Category: Personal

Personal essays, advice, and other reflections.

Mini Mall: Magical Trinkets

I wrote about the Magic 8 Ball at ROOKIE.

“You, like lil’ ol’ moi, may be one of those kinds of very chill people who think they come off as easy-going. Go-with-the-flow. You’re a, ‘no, you pick!’-er. Well, I have to reckon with you that it not might be that you’re the most flexible, relaxed dude in the world. It might be that you’re just EXTREMELY INDECISIVE! And deflective! And—again, like lil’ ol’ moi—absolutely paralyzed by decision making and its dizzying array of possible consequences, good and bad! Enter: Magic 8 Ball. For questions big and small, from, Should I wear my cape today? to Am I a goblin? to Is this life just a mirage?, there is a spirit—be it just the molecular interactions of a hexagonal die suspended in blue liquid, or an actual god-thing moving through the ball to reveal truths—to provide you with an answer. And yes, you can shake it again, and get a different answer, all getting you back to the same place of indecision before. But at least you’re in the realm of yesses and nos, rather than the anti-decision maker’s domain of passivity. Thanks to Magic 8 Ball, you have a guide in that scary realm. Whether the spirit is real or not…I guess you could ask the ball that question.”

Everything Changes All the Time

Read in full at Rookie.

“When I think of the end of the world—and do I ever—what comes to mind is a montage of regular, familiar deaths, as opposed to a giant and singular catastrophe. There are various levels of shattering—some feel violent like they could make me sick, some are milder, a quiet and resigned exhale. These deaths happen when beliefs I subscribe to—things that feel real, and can have for years and years—begin to show themselves as fictions or just realities that have passed their expiry date. Or, a newer truth emerges from an experience that sweeps aside a whole bunch of half-truths I cobbled together as my way of seeing the world. That can feel like a handful of deaths, because so much is invalidated by a single new realization about how things are.”