope of improving yourself and your life. Then you will be happier.
THIS WEEKEND was the May Bank Holiday, yet, today, we've chosen to forgo the leisurely pace and return to our usual routine, save for a walk in the rain in the early afternoon hours. The current state of upheaval, a time of transition and change for us, is making it challenging to concentrate on work until circumstances stabilise a little.