• How an excessive focus on merit can be a coping mechanism for imposter syndrome. If you’ve achieved some of your goals and you see someone who’s struggling to achieve theirs (and you feel guilty for the inequity), it can be tempting to explain it in terms of effort: my life is this way because I worked really hard, and theirs is this way because they’re making poor decisions. But we all know that that meritocracy story is often bullshit. What’s interesting to me is that you don’t have to be an asshole libertarian Silicon Valleyite to impulsively believe in it; you can just be a caring person who wants the world to be fair, and who is trying to find a way to understand its unfairness.
  • Watching a bandsaw blade cut through plaster.
  • A nonwhite classmate making a shocking, racist comment about black people.
  • How, when I was little, I slept with my head facing the bedroom door because I wanted to watch and make sure no intruders came in. At some point, I got more afraid of what could lurk in the corner between the bed and the wall so I faced my head that way and now my neck seems permanently fixed in that direction. (I turn left when I play drums, too.)