Where I Go: A Lifetime Spent Journaling

As a Teen, It Saved My Sanity. Today, It Reminds Me to Pay Attention as Life Flows By

For years, I’ve told people that I started keeping a journal at 13. But when I go back and look, what do I find? I was an elderly 15, already starting high school. That’s the thing about old journals—they have the power to keep your memory honest.

Fifteen? You always hear about artistic types who started being creative when they were 6. But I’ve always been a late bloomer (“Late Boomer,” I joked in my journal), and had only discovered my intellect in the seventh grade, when I had an amazing …

by Katherine Hoffman | November 15, 2023

Where I Go: Becoming a Pokémon Champion

For the Last 15 Years, These Cute Digital Creatures Have Helped Remind Me That I Can Overcome Any Challenge That May Come My Way

by Rithwik Kalale | August 10, 2023

Most kids are obsessed with things—fantasies, foods, films—that they eventually outgrow.

It’s only natural. Our taste ages as we do.

But for me, it’s been 15 years since my parents got me …

Now Entering Make-Believe Country

Urbania, My Imaginary Land, Gave a Weird, Curious, and Somewhat Lonely Kid a Shorthand for the World at Large

by JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ VARGAS | January 26, 2022

Last year, my friend Jesús passed away when he was hit by a car while riding his bike. He was one year older than me. We both had been college …

The Cycle of Public Panic Over Childhood That Got Us to QAnon

For 150 Years, Americans Have Misplaced Concerns for Their Kids—Helping Conspiracy Theories to Flourish

by Sherman Dorn | August 4, 2021

The story of QAnon’s violent extremism is often told as one of partisan polarization. We tend to focus on the most outlandish parts of the far-right conspiracy theory—which falsely claims …

Where I Go: The Nature Preserve of Memory

Torrey Pines—A Mythic Hike in My Childhood Imagination—Feels Fragile Now

by Melody Jue | June 30, 2021

Like a giant’s sandy belly rising up from the gentle chill of the ocean, Torrey Pines Natural Reserve was a mythic force in my childhood imagination. Yet during a recent …

My Childhood in a Cult Prepared Me for COVID-19 Lockdown

The Pandemic Pushed Me to Confront My Painful Past, and to Truly Help Save the World—By Listening to Science

by Be Boggs | June 24, 2021

I can vividly recall the final time I hugged friends before the lockdown. We were crowded in the velvety closeness of a dark music venue where they were performing. I …

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