The Inner Monologue

Progress, we are often told, must be fair, universal, and consistent. Every town must go green, every state must democratize, every citizen must conform to the collective march toward a better future. But the real world—messy, uneven, and profoundly human—rarely moves in straight lines. Sometimes, a community must take an unorthodox path to survive. Sometimes,…

We may live in the same city, but we do not live in the same place.The same skyline rises above us, but what it means depends entirely on where you stand—or where you can afford to stand. The city is a trickster. It presents itself as one entity, one identity, one shared community. But beneath…

Wealth and poverty are not just divisions of money — they are divisions of time. Not the kind measured by clocks or calendars, but by how far into the future someone can see and trust. The wealthy live in years. The middle class lives in months. The poor live in days. The homeless live in…

There’s a persistent illusion in the human story of creation: the myth of the lone genius. We love the image of a solitary inventor hunched over a workbench or a novelist tapping away at a typewriter in the glow of a desk lamp, the rest of the world fading into irrelevance while brilliance pours forth…

Ah, the good old days—when a loaf of bread cost a nickel, a house cost three chickens and a firm handshake, and people worked 16-hour shifts just to afford the luxury of not dying of dysentery. Every time some nostalgic soul whines, “Back in my day, a movie ticket was only $1.50!” I want to…

It’s an irony as old as democracy itself that the ballot box—our most cherished symbol of self-determination—is also democracy’s most common point of failure. Authoritarians rarely storm the palace anymore. They walk in through the front door, smiling, promising order, and carrying a Bible, a constitution, or a flag. They win elections fair enough to…

There was a time when tyranny announced itself with banners and boots. When power was enforced by uniforms, iron, and the clatter of tanks in city squares. But the 21st century has refined despotism into an aesthetic. Today’s autocrat doesn’t drape himself in camouflage; he wraps himself in gold. He doesn’t stand before armies; he…

There was a time when the word “scam” evoked a shadowy figure in a back alley, whispering about counterfeit watches or miracle tonics. Today, the con has gone digital — and omnipresent. The world’s alleys have become inboxes, text threads, and pop-up windows. The golden watch has been replaced by the “guaranteed investment,” the “urgent…

In the ever-accelerating carnival of modern politics, few spectacles are more predictable—or more profitable—than the weekly outbreak of manufactured outrage. This week’s tempest, if we can call it that, erupted over President Donald J. Trump’s “visionary” addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom to the White House—a supposed act of architectural destiny, framed as an…