It first hit us during Covid—with face masks, social distancing, and Zoom—but it’s been building for a long time.  I mean the way technology,  AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the internet are robbing us all of face-to-face, touch-to-touch, and breath-to-breath intimacy.  That kind of closeness has been our birthright as human beings for two million years, and suddenly, in the space of a historical instant, we are being robbed of it.  I remember reading an article by a man reflecting on his Covid experience; he said that the thing he missed most during Covid was dapping—the elaborate multipart handshake  that wordlessly … Read More

It’s taken me a while to notice it. Perhaps I didn’t really acknowledge it until after the recent mid-term elections. But I’m definitely feeling less anxious than, say, 3 or 4 months ago. I’m sleeping better too. It’s a subtle thing; it’s not as though I was riddled with anxiety before. It was more like a gray mist that clouded my vision, or my mood. And now it’s mostly gone. I feel more like myself now, like the typically optimistic person that I usually am.
Part of it is the fading of Covid as a moment by moment concern. I … Read More