Good joke, right? I came up with it on the fly yesterday in conversation and was very proud of myself. Anyway, a couple of things for you this week: an essay on utopias-in-progress, tiny communes and mutual aid work at LitHub, and also my appearance as a talking head in an ABC News special about the Kardashians.

I've been saying this a lot recently but it's really true: one of the most radicalizing things I've done in my life is simply paying close attention to that family for the better part of the last six years. Looking at what fame and its attendant scrutiny and surveillance have done to them-- the Paris robbery, the public and sometimes scary ugliness of Kim's divorce, whatever's going on with Rob, just to name the obvious-- and then reading Kris telling a reporter that, of course, "Anybody would be foolish to say money doesn't matter anymore" has made me deeply committed to finding and knowing limits in my life. I mean! A absolute black hole of acquisition and consumption; a gaping maw for which no amount of fame, cash, or power will ever be enough. I wrote about this a couple of years ago so I won't belabor the point but god, does everything I said there still apply!!

And that need to find boundaries applies to everything, actually. Yesterday I had coffee with someone and we were talking about his activism, which involves outreach to unhoused people. He'd spent the morning getting medication to a woman. "She's still living on the street," he said. "But she won't die of this particular preventable thing today! And it's just like, is that enough?"

The world is full of things that need us. The world is full of things we feel like we need. I quoted the Pirkei Avot at him, as is my custom: you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. Probably the piece of Jewish wisdom I refer to most often, aside from Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: the whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important part is not to be afraid.