I'm not letting cynical people make me cynical. I'm not letting insane people make me insane. In some ways, I think this is kind of the hardest task in the world right now to not let them make you like them. To not let cruelty harden you, to not let stupidity make you bitter, to not let outrage pull you down.
I think that I was always the kid who was getting sent to the principal's office for like having too many opinions and it feels like as an adult it's paying off, you know, like I was like a little producer in training.
And one thing about being a reporter is you're sort of always pulling yourself kind of away from a situation at like a sort of emotional remove when you're reporting on horrific events and I kind of did that with myself too. Sort of like watching myself because it's sort of like my Russian side that's going through this cuz it's all in Russian, you know? I see yeah I see myself on TV but I see Evan. And so it's this sort of like I'm observing him, this guy as much as anybody else is until right before when I find out that I'm going to be swapped.
understanding that all these people somehow are kind of my grandparents, are kind of the people that lived a life in a way so incomplete in order for me to have a life that is better than his. They risked their lives with trying to love and trying to fulfill their passion. And all those stories are silenced.
When you think about a terrorist attack or any historical turning point, it's not the thing that happens. It's how you react to it like that shows your freedom and your and your character and I I just think we have to recognize that we blew it and that the the next time that there's a crisis, we have to react better than that
It was specifically play from their own Rohingya culture that helped them feel pride, gain confidence and experience joy after being violently forced to leave behind their home.
And here's the thing about terror, although it may well be true of grief, too. It robs you of so much. It steals your soul. It takes your life. It robs you of so much. It steals your sense of yourself and your place in the world. And it murders time.
I think some essential part of me is still there. And here's the thing about terror, although it may well be true of grief, too. It robs you of so much. It steals your sense of yourself and your place in the world, and it murders time.
I realize sometimes I'm the elder and sometimes I'm the youngest person in the room and sometimes I'm right in the middle. And I realize we're all on this journey together and we're all doing the best we can. And I'm really okay with what I don't know. And I think I've only gotten this far because I've been able to admit what I don't know.
When the trailer came out, a lot of people were asking like why would she agree to do this? And I really think it's like serving 11 years in prison. There's nowhere to go but up.
I survived prison because I believed you find what you look for. Because of what it means to notice the mango. To commit yourself to the possibility of a miracle, even without a name for the wonder.
Being told all the way through your school years that you are somehow less than the rest of the people in your class must have had a devastating effect on her... How could you not feel that you were somehow inadequate? And it was only after she left school where she truly flourished.
Being told all the way through your school years that you are somehow less than the rest of the people in your class must have had a devastating effect on her. I also come to the conclusion, you know, which is fairly it was very obvious that she had this incredible burden from this criticism from teachers about being at the very low end in each subject she studied. How could you not feel that you were somehow inadequate?
Li's teenage sons both died by suicide six years apart, Vincent in 2017 at age 16, and James in 2024 at age 19. Her Pulitzer-Prize winning 2025 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow , chronicled the loss of her sons and her effort to go on.
The water moved with such force and confidence, knowing exactly where to flow and how to go, and it seemed to declare, "Do not call this a comeback, I have been here for years."
We tend to think that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. And when a good person suffers, we're forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that the world doesn't work the way we'd like it to.
Most of us are quick to help others in distress, but we also, at some level, blame them for their misfortune. If victims could have avoided their fate, then we can avoid it too. But if they did nothing to bring it on themselves, then we are just as vulnerable as they were — and that's a terrifying thought.
It's not about the Israelis actually. I don't look to the eye of the people of Gaza because I feel the pain of them. And they feel always that we all going to die. This is the reality. This is the only belief that I have in the meantime that we all going to die.
Most of us assume that negative experiences will harm us, and positive experiences will help us. But psychologists have found that bad experiences are often more instructive than good ones — we learn more from our failures than from our successes, and we grow more from adversity than from ease.
People who have experienced tragedy often feel abandoned by God, or feel that God is punishing them. But Rabbi Kushner came to believe that God is not the cause of our suffering — that bad things happen because the world is imperfect, not because God wills them to happen to us.
When historian Kate Bowler was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, she became fascinated by the ways people try to impose order on events they can't control.
I didn't have the skillset, I didn't have the knowledge. Well, David Lynch had left the series during the second season. And he was the sensibility behind the show. So with him gone, there were new writers. And you felt as like the person whose point of view we most often see, and as someone who was very close to Lynch, that you should be an anchor and you should help keep the ship afloat.
I've been really open about my mental struggles. And thank God we're all talking about it now. And it's not swept under the rug. But yeah, it took me a really long time to sort of navigate how to not sink further into darkness when it hits, and how to know that it's not a forever thing, and to be able to sometimes be quiet or sometimes to write songs to it.
I was working as a waitress, but I was also doing a little bit of session work. I was finally getting some work as a session singer... I crashed the audition. I said, hi, Michael, into a video. I said, I just moved here six months ago as a school teacher. And then I sang a song by Denise Williams called Free. And I'm going to be free. And I got called back and we went from there.
Rosa Parks doesn't suddenly decide to sit down on the bus one day. This was the result of an incredible amount of discipline. And that discipline was the result of an incredible amount of training.
Think about the last time you had a discouraging thought. Maybe you told yourself, "This won't work. I'm not cut out for this." Did you take that thought as fact?
I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, holding temporary cards or ID cards. It was written on a temporary ID card for Palestinian refugees. Then when I fled to Lebanon, the same happened when I had to renew my residency every year because it was a temporary residency. So to be in the United States and for the first time in my life having, you know, something written on it permanent, it meant to me stability. It meant to me that I finally would have a chance to actually plan for more than next year or next month.
The interesting thing about America is that it has repeatedly found itself in what seemed to be terminal crisis, and then something happened and it didn't. And I think part of what I try to do is understand why that is — what is it about American society and American institutions that allow this kind of renewal.
The thing that's really hard to appreciate unless you've been involved in it is how difficult it is to build a great company. People on the outside assume that it's a lot easier than it actually is, and most people who've tried to build great companies will tell you that it's one of the most excruciating, painful, difficult things they've ever attempted.
The interesting thing about America is that it's not just the United States government, it's American society. And American society has this quality that when it gets knocked down, it gets back up. The American system is actually designed to be inefficient in some ways, because the founders were more afraid of tyranny than they were of inefficiency.
In music, we learn that being in harmony with the world doesn't mean everyone is singing the same note at the same time. It's about embracing the dissonance and following the heart to home. We learn that being in time with the world doesn't have to mean stepping into line.
I'm of the view that every day of life in Cuba is a struggle for survival. And beyond the mantras and the worn out political speeches, I believe that living in Cuba each day is an act of resistance.
I saw how people would treat me when I'm by myself versus when my parents were there. And I also knew that our house wasn't one that talked about race or talked about issues or problems more broadly. And again, instinctively, as a black boy, I didn't think they would believe me.
Most of us are familiar with the pull of a fresh start. But researcher Kristina Olson has found something surprising: people who make dramatic life changes — who blow up their lives — often report higher levels of well-being than those who stay the course, even when the change involves significant loss and hardship.
Taking action, even though you don't have a real grounded expectation of being successful, I think there's still value in the action to watch and witness and be able to say that you saw what was there.
1mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
