I used to think life was about finding one’s purpose, bliss, cause, etc. That we were born with a life sentence and before its end date we had this very tangible goal to achieve. I…

At a recent holiday gathering I briefly found myself in the company of a precocious 9-year-old, a child I’ve known for quite some time now and who – along with her parents – I…

Take a super-simple sentence – one of the earliest and simplest – and see if it doesn’t blow apart the universe as we know it. See Jane run. Let’s start with run. You and…

It is said the worst punishment that can be meted out to a prisoner is solitary confinement. Lock someone in ‘the hole’ long enough and he starts to go mad (note the metaphorical connection between ‘hole’…

An avid reader as a child, at some point I remember being intrigued by a rather simple discovery: that most of the really interesting people in life came from difficult circumstances. I don’t remember…

In the sci-fi classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” our heroes discover that most of the once-familiar faces around them are, in fact, hostile aliens in cloned human costume. The story resonates precisely because it…