Learned Helplessness is something that happens when someone’s agency (as in, their ability to make decisions, take actions, and see the impact those actions have on the world) gradually, persistently gets eroded away. When that erosion has gone on long enough, that someone stops believing that their actions matter. They go with the flow of…

Ontological Pluralism is an idea put forward by Arturo Escobar in his book Designs for the Pluriverse. The more I think about it, the more it messes me up. I’m sure I’m getting it wrong in important ways, but the basic idea as I understand it is a flavor of live-and-let-live focused on which futures…

A letter written to a newlywed couple. The truth is, marriage is extremely rewarding. It is also extremely difficult. We’ve learned many hard lessons about building a good marriage over the last decade, and we’re sharing the ones that have helped us the most below. (We’re hopeful that what took us eleven years to learn…