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When Tiff was a toddler, her mother would send her to the neighbor’s to borrow a loaf of bread, which would serve as family dinner.
The Delta Bike Project supplies the community of Mobile, Alabama, with transportation, recreation, and simple work opportunities.
Do you ever feel exhausted or alone or confused so badly that the answers you normally feed yourself about life and meaning lose their efficacy? Do you ever feel really, really small? Not just with respect to the whole world, but as a person in your city or town.
"It looks like I'm kind of a hellraiser and shit, but they think I'm an angel."
"Music is a shared form of art. It's one thing to play a song and enjoy it, but it's a whole other thing when you perform in front of an audience."
When I asked how he was gonna get there, seeing as the buses don’t run that early, he explained that he’d catch the train up that night, bum around the city, and report to work in the morning.
"I have no address, no bills, no power, no gas, no rent. I don’t have a care in the fucking world."
Lora is a Native American (Navajo) who sells jewelry roadside in central Utah. She was born on a reservation in Arizona, but made her way north years ago. She once had a small shop in St. George, Utah, but now strictly sales her wares at scenic rest stops along I-70. It’s how she supports her family.
"That’s been a huge awakening for me: I am who I am. And whatever God is, he's not mad at me."
“It was like this force of nature. I often worried that I’d run out of inventory, but I didn’t even have to go look for bikes. I always got resupplied. People would show up on my doorstep with a truckload of old bikes, ask me if I was the guy that bought them, and I’d figure out a way to improve and sell them. They just kept coming.”
When Mama Peaches told the police she had been raped by the man who employed her, she wasn't transported to the regional hospital for a rape kit as you'd expect.
“I got cancer in my leg when I was 16, but the doctors were able to save me and keep it from spreading."
A few years ago, a tree nearly took Glenn out. Cracked his head, shattered his left arm. But he's still going.
I went to Burning Man to make a cultural