Examinations of societal norms, political correctness, and systemic assumptions. These essays question established beliefs about excellence, normality, and accepted wisdom, offering nuanced alternatives to binary thinking in complex social territories.
In a world that increasingly demands absolute positions, the space between conviction and uncertainty becomes the most fertile terrain for genuine thought. Yet this middle ground is rapidly disappearing from our conversational landscape.
Categorizing capabilities as “hard” or “soft” skills fragments what is fundamentally whole. This artificial division reflects a philosophy that reduces humans to skill assemblages rather than integrated beings, potentially blinding us to the qualities that make us fully human.
In our obsession with excellence, we’ve become slaves to arbitrary metrics. The concept of ‘good enough’ isn’t surrendering to mediocrity, but recognizing that sustainable achievement often emerges precisely when we stop demanding perfection from ourselves and others.
Political correctness attempts the impossible: picking up shit by its clean side. We sanitize language while unaddressed realities fester. Perhaps true engagement requires getting our hands dirty—and knowing how to wash them afterward.
As we outsource our thinking to machines that mimic understanding, what essential human capacities might we be surrendering in our fascination with artificial minds? Perhaps in these digital mirrors, we discover not their intelligence, but our own intellectual fatigue.
I fear this is the state in which the world finds itself: normally sick, to the point where it's difficult to distinguish health from pathology. Burnout, constant pressure, ecological erosion—these have become our new normal. In these urgent times, perhaps what we need most is to slow down.
