A book about presence, written by someone who seems barely present with or tolerant of the reader's actual experience of reading it: that's the central irony I kept returning to, and I was never quite able to shake it.

The American school system is no stranger to harsh criticism. And at the end of this school year, the most anticlimactic to date, I'm left wondering what we are actually asking students to come to school for, and whether that still makes sense to them, to their generation.

I don't so much mind the overstimulation leaking onto other areas of my life, but lashing out at the person I love most is the saddening, sobering consequence of a pattern continuing for far too long. Not only are the tasks not handled, but I come home irritable and no fun to be around. It's a lose-lose.

It's really no woman's fault that she feels the need to diet, obsessively work out, or take a drug to lose weight. It is what is not-so-subtly asked of all of us. Especially now, in the most conservative era we've lived through in quite a while. But this is where everyone's got it backwards.

We can’t care about everything at 100% intensity. We just can’t. The physics of the soul won't allow it. And yet, I find myself terrified of the alternative.

When the sleep schedule gets fixed, maybe then, it will go quiet.

As you breathe into your body, notice. Scanning from the crown of your head, slowly down into the neck, your shoulders, your limbs, your torso, down your legs and into your feet...notice. Is there a small tickle in your throat? An impending headache behind your eyes? Does your spine ache from shoveling snow? Do you remember how to feel the backs of your knees? Pay attention to your emotional body, too. Where does the nervousness reside? If you could pinpoint the constant thru

There's another kind of tragedy here, one that takes place on an individual level - the same one I find myself grappling with at this very moment. Why must I wait to hear what my chosen media outlet says about this - or anything, for that matter - before I can form my own opinion?