Benjamin Franklin once noted not to “throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass.” The impulse to point out other’s mistakes is not a hallmark of the pre-frontal cortex. It assumes one is resting on a pedestal. It provides temporary comfort to the insecure spirit. Finding flaws in others tastes similar to…

Last Saturday I participated in my first Flash Bob in Central Park, a queer spin-off of a more traditional flash mob. We practiced under the Naumburg Bandshell, a 1920s neoclassical coffered half dome that serves as an amphitheater. We spent the first few hours of practice dissolving the shame and self-consciousness that gets in the…

Today is the first day of classes at Penn. I decided to re-arrange my office. Few things have an effect on your work as the environment you are set in. It is now decluttered, so my mind can be decluttered too. Every morning is a fresh start: the promise of an opportunity, a tabula rasa.…