Gather Round
This coming Monday, a few of us will be discussing the book The Breakup. Join us if you feel like it: October 26, 2026 5pm PT / 6pm MT / 7pm CT / 8pm ET Via Zoom In the great tradition of my local book club: you do not have to have done
On Working Small
A couple weeks ago, one of you spotted the phrase “compulsion to reconcile” and asked, knowingly but not unkindly, if I am still serving as a mediator. I am. I continue to work through my local Dispute Resolution Center (DRC), and I continue to love it. Why? 1. Because it
Save the Date?
No column today: I did more than the usual amount of mediating this week, and I’m all out of reasonableness. :-) Instead, I just want to flag that a few of us will be gathering on Monday, October 26 at 5pm PT/8pm ET to talk about The Breakup. Set
The Bright Side of Imminent Destruction?
It does inspire a certain togetherness. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am relentlessly hopeful. I have a deep faith in the agency and ingenuity of human beings. Especially when we, the people of Earth, are pulling in the same direction, we can do extraordinary things. Remember
Three Things You’ve Told Me in No Uncertain Terms
First, some context: my subscriber base is verrry modest. There are (on Substack) exactly 246 of you. I know many of you in real life. I am related to some of you. I write each week not to tell you—or anyone—how to think about things but instead to
What a Punk. Also: That Punk’s Not Wrong
My office looks like I’m chasing a serial killer: sticky notes abound, some so old they’re not sticky anymore. Many are secured with Scotch tape, in clusters on a large whiteboard and in technicolor vines, up and down the sides of my computer monitors. All that’s missing
Alternative Fuel
This week did not lend itself to writing. Here instead is a rainbow-powered ferry.
Power Struggles Are Uncomfortable—and Necessary
First a short story on the subject of power: My daughter Anna never liked sleep. From the moment she arrived, she resisted it with all her might. We spent Year One walking up and down the streets of Hong Kong, where she was born, and we spent her toddler years
Walk With Me?
As you all know from my calendar system, I live by certain rules. In addition to those I’ve already shared, I believe in a firm book-to-podcast ratio: at least one hour of book listening* for every three hours of podcast listening. Some of the most thoughtful people
You Don’t Have to Work with Your Hands to Be Authentic
My career in documentary filmmaking was extremely short-lived. I entered the New York offices of Globalvision on a Monday, thrilled to bits that I would be fetching coffee for people who had produced for Frontline. Before the week was out, on top of all the yelling, one of them
Grace Note
This week I’m staying in a Marriott across the street from Mother Emanuel, the Charleston church where nine parishioners were killed by a white supremacist on June 17, 2015. It’s hard to look at the steps without recalling the surveillance video that was shown on repeat after the
Proof of Life
Above in green is a map of Bainbridge. Not everyone sees it at first, but give it a moment, and it’ll come into focus: the island is shaped exactly like an upright hedgehog with a backpack. My family lives on the hedgehog’s lower foot. My brother’s family