Sean Baker

There is a special kind of exhaustion that comes from surviving things that have not happened yet. You know the routine. It is 3:17 in the morning. The house is quiet. Everybody else is asleep. Even the dog has enough sense to be unconscious. But there we are, wide awake, staring at the ceiling like it owes us money, mentally managing every possible disaster that could happen between now and the end of civilization. “What if this happens?" "What if that falls apart?" "What if they are mad?"...

There is an old Celtic saying that "we are woven into and through each other." It sounds old-world and lyrical, the kind of thing that could end up on a nice greeting card or framed and hanging in a hallway next to a plant someone is trying very hard not to kill. But for all its poetry, it is also plain truth. We belong to each other more than we like to admit. Most of us prefer the fantasy of being self-contained. My mood is mine. My choices are mine. My pain is mine. My business is my...

(A short article in ego, self-pity, and why pushing the rock still matters) There are two versions of us that show up every day. One is loud, confident, and absolutely certain about how things should be going. It keeps score. It builds arguments. It replays conversations in the shower and somehow always wins. That’s the Big I. The other is quieter, but just as convincing. It doesn’t argue as much. It just settles into the feeling that life has been a little harder on you than it has on most....