Our daily moral panic about muh birth rates becomes so much darker when you learn how much of it is the sharp decrease in teen pregnancy

I'm still thinking about the guy who saw me realize my wheelchair wouldn't fit in the elevator because he (also a wheelchair user) was already inside it and immediately quipped, "This elevator ain't accessible enough for the both of us."

If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.

love doing something I call ‘the big leaf test’ where I put my hand on a leaf and if the leaf is bigger than my hand I go damn that’s crazy

I think there is something to be said about extreme optimism and extreme pessimism being different sides of the same coin. They both ultimately lead to the same outcome which is a kind of paralysis in taking meaningful action. And I do think this can be applied to many areas of modern day life, from psychology to politics.