Perspectives

The Roles We Inherit and the Freedom to Rewrite Them Families are very good at assigning roles. Sometimes nobody remembers holding the auditions. In my family, I accumulated a collection of descriptions over the years. I was the absent-minded professor. I was the professional student. I was the quirky dilettante. I was shy, maybe a little different, and generally more comfortable watching from the edges than marching into the middle of things. None of those descriptions was e

When the unthinkable becomes ordinary Lately, I have been wondering how much cruelty a person can witness before it begins to feel normal. Not acceptable, exactly. Most of us would still say that cruelty is wrong. So are dishonesty, corruption, violence, greed, and the casual humiliation of other human beings. We know this. We learned it when we were children, or at least we were supposed to. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Don’t make fun of peo