Articles

Attention & Understanding
How a world of information, distraction, and stimulation competes for our attention. What captures our attention can deepen – or flatten – our understanding of reality.
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Self-Inputs
The habits, routines, practices, and tools we deliberately use to shape ourselves. This is where we exercise agency within our surroundings.
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Relationships & Social Ecology
How our relationships and social environments influence our behavior, belonging, and sense of self. No one develops in isolation.
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Culture & Meaning
How culture shapes what we value and what gives life meaning. Through shared stories, traditions, art, symbols, and myth, we inherit a sense of what’s normal, good, and possible.
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Society & Power
How institutions and systems create the conditions we live in. Through media, education, and public policy, society sets the defaults.
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Recent Work

Explore the latest articles on navigating a noisy world with greater clarity, discernment, and purpose.

Shallow vs. Deep Inputs: How Everyday Influences Shape Our Minds

Shallow isn’t always bad. Deep isn’t always good. A simple 2 x 2 framework for sorting the influences in your life and shaping a more nourishing mix.

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Grifters, Fraudsters, and the American Worship of “Smart” Dealing

A culture teaches people what to value through the people it rewards. America's long admiration for clever money-making reveals how dishonesty becomes normal and honesty starts to feel like a disadvantage.

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How to Use Local News to Plug Back Into Your Community

Following local news can make your community feel more familiar and give you more reasons to get involved. Learn to pay more attention to what's happening closer to home.

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Hunker Down: Atomization and the Retreat from Social Life

Low trust can deepen atomization, making everyday connection feel like more effort than it's worth and retreating into our own homes the easier choice.

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Connecting With Family Roots

Family roots are more than genealogy. An old photograph or familiar family story can change how we see our own lives. Connecting with those roots helps us understand where we belong and what we want to carry forward.

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Infotainment and the Expanding Definition of News

News has expanded far beyond traditional journalism, with bedroom monologues, comedy podcasts, and social media posts changing what people recognize as legitimate "news."

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Cold War Liberalism and the Deradicalization of Rebellion

How institutions helped redefine rebellion itself — channeling dissent into lifestyle, identity, consumerism, and personal choice while pushing systemic challenges toward the margins.

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Cultural Headwaters: How Institutional Ideas Flow Into Common Sense

Common sense has a history. The Springfield Plan is one example of how institutions can carry an idea downstream until it becomes part of everyday life.

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Current-Events Man: Lost in the Endless News Cycle

Following the news closely can make us feel informed while leaving us without the context needed to understand what we’re seeing. Deeper landmarks help us connect events into a larger picture and keep our bearings in the endless news cycle.

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AI as a Creative Partner: How to Use AI Without Outsourcing Your Creativity

AI can brainstorm, research, edit, and rehearse alongside you — but only you can answer the question that actually matters: is this still yours? Here’s how to make AI a real creative partner instead of a shortcut around your own creative process.

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