PAST IS PROLOGUE
Play is a serious business. But seriousness does not exclude fun.
I sit down to write something about play, and its importance for human life. And as I write, I ask myself: Am I working? Or am I playing? Sometimes, it is hard to tell.
In a previous piece, I wrote about how to think more deeply about work. In that piece, I talked about how philosophy can help us understand our relationship with work more deeply. But the more I think about work, the more I find the boundaries between work and non-work, between work and play, become blurred and fuzzy.
So if we want to understand human activity better…
PAST IS PROLOGUE
An accidental correspondence revealed how one doting father’s life ended in a tragic crime that took decades to uncover
In my experience, fathers tend to fall into two general camps. There are the dads so preoccupied with their own interests and careers and financially supporting their families that they rarely interact with their kids. Then there are the dads who strive for an active role in their children’s lives: They change their diapers and teach them sports, counsel them as they grow up, and worry about their futures.
But then again, imagine a father who would write an operetta for his children, with parts for each to sing to fend off homesickness when they’re far from home. In the…
PAST IS PROLOGUE
If we want to work better, first we need to think better
We spend much of our lives working. And much of the time we are not working, we spend talking about work, recovering from work, fretting about work, or wondering if we should work more or work less.
But less often do we stop to think more deeply about work. What, after all, is work? Why does it loom so large in our lives? And when it comes to questions like these, philosophy can help throw more light on what work is and why it matters.
What is work?
In his book on the philosophy of work, Lars Svendsen says that work, at the…
Past Is Prologue
I own the table of my dreams because someone was desperate
Round tables are big in a way a long table never can be. Maybe it’s a Knights of the Round Table thing. No one can be at the head of a round table, so everyone sits equally around it. Maybe it’s the lazy Susan effect. Food on a round table is always within reach and so everyone is fed. Maybe it’s just how close you can scoot chairs together. Without any corners to get in the way, there’s always room for one more.
We’ve always wanted a big round table but new ones are difficult to find on a budget…
Past Is Prologue
A photographer’s perspective on recent events at the Capitol
If the last four years were a Hollywood screenplay, January 6th would have been a scene in the series finale. The moment where characters of seasons past reunite in a climactic moment four years in the making.
Around me, in a sea of strangers, were familiar faces from earlier episodes of this administration: Proud Boys and street preachers, white supremacists and QAnon conspiracists, pro-lifers and anti-vaxxers. Seeing them conjured memories of years’ worth of news stories — Charleston, Pizzagate, viral videos of suburban moms being thrown out of grocery stores for defying mask policies.
Past Is Prologue
And other examples of why more is more in Italy
In Italy, you’ll find signs about face masks with 40 words in bureaucratic language. No smoking signs consist of 109 words of legal text, and simple toilet signs can be made up of 122 words. What reasons can we find for this in Italian society?
Among the novelties the Covid-19 pandemic has given us—in addition to face masks and awkward elbow bumps—is a variety of new signs instructing us how to behave. …
Past Is Prologue
An analysis of astronauts, the French revolution, and the future of space exploration
As part of the near-constant onslaught of new things releasing everywhere all the time, Disney+ recently released a new adaptation of The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe’s seminal 1979 saga about the Mercury Seven and the sociopolitical context that buoyed them to greatness. The Right Stuff was originally adapted into a three-hour film epic in 1983 that remains widely regarded as one of the best Space Race-era movies ever made. The folks at Disney+ seem to have felt that, once again, it’s time to revisit an unquestionable American triumph — the beginning of victory in the Space Race. …
Past Is Prologue
White America may be meeting Donald Trump for the first time, but Black people have known him for centuries
“Wade in the water, wade in the water, Children. God’s gonna trouble the water.” — Traditional
“My soul looks back and wonders, how I got over.” — Mahalia Jackson
1
Months ago, I turned on the TV and saw a white mom at a protest in Portland dragged across the pavement and abused by the cops who surrounded her, her white flesh handled with no more care than Black flesh is usually afforded in this country. For a moment, my mind flinched from a lifetime of conditioning. I thought, “You can’t do that to a middle-class white woman!” But under a…
Past Is Prologue
Love is strange
I fell in love with a guy from New England before I knew anything about him, except his art. This is a dangerous practice, as anyone who has spent time with an artist of any sort can surely tell you.
I should know better. I do know better. But I swear this time it’s different.
I found out everything I could about him through the usual channels — not obsessively, mind you, nothing creepy. I made certain inquiries. I’m like that when I’m interested in somebody, as a friend or otherwise. I want to know where they came from so…
Past Is Prologue
Working-class white people in the South have better stories to tell than the Lost Cause
I think she is trying to stare me down. Her eyes are leveled right at me.
In another space, at another time, we might be friendly. We might chat. I might say, “Excuse me, ma’am, my apologies,” as I bumped into her on my way to pay my bill at the diner. And she might smile at me and say, “No problem, hon.” She might comment on my tattoo, and I might tell her I like hers. Maybe she has a butterfly that makes her think of her mother or a bit of script reminding her to be strong. She…
Human Parts
A publication from Medium about humanity: yours, mine, and ours.
