The Ancient Fascination With Other Worlds Human beings have been imagining other worlds for thousands of years. Long before telescopes, particle accelerators, or modern physics, ancient civilizations wondered about worlds beyond their own. They told stories of gods coming down from the heavens and spirits entering other realms. These stories described mysterious boundaries between the
The Name Behind the Music There are people whose faces become famous, and then there are people whose work becomes famous while they remain largely behind the curtain. Bryan-Michael Cox belongs to that second group. Millions of people have heard his music without necessarily knowing his name. If you listened to R&B during the late
Bryan-Michael Cox: The Man Behind the Sound of a Generation Read More »
What Success Looked Like When I Was Young When I was a young man, success looked different to me than it does today. Like many young people, I associated getting ahead with what I could accomplish and what other people could see. Money mattered to me. Having a good job and earning a decent living
A Life Worth Keeping: How My Definition of Success Changed Read More »
The Conversation That Never Really Stops There is one person I have been talking to for my entire life, and that person is me. Long before I understood anything about psychology, I knew there was a voice inside my head constantly commenting on what was happening. It reminded me of things I needed to do,
The Voice I Hear Most: Learning How to Talk to Myself Read More »
The Question Behind the Ten Dollars What is really stopping us from putting aside ten dollars a month, year after year, and teaching our children and grandchildren to do the same? On the surface, ten dollars does not sound revolutionary. Many of us spend that much without thinking about it. Yet when a small contribution
What Is Really Stopping Us? The Power and Challenge of Black Collective Economics Read More »
Another Nervous System Inside Us For most of my life, when I heard somebody talk about having a “gut feeling,” I understood it as a figure of speech. We say something does not sit right with us, that we have butterflies in our stomach, or that our gut is telling us not to trust a
The Second Brain: When My Gut Has Something to Say Read More »
Everybody Has Advice One thing I have learned over the years is that advice is everywhere. Family members, friends, coworkers, and even strangers often have opinions about how we should live. Now the internet has given millions more people a way to tell us what they think we should do. Most of them can sound
Consider the Source: Learning Whose Advice to Follow Read More »
A System That Did Not Treat Us the Same As a young Black man coming of age during the Vietnam War, military service was more than a political debate taking place in Washington. It was hanging over the lives of young men my age. We knew that a letter from the Selective Service System could
The Draft Was Not Equal: Black Men and the Vietnam War Read More »
What “Feel It to Heal It” Means I have heard the expression “You have to feel it to heal it,” and there is wisdom in those few words when they are understood carefully. Pain that is constantly avoided does not necessarily disappear simply because we refuse to look at it. Grief, disappointment, fear, anger, and
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Understanding the Body as a Temple I have heard the expression “your body is a temple” for most of my life, but I understand it differently today than I did when I was younger. A temple is usually thought of as a sacred place, somewhere deserving respect, protection, and thoughtful care. When I apply that
My Body Is the Home My Spirit Lives In Read More »