Ellen Vrana in Harper’s Magazine:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek contains the kind of writing that emanates from a consciousness Erich Fromm called a “state of being.” This Pulitzer Prize-winning marvel of American writing, Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945), gives us a spell-binding observation of nature and self at the most immediate, conscious level. “If the day is fine, any walk will do; it all looks good.” Dillard’s body, spirit, and mind go for a walk in Virginia’s old forests. Read more on the pleasures of walking in nature, literally and figuratively, in Thomas A. Clark’s prose poem “In Praise of Walking” and Andy Goldsworthy’s study of walls and their representation of our linear paths. Or jot over to my own compilation of the wonders of walking “The Importance of Walking About”. Dillard’s spirit spills abroad, unhitched to any double awareness that paralyzes the human mind. She exists, walks, sees, and writes.
The originality of Annie Dillard’s work from 1974 owes to how much she understood that being in nature meant relinquishing our daily self-directed focus to listen and heed acts of grace. “It’s a matter of keeping my eyes open,” writes Dillard. With this intensity and close focus, there is a wonderful celebration of the small and the individual. Insects, as they go about their complex familiar lives, can easily require hours of observation. Read more in Gerald Durrell’s tales of childhood nature adventures. Dillard reminds us “If I can’t see these minutiae, I still try to keep my eyes open.”
The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through the empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white.
I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; no one else was in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of daily life, streamlining everything from search queries to complex decision-making. While AI tools offer convenience and efficiency, they also raise concerns about cognitive offloading—the process of delegating cognitive tasks to external aids. As reliance on AI grows, experts warn that it could diminish critical-thinking skills and alter fundamental cognitive processes. It is not about avoiding its use entirely; the incorporation of AI is essential for the advancement of our societies. (In fact, as will be seen later, it has been shown that a moderate use of AI can have a positive cognitive impact.) However, it is advisable to learn how to use it properly and in a balanced manner. These concerns were central to discussions at the AI for Humanity: Innovating for a Sustainable Digital Future session, led by Iliana Grosse-Buening, during the second edition of the 
Call it “A Tale of Two Satirists.”
If you’re in the market for fishing bait anywhere in North America, and now even in parts of western Europe, odds are you’re buying a Canadian nightcrawler plucked from this stretch of land between Toronto and Windsor. These wild Canadian worms, who live so far beneath the surface of the soil that breeding or farming them is impractical, are hand-picked by a small army of workers, almost all immigrants from Southeast Asia, including generations of Vietnamese refugees and, more recently, temporary foreign workers from Thailand and Laos. It’s a niche sector of the western economy that’s exclusively sourced from this small corner of the province, and run primarily by family businesses passed from one generation to the next. In a given year, the more than $200 million industry sells between 500 and 700 million worms. But with changing demand, immigration labour policies, and the climate crisis, it’s also at an existential crossroads.
As a materials scientist who 
In a recent series of videos, Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli military, relentlessly attacked Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera correspondent in northern Gaza. On July 20, while reporting on a particularly harrowing scene from the courtyard of al-Shifa Hospital, al-Sharif broke down emotionally when an emaciated woman collapsed from hunger beside him, as an ambulance arrived carrying some of the dozens of people killed by Israeli soldiers that day while waiting for bags of flour. Adraee accused him of shedding “crocodile tears.” When al-Sharif called for a ceasefire, Adraee called him a “mouthpiece of intellectual terrorism.”
Americans are living ever more isolated lives. We get married later, start families later, have fewer children, and report more loneliness than ever before. Everyone suspects that new technology has something to do with this. But what if we’re also suffering from the failure of a very old technology?
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The last time I wrote about 
It’s not easy to move around New York City as Zohran Mamdani anymore.
Three months after the 1929 Hebron massacre {which saw the deaths of nearly 70 Jews and scores of others maimed or wounded}, the celebrated historian Hans Kohn – active in the Zionist movement since 1909 – wrote the following letter: “I feel that I can no longer remain a leading official within the Zionist Organization… We pretend to be innocent victims. Of course, the Arabs attacked us this past August. Since they have no armies, they could not obey the rules of war. They perpetrated all the barbaric acts that are characteristic of a colonial revolt. But we are obliged to look into the deeper cause of this revolt. We have been in Palestine for twelve years [since the start of the British occupation] without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people. We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain’s military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with Arabs… for twelve years we pretended that the Arabs did not exist and were glad when we were not reminded of their existence.” (Jewish National and University Library 376/224, Kohn to Berthold Feiwel [1875–1937]. Jerusalem, 21 Nov. 1929).