Essays/Op
Existential Crises Display Your Humanity
I have to say I believe that if you have not had some form of an Existential Crisis during your adult life or formative years, you are not Human. Whether you believe in God or Darwinian Evolution or some variant of both or neither, you will likely agree that what separate Us–human beings–from the... »
Are we not Prisms?
I used to think that who you are stayed the same no matter what happened to you–that the core of you, your essence, the stuff that gave you your identity, was immutable and that no matter what you experienced, you were as a circle around another circle on a tree ring, nothing greater. It... »
A Manifesto for Tonight–and not Just Tonight
I will let my imagination soar, rather than having it sink into an abyss of discontentment. I will no longer live in the past but will incorporate it lovingly into my present and its future. I release myself from stress and anxiety. I purge myself of hate, malice, and intolerance. I liberate myself from... »
Rain Man
My sister calls me “Rain Man” because I have an uncanny ability to remember people’s birthdays. It’s been that way for years. And while I was never bad at math, per se, I was never a luminary, either. So it’s not like I have some divine knack with numbers; I don’t (though admit to... »
On All-Consuming, but then Fleeting, Routines
On Fleeting Routines …That is what often happens. You go into an experience, live it to its fullest, immerse yourself in it until you’re almost tired of it but at the same time can little imagine any other reality but the one you’re in. You finish it, overwhelmed, exhausted, and satisfied. For awhile, nothing else... »
The Apartment
Based on a conversation I had in Spanish today with my Argentinean Grandpa. Look, I know even robust minds atrophy at some point. He’s three years older than I am, and I’m old. So it’s not that I’m surprised, just sad. That’s all. So I walk into his apartment today. And I’ve known him for, what,... »
Añoro
Based on the memories of my uncle, “Tio,” Alberto (or my reimagination of the inherited narrative of a reimagination) “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” -Jorge Luis Borges We were young. It was the Buenos Aires of 1950. The Spanish Civil War was so recent all the Argentinean Spaniards (of which... »
Green-Eyed Face(book)
A piece I wrote April 25. Green-Eyed Face(book) By Deborah Stokol I remember when it was new. When no one had heard of it. When no one was “on it.” When some classmate told me to join this cool new site just for college students and to “friend” him too. For some reason, we figured, keeping something... »
The Class I Wish I Could Take, Then Teach (A Personal Odyssey, etc.)
It would take one school year, perhaps, beginning in September and ending Bloomsday, June 16. It would include but four works, ending with a fifth, composed by the students, for the students. And the reading list would encompass an odyssey–literally–through literature and the various takes authors have had on the Greek story since Homer. The... »
A Letter to Students on Why We Read The Odyssey
I’ve been full-time substitute teaching English at Harvard-Westlake, my Alma mater, for six weeks now, lecturing on The Odyssey and covering Creative Writing. A few of my 9th graders have asked my why we read the epic piece, and I thought I’d write them a letter response. Here it is: — 4 March, 2010 To my dear... »