Shaking his head, he said, “I was such a little geek.” “No, you weren’t!” Conrad threw me a look. “Stamp collecting. Chemistry set. Encyclopedia obsession.” “Yeah, but you made all of that seem cool,” I said. In my memory Conrad was no geek. He was older, smarter, interested in grown-up things.

Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

FILMS WATCHED IN 2025 LADY BIRD (2017) Dir. Greta Gerwig.

—peter, taylor swift

Remember you are one.

SYDNEY SWEENEY via instagram (melissa.hernandez)

RYAN GOSLING in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL 2007, dir. Craig Gillespie

MR ROBOT Season 4 (2019) dir. Sam Esmail