ACCORDING TO ZAC

Because of who I am (gregarious, emotion-driven, etc.), I’m predisposed to become emotional when I watch other people doing something cool. And usually it’s emotional in a good way, thankfully. And sometimes it feels sort of cosmic, or like there’s this great big interconnectedness between complete strangers that I can only catch a glimpse of every now and then. Instead of making me feel small, given how many people there are in the world, it actually makes me feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be by virtue of the commonality I share with literally every person on the planet: we’re all human, and we’re all trying. Yesterday I went to my first concert since last 2019. The screaming was fun, the singing was great, we didn’t get trampled in the pit like I thought we would. There was a lot of good happening! But I think what was most significant was early on in the band’s set when I thought about how incredible it is that there were a few thousand people in one place for the same re...

I didn't know when I first started my feature writing class how much I would come to enjoy learning from my professor, Bill Schmidt. He's a former New York Times bureau chief that retired to Tucson to teach and kick back a bit. He told good stories, managed to make a loosened tie look really classy, and used his expertise to make me a better thinker and writer. One of the lasting gifts he gave me, however, was turning me on to The Atlantic , a really interesting news magazine that I otherwise hadn't heard about. Since I took Bill's class back in 2014, The Atlantic  has been a place where I have learned a lot  about the world, the way people think, race and class issues, critique (mostly of TV and movies, but also of social norms and trends), and a host of other things. This year when they chose to go to a paywall model (subscribe to good journalism to keep it alive, folks!) I immediately purchased a subscription and have been thrilled to have unlimited access onlin...