Imagine you want to build a castle out of Legos. If you’re like most, you will start working on the different components. You’d design the moat, the drawbridge, the rooms, etc. This way of working is known as linear thinking. …

Well, here we are: we have a new child in the middle of a turbulent global moment. Please welcome my second son, Roshi Cadence Hassan. His middle name, Cadence, has meaning in the musical sense: it usually refers to a sequence of chords that end a musical phrase. …

Sometimes when I see someone post an alarming article on Facebook (which is most days), I picture what their face looked like as they posted. Especially if the article comes with no commentary from them. …

…is like looking for your reflection in the oven. It’s there, but it’s distorted. It isn’t a reflection at all, really. The oven isn’t built for that. The oven is built for transformation through intense levels of heat. And I believe the internet works in the same way. Though it is advisable not to eat everything that comes out. Originally published at Zia’s blog.

When you’re in a yoga class, they give you instructions on the basic pose. And then, they say maybe. Maybe you could walk your hands out more. Maybe you could challenge yourself by shifting your posture so that you’re using more of your core. Maybe do the hard thing. I love this practice. Maybe is a word that contains so many possibilities, an endless amount of paths, an infinite forest. Everyone’s maybe refers to a completely unique set of paths.

We’re all born with gifts, and we’re all born with anti-gifts. Skills that seem to come naturally to others but are a total mystery to us. One of those, for me, is Tetris. …

The world: an art museum. Your eyes: they glow and wander. They wonder like two satellites, that pierce through clouds on rainy nights, and capture every shape and dot the subtleties, the newness of this interplay, this dance we do, The way we process and consume the things that other people make the simple joys from them we take. I…

I used to love movie trailers as a kid. So much that I’d be upset if I was late and missed even one of them. There was something magical to me about the telling of these mini-stories. …

There are some movies or TV shows that leave you with gruesome and vivid images. Images that leave you with nightmares for years. Shows like Breaking Bad. Then there are movies and shows that fill you up, that leave you more together than you were before. Movies where you remember…