Latest news with #TheWonderReader
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
When College Graduates Face Reality
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. 'History found you.' In 2020, Caitlin Flanagan told recent college graduates that their dreams were interrupted in much the same way her father's dreams had once been interrupted. In 1941, he was a new student at Amherst College, 'and he thought it was paradise,' Caitlin wrote. Then the Pearl Harbor bombing happened, and he and his college peers enlisted in the Army the very next day. History found both of these generations and left them with a whole lot of plans deferred, but perhaps also something great—'As very young people you know something powerful: that you have been tested, and you did not falter,' Caitlin wrote. 'You kept going.' Caitlin's essay is one of a series of commencement speeches The Atlantic commissioned in 2020 for students who would not be able to attend their graduation. In them, writers spoke to young people growing up in the shadow of loss, who were watching as humanity as a whole was tested. While 2025 isn't the same topsy-turvy reality as 2020, students still face a core uncertainty about what comes next. Below is a collection of honest, not-always-rosy, but often hopeful advice for the graduate in your life. On Graduating You Thought You Were Free, but History Found You By Caitlin Flanagan The 2020 commencement speech you'll never hear Read the article. I Didn't Get to Graduate Either By Bridget Phetasy In May 1998, I should have been finishing my first year at an Ivy League college. Instead, I was in a state-funded halfway house in Minneapolis trying to recover from a heroin addiction. Read the article. A Commencement Address Too Honest to Deliver in Person By David Brooks I couldn't say these things during a traditional ceremony, but these aren't traditional times. Read the article. Still Curious? 'I didn't have any graduation wisdom. So I asked 19 smart people instead.' Joe Pinsker relayed what a novelist, a therapist, a Buddhist teacher, and others had to say to the class of 2020. The long goodbye to college: Any recent graduate will tell you that their head felt heaviest after the cap came off, Amogh Dimri writes. Other Diversions The Nobel Prize winner who thinks we have the universe all wrong How to look at Paul Gauguin The curse of Ayn Rand's heir P.S. I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. 'Sunrise symmetry: a reminder of the order that exists in this chaotic world,' Courtney C., 74 , from Bermuda Run, North Carolina, writes. I'll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks. — Isabel Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
3 days ago
- General
- Atlantic
When College Graduates Face Reality
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. 'History found you.' In 2020, Caitlin Flanagan told recent college graduates that their dreams were interrupted in much the same way her father's dreams had once been interrupted. In 1941, he was a new student at Amherst College, 'and he thought it was paradise,' Caitlin wrote. Then the Pearl Harbor bombing happened, and he and his college peers enlisted in the Army the very next day. History found both of these generations and left them with a whole lot of plans deferred, but perhaps also something great—'As very young people you know something powerful: that you have been tested, and you did not falter,' Caitlin wrote. 'You kept going.' Caitlin's essay is one of a series of commencement speeches The Atlantic commissioned in 2020 for students who would not be able to attend their graduation. In them, writers spoke to young people growing up in the shadow of loss, who were watching as humanity as a whole was tested. While 2025 isn't the same topsy-turvy reality as 2020, students still face a core uncertainty about what comes next. Below is a collection of honest, not-always-rosy, but often hopeful advice for the graduate in your life. On Graduating You Thought You Were Free, but History Found You By Caitlin Flanagan The 2020 commencement speech you'll never hear Read the article. I Didn't Get to Graduate Either By Bridget Phetasy In May 1998, I should have been finishing my first year at an Ivy League college. Instead, I was in a state-funded halfway house in Minneapolis trying to recover from a heroin addiction. Read the article. A Commencement Address Too Honest to Deliver in Person By David Brooks I couldn't say these things during a traditional ceremony, but these aren't traditional times. Still Curious? 'I didn't have any graduation wisdom. So I asked 19 smart people instead.' Joe Pinsker relayed what a novelist, a therapist, a Buddhist teacher, and others had to say to the class of 2020. The long goodbye to college: Any recent graduate will tell you that their head felt heaviest after the cap came off, Amogh Dimri writes. Other Diversions P.S. I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. 'Sunrise symmetry: a reminder of the order that exists in this chaotic world,' Courtney C., 74 , from Bermuda Run, North Carolina, writes. I'll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
Atlantic
24-05-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
An Atlantic Reading List on Consciousness
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. People in a vegetative state may be far more aware than was once thought, Sarah Zhang reports in a recent feature. 'In some extraordinary patients, the line between conscious and unconscious is more permeable than one might expect,' she writes. As scientists continue to try to comprehend the inner life of unresponsive patients, their work raises questions both for those living with these conditions and for the people who love them. Can these individuals hear us, and even understand us? What do we owe them? Today's reading list explores the human mind, and what it feels like to love somebody who cannot communicate the way they once did. On the Human Mind The Mother Who Never Stopped Believing Her Son Was Still There By Sarah Zhang For decades, Eve Baer remained convinced that her son, unresponsive after a severe brain injury, was still conscious. Science eventually proved her right. How People With Dementia Make Sense of the World By Dasha Kiper The human brain has a way of creating logic, even when it's drifting from reality. A Scientific Feud Breaks Out Into the Open By Ross Andersen I'm a pseudoscience? No, you're a pseudoscience! Read the article. Still Curious? The Texas county where 'everybody has somebody in their family' with dementia: Risk factors for dementia usually come in clusters—and in Starr County, Texas, an almost entirely Hispanic community, they quickly stack up. How dementia locks people inside their pain: When a person feels pain but doesn't understand it, they can end up silently suffering, Marion Renault wrote in 2021. Other Diversions P.S. I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Holly S. sent this photo of Glacier National Park. I'll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What We Inherit From Our Parents
