I still haven’t gotten around to meditating. In some ways, I feel that the rapidity of my recovery has slightly blunted the urge to try out new health and well-ness practices, beyond the simple fix of adding more medication to my daily regimen. In the meantime, I’ve rediscovered the wisdom to be gained from a… Continue reading Motorway Meditations
“Has anyone here ever been part of a union before?” No hands go up. “Does anyone here think they’ll be in a union after they graduate?” Still no hands. “How about this: who thinks they’ll someday be on the other side of a negotiating table from a union?” Finally, hands go up, along with a… Continue reading Solidarity
Apparently if you want to get a big response to something on social media, write about depression. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to “go public” about my condition and the cascading failures it has led to, but the response I’ve received has been incredibly touching. In addition to the public support I’ve received—for… Continue reading Empathy
Telling a depressed person that things are hopeless is generally ill-advised.* And yet it is exactly what Buddhist nun Pema Chodron recommends in her book When Things Fall Apart (which is not a Chinua Achebe novel): “Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with… Continue reading The Two Paths
Baked goods have a somewhat legendary status among dumpster divers. In the anarchist travelogue Evasion, the author shoplifts and hitch-hikes his way across middle America subsisting almost entirely off of bagels. On freegan.info trash tours, we rarely could resist the temptation to stop at Dunkin Donuts—even though most of us were vegan and we generally… Continue reading Let Them Eat Cake
When your choices come down to interring yourself in a psychiatric hospital and traveling to Costa Rica, you are in the simultaneous position of being very lucky and getting a raw deal. And yet this was the choice that confronted me two weeks ago, as I endured my worst-ever meltdown days before a long-planned trip… Continue reading Pura Vida
I am not entirely sure how I first got on anti-depressants. It was the summer after 10th grade, and I had a summer internship with the Defense Department (yes, really) in Albuquerque. I was also, for the first time, plumbing the depths of sadness to a degree that surpassed normal adolescent angst. One day, a… Continue reading Little Helpers
When I was little, I was up watching cartoons long before my parents were awake. I made it up until college without needing an alarm clock; I survived until my second stint at graduate school without drinking coffee. Anyone who has ever woken up beside me knows that I start the day chattering and almost… Continue reading Circadian Setbacks
“Well, do you at least know how to operate a pallet jack?” I hesitate. I have eight-and-one-third years of higher education under my belt. I really should have a good answer to this question. “I’m sure I’ll pick it up quickly”, I offer optimistically. Last Tuesday was my first day at my new job—my first… Continue reading Career Changes?
It didn’t get much attention, but last week President Obama took the most drastic actions on climate change of his presidency. Leaving aside the really only marginal question of whether those policies will actually address climate change (see my friend Sasha’s post explaining why it won’t), the more interesting question for me is why he… Continue reading Climate Change is the New Falling Rate of Profit
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 