By and large, things aren’t nearly as bad as we think they are. Our futures aren’t as chancy, our financial survival not as precarious, our detractors not as ferocious as we fear. But sometimes, when we get really stumped, we have good reason.

This has happened to me with vlogs. About a month ago I made a bunch of ‘em, thinking I’d upload them while I was in Africa. I spent many hours—MANY hours—trying. It didn’t work well. I confess that there were moments I believed the entire electrical supply grid of Africa is run by an elderly woman peddling a [...]

My friend Dan believes that our whole lives are metaphorically prefigured in the story of our respective births. I’ve been asking everyone, to see if I agree, and I have to admit Dan has a point.

My own birth was pretty normal except that I was huge—10 pounds, 14 ounces. Eight years later, when I went to get allergy shots, the pediatrician’s nurse looked at my chart and then cried out in what sounded like horror, “Oh, my gosh, you were that enormous baby!” And, indeed, there are still plenty of people who’ll tell you I have far too big [...]