ESSAYS
Essays and reflections
Long-form writing on philosophy, technology, culture, faith, work, and the questions that shape a life.

The Boundary of Care
A Life That Opens a Larger Question A video about the life of Elliot Page left me with a question that reached beyond the…

Before We Have to Prove Ourselves
The Child Behind the Achievement A Mainichi newspaper story about a fourth-grade girl passing Eiken Grade 1 invites an immediate response: admiration. Eiken is…

The Vanishing Application
A Card Stops, and the Tools Become Visible My credit card was temporarily restricted after the issuer identified a transaction that required verification. It…

Writers, Public Personas, and the Communities Around Literature
A Novel That Returned Through an Article An article marking the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Kenji Nakagami (1946 – 1992) brought back…

The Business of Crying Wolf
The Alarm Everyone Recognizes The story of the boy who cried wolf has survived for centuries because its lesson is more complicated than a…

Contemplation Beyond the Divide Between Religion and Spirituality
The Spiritual Hunger Behind Religious Departure The statement “I am not religious but spiritual” has become one of the characteristic confessions of modern life.…

The Demythologization of Artificial Intelligence
The Recurrent Grammar of the Unsolved Public conversation regarding advanced computation has taken an unexpected turn in recent seasons. Where technical gatherings once debated…

The Burden of the Spotlight
The Vessel and the Crowd A hereditary monarchy exists upon an ancient, peculiar premise: authority and continuous public presence do not depend upon personal…

Preserving Knowledge for Human and Machine Readers
The Promise of the Digital Copy There was a time when scanning a book felt like completing the work of preservation. A shelf of…

The Ego’s Last Possession
The Will That Tries to Surrender Many years ago, I encountered a short piece by Meister Eckhart entitled “On True Obedience.” Eckhart was a…
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