To concede that the future is unknowable is, of course, better than insisting it cannot be anything other than bleak. But how can we make sense of the complexities of the present—how can we organize ourselves to take any action together in the present, how can we, in that sense, be human—if we cannot drive stakes into the future, if only for inspiration or direction?

Is nothing sacred in Yonkers

As you age, your anger might not abate, but your sense of your own power often does.

Real sadness, Montaigne is telling us, is something as profoundly inexplicable as real love.

Ritual was a goddamn revelation because I discovered it for myself, and it was fearless and personal at a time when I needed some kind of music in my life that was fearless and mine.