What I'm Learning

Few things are more refreshing than long conversations with distant friends.

If you work with high school students and announce that you'd theoretically be willing to get a public haircut, be ready to lose your hair in dramatic and humbling fashion.

Developing a meaningful friendship with someone preparing to leave the country for six months is at once beautiful and painful, thrilling and difficult.

My brother Ryan is one of the most loved people I know. His 30th birthday party was last night, and the assembled friends and family represented every stage of his life, from Ryan as awkward middle schooler to Ryan as 30-year-old financial advisor. It was a joyful and intriguing clash, and I loved it.

Internet and constant connection may be rotting my brain. Most of my reading in the past year or so has been fiction or online essays, and the return to more weighty texts is proving to be depressingly difficult. This partially contributes to my refusal to buy a phone with which I can check my e-mail.

Growing up in an environment that espouses certain opinions you no longer share is a blessing. There are those who make tremendous fortunes yelling on TV about how fundamentally better you are than the people who disagree with you--especially in an election season. An entire industry revolves around telling you that the person over there--"the other"--is brainless and heartless and trying to destroy our country. But when you're in constant relationship with those people, it is difficult to boil the entire person down to a few political nuances. I'm not belittling differences in belief, and I think meaningful debate is a gift, but the idea that a partisan line permanently separates you from the other half of the country is a terribly dangerous lie.

The right song at the right moment, especially when accompanied by a hot cup of tea and rain streaking the window beside you, is a thoroughly transcendent moment.

High school students can teach you a whole lot more than you think.

Eavesdropping on a sign language conversation is an impossible pleasure.

If you shave your head and attempt to grow facial hair, then randomly run into an old friend who remembers you as long-haired and clean-shaven, you're guaranteed the most enjoyable kind of awkwardness.

Titling a post "What I'm Learning" is an invitation for frustration. There is too much to say, let alone in blog snippets. So let's talk sometime.

Remember love.