My Next Thought

Two places. Two tragedies. Brown University. Bondi Beach. Different countries. Different contexts. Same ending. A brief moment of shock. A rush of posts. Carefully worded grief. “Thoughts and prayers.” “This should never happen.” A familiar choreography of sorrow and outrage, calibrated just enough to signal that we are good, caring people. And then, quietly, we…

cooked adjective having achieved a state of failure; being doomed I’ve spent the past year across continents and at conferences, listening to our field take its own temperature. Last week’s AIRC conference was simply the last stop of the season — and I walked away with a sobering realization. We are still talking about symptoms,…

The Immigrant Paradox: Why the Last One In Slams the Door Shut I met an old friend for dinner last week. Like me, he’s an immigrant — came to the U.S. through legal channels, built a life from scratch, works hard, stays out of trouble, and pays his taxes. The classic bootstrap story. We used…

Radical Gratitude: The Kind That Costs You Something Thanksgiving arrives like clockwork, wrapped in ritual and softness. We gather around tables, pass bowls, rehearse a script we all know by heart. We perform gratitude the way we perform small talk — politely, predictably, safely - a polite ritual we participate in so we don’t disrupt the…

I am an immigrant. Or maybe an expat. Or maybe the line between the two says more about power than identity. I came to America almost 34 years ago carrying a story that millions of young people still carry today — that the West is the land of unfiltered opportunity. I knew nothing of the shadows beneath…

The Sound of Nothing: What the 6-7 Craze Reveals About a Generation on Loop “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway (bip, bip) Skrrt… I just bipped right on the highway, Trackhawk sittin’ in the driveway… pull up, doot-doot, doo-doo-doo.” — Skrilla Two numbers. Word of the year. From Nairobi to New York, teenagers are chanting…

As the Boeing 737 rumbled down Runway 23 at Julius Nyerere International Airport and reached VR, I knew I was about to take off - away from the stillness of Dar es Salaam and back into the noise of the world. But part of me stayed behind in that silence - in a city where…

I was in Tanzania over the past 5 days — a country under lockdown amid election-related violence. Internet access was shut down, and even the cellular network was faint and fleeting. While it was frustrating to be unable to reach family, friends, and colleagues, there was also a strange sense of relief in being untethered…

The White House is being torn down. Not all of it, of course — just enough to make room for a ballroom. A gaudy one, I’m sure. If that doesn’t symbolize what’s happening to this country, I don’t know what does. A century-old symbol of policy, position, and public service is being gutted to appease…

Right now, millions of high school students around the world are hunched over keyboards, writing what they’ve been told might define their futures. And on the other side of this annual ritual, thousands of universities are preparing to read those essays - some carefully, some casually, and some with the quiet help of AI. It’s…

I’m not a religious guy, but every once in a while, I come across something in scripture that feels less like dogma and more like truth. This verse from the Bhagavad Gita is one of them: कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana. Ma karmaphalaheturbhurma te sango’stvakarmani. You have the right…

Seventeen years is a strange period of time. It’s long enough that the sharp edges of grief soften, but short enough that the memory of a voice, a laugh, or a familiar phrase can still arrive uninvited, as clear as yesterday. Next week will mark seventeen years since my father passed away. I don’t write…