I’ve got friends that sing their lungs out in the shower, vibing with the cleansing energy of the water, their voices free, unshackled, soaring, and yeah — maybe a bit off-key. In my case, maybe way off-key. Some of us belt out in our cars to disrupt the monotony of commutes to jobs we don’t like, volume at max, creating secret, spectacular little duets with our favorite artists.

My friends and I used to quickly turn the volume down low on each other and surprise ourselves, laughing and cringing at our “bad” singing. Now when I look back on the bursting joy of those moments through the critical eye of an anti-capitalist, I find myself operating in a different framework. No, we wouldn’t have sold any tickets to a show if we started a cover band. But it was good singing. …

Beware, with utmost vigilance, rhetoric around the idea of the nation “healing.” Democrats would have you believe their elevation into power is akin to Wolverine’s wounds sewing themselves up like magic. In the unstable atmosphere of the Trump era, the Dem establishment campaign is essentially this: Vote for us and everything will be back to normal.

You can see how this might appeal to materially comfortable upper middle-class liberals whose main criticisms of Donald Trump were that he was crass and racist in an obvious, clumsy way. The type of people who have elevated Barack Obama to a position of hero worship without any critique of the atrocities perpetuated by his presidency. Folks who might say, “I sure miss having a president that was charming and well-spoken,” all while overlooking (or simply not caring about) the fiasco at Standing Rock, the fact that migrant kids in cages and the separation of families were not something Mr. …

On this Veterans Day, you’ll see a lot of people posting pictures of themselves or their family members in uniform. You’ll see American flags and shows of patriotism, festive shopping deals and today-only discounts at a bunch of restaurant chains. You won’t see a lot of nuanced conversations about veterans themselves, a group of more than 17 million human beings. No deep dives into the complexity and moral failings obscured from mainstream conversation by vague cultural directives like, “Support the Troops!”

Examine that phrase. How might one do that? Who exactly are these people — what do they want, what ills do they suffer, what ills do others suffer because of them? …

Welcome to The Anticapital. We are a brand new publication with the goal of amplifying the voices of the working class. Our aim is to create a space to tell our stories — ones that capture the beauty of our diversity, our struggles, and our solidarity.

We welcome the writing of those typically behind classist barriers to publication. It’s not accolades or degrees or follower counts we care about, only the strength of your writing, the insights of your work, the meaning you convey.

We want visiting our publication to feel like self-care for the alienated working class individual. Your work is more likely to be published here if it is unique, makes a strong point, and is bursting at the seams with solidarity. …

As a guy, I don’t talk about beauty and self-love enough. Merely doing so is already a radical act against toxic masculinity. The more that I dig into these ideas, the more I discover my behaviors show troubling signs of colonization.

Take a look at the images above. The pic on the left is the one I use for my author bio on most websites where I’m presenting my professional self, including here on Medium. In a futuristic sense, it’s the way some people imagine me, given that’s all they see. Even on Facebook I take a new profile pic every bajillion years and my last two don’t even show my face — masks are great for mitigating pandemics and helping people with low self-esteem. …

Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius famously wrote in his Meditations that “you have power over your mind — not outside events.” Viktor Frankl’s Stoic focus on the ability to always “choose one’s attitude” helped him survive the Holocaust. It’s no wonder Stoicism has seen a resurgence in recent years; there’s no shortage of stressful things that seem outside our control.

Civil unrest continues as racial injustice protestors clash with police and the federal government. Income inequality in the U.S. continues to worsen. A global pandemic forced mortality to the forefront of our minds. Climate change is no longer a distant and looming threat, as wildfires turned millions of acres into ash across the western United States. …

Countless science fiction and fantasy writers dream of winning the Nebula or the Hugo Award. Ted Chiang has won each four times. He’s also won four Locus Awards and took home the BSFA’s Best Short Fiction trophy for his story, “Exhalation.” He penned the piece later adapted as Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant 2016 film Arrival.

The man knows how to write compelling fiction.

But what is most striking about Chiang’s monumental success and undeniable skill with storytelling isn’t just his sales stats and accolades, impressive as they are. It’s that his formal education in fiction writing is limited to a six-week writers’ workshop he attended back in 1989. It’s that he holds a degree in computer science and spent the bulk of his adult life doing technical writing for software programs. It’s that his response to the new pressure after winning his first slew of major awards — including the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer — was to spend years away from the craft entirely, burying himself in his day job. …

If there’s a silver lining to this wild year, it’s that we’ve been afforded an incredible opportunity to zoom out and (re)examine life: our government, our jobs and healthcare, our hobbies and habits, our long-term goals. Our romantic relationships.

Maybe you’re already in one. Maybe you’re on the lookout. It’s certainly not an easy time to be single and searching. Perhaps the virus has you working from home or experiencing the Zoom-version of college. Bars are no longer the hot-spots they used to be (and they’re now hot-spots in a very different, less appealing context). Meeting someone organically and sparking a connection the old-fashioned way might not be an option for the foreseeable future. And so you find yourself reinstalling a dating app or two. Or three. Okay, four. …