The Emergent Self

Questioning what we're told it means to be human

Articles

Longer essays on how a self is formed, wounded, and remade — drawing on research into humiliation and dignity, on philosophy, and on lived experience. Choose a topic to narrow the list.

Sleigh tracks and reindeer prints in deep snow leading away from a farmhouse back door at dusk on Christmas Eve, a broom leaning against the wall

Nobody Found the Holidays Under a Tree: How the Season Was Assembled

The most magical Christmas of my childhood was built by my grandfather with a broomstick and a dog. So was the holiday itself, two centuries ago, by people with problems to solve. Knowing that costs us nothing, and it frees us to decide what we keep.
A tall brick building glowing with lit windows on a snowy December evening, with a lone figure sitting on its front steps

The Season We Built: Why I’m Spending the Holidays Asking Who They’re For

The holidays feel like weather, something that simply arrives. They are a building, and buildings have owners, tenants, and people sleeping on the steps. For eight weeks I am walking through the building and asking who it was built for.
A hand-drawn family tree on aged paper, with one faint, unfinished branch set apart from the rest

The Cousin We Were Afraid to Call: Racial Hatred in One Family Tree

For fifty years my family has traded records and old photos, but one branch we left alone: a third cousin who became a Klan leader. What a family tree can and cannot explain about racial hatred.
Sunlit empty classroom doorway seen from the hallway

Who Can I Become Here?

Violence came into a classroom on East 38th Street. Years later I am still asking what brought those men there, and what it would take for a different life to emerge.
A folded American flag resting on an empty rocking chair on a small-town front porch at sunset, with the mailbox flag raised

Dear America, Part 1: I’ve Done Everything You Told Me

A veteran who kept his end of the bargain writes home to ask what happened.
Old dining chairs and a cradle stacked beside a woodpile in front of a white farmhouse with smoke rising from the chimney

Dear America, Part 2: Burning the Furniture

A house that warms itself by burning its own furniture, and a hope that it finds tomorrow.
A suburban street seen through a lace curtain; a young couple, their toddler and a beagle on the lawn across the way

Dear America, Part 3: The Neighbors with the Beagle

Trust lost in both directions, and a country that now fears the young family next door.
A woven handbasket on a weathered pier, with the Statue of Liberty small and distant in the harbor fog

Dear America, Part 4: Because I Care

Old wounds, the myth of exceptionalism, and a wry question about Lady Liberty, all sent with love.
A full moon over an empty Main Street at night, one lit window, and an unopened envelope lying beneath a mailbox

Dear America, Part 5: The Opposite of Love

The moon landing, 9-11, King George, and broken promises lead to the hardest postcard of all.