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. Many of us spend our teenage years working tirelessly to avoid becoming our parents. But sooner or later, we discover that we didn't stray quite as far as we thought. A few years ago, my colleague Faith Hill spoke with 17 parents who had the same disconcerting experience: They all noticed themselves doing something, big or small, that mimicked what their own parents used to do. 'Some were genuinely happy to take after them,' Faith writes. 'But most felt at least a little uneasy at the realization: Even people who had relatively happy childhoods, after all, can recall some parental shortcomings. Of course they don't want to replicate them.' The legacy of one's parents can feel like a prophecy, Faith notes. But we're not all doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes, or destined to inherit their successes. Today's reading list is a guide to taking useful lessons without losing your own way. On Becoming Your Parents How to Take Charge of Your Family Inheritance By Arthur C. Brooks You may be fine with becoming more like your parents or hate the idea. Either way, it's something you can control. Read the article. The Parenting Prophecy By Faith Hill The way someone was raised often shows up in the way they raise their own kids—for better or worse. Read the article. Quaker Parents Were Ahead of Their Time By Gail Cornwall The nearly 375-year-old religion's principles line up surprisingly well with modern parenting research. Read the article. Still Curious? The branch of philosophy all parents should know: Care ethics just might transform the way people think about what they owe their children, Elissa Strauss wrote last year. What workism is doing to parents: Public policy should assist families—but not by helping adults spend more time on the job, Lyman Stone and Laurie DeRose wrote in 2021. Other Diversions 24 books to get lost in this summer The wrong way to motivate your kid Maybe Star Wars is better without lightsabers. P.S. I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Elizabeth, from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, shared this photo of 'the darkening day, the calm, the color, the scale of the ocean compared to the scale of me—of all of us.' I'll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks. If you'd like to share, reply to this email with a photo and a short description so we can share your wonder with fellow readers in a future edition of this newsletter or on our website. Send us the original, unedited photos from your phone or camera as JPGs—no cropping or shrinking is needed. Please include your name (initials are okay), age, and location. By doing so, you agree that The Atlantic has permission to publish your photo and publicly attribute the response to you, including your first name and last initial, age, and/or location that you share with your submission. — Isabel Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
17-05-2025
- General
- Atlantic
What We Inherit From Our Parents
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. Many of us spend our teenage years working tirelessly to avoid becoming our parents. But sooner or later, we discover that we didn't stray quite as far as we thought. A few years ago, my colleague Faith Hill spoke with 17 parents who had the same disconcerting experience: They all noticed themselves doing something, big or small, that mimicked what their own parents used to do. 'Some were genuinely happy to take after them,' Faith writes. 'But most felt at least a little uneasy at the realization: Even people who had relatively happy childhoods, after all, can recall some parental shortcomings. Of course they don't want to replicate them.' The legacy of one's parents can feel like a prophecy, Faith notes. But we're not all doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes, or destined to inherit their successes. Today's reading list is a guide to taking useful lessons without losing your own way. On Becoming Your Parents How to Take Charge of Your Family Inheritance By Arthur C. Brooks You may be fine with becoming more like your parents or hate the idea. Either way, it's something you can control. Read the article. The Parenting Prophecy By Faith Hill The way someone was raised often shows up in the way they raise their own kids—for better or worse. Read the article. Quaker Parents Were Ahead of Their Time By Gail Cornwall The nearly 375-year-old religion's principles line up surprisingly well with modern parenting research. Still Curious? The branch of philosophy all parents should know: Care ethics just might transform the way people think about what they owe their children, Elissa Strauss wrote last year. What workism is doing to parents: Public policy should assist families—but not by helping adults spend more time on the job, Lyman Stone and Laurie DeRose wrote in 2021. Other Diversions 24 books to get lost in this summer The wrong way to motivate your kid Maybe Star Wars is better without lightsabers. P.S. I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Elizabeth, from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, shared this photo of 'the darkening day, the calm, the color, the scale of the ocean compared to the scale of me—of all of us.' I'll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks. If you'd like to share, reply to this email with a photo and a short description so we can share your wonder with fellow readers in a future edition of this newsletter or on our website. Send us the original, unedited photos from your phone or camera as JPGs—no cropping or shrinking is needed. Please include your name (initials are okay), age, and location. By doing so, you agree that The Atlantic has permission to publish your photo and publicly attribute the response to you, including your first name and last initial, age, and/or location that you share with your submission.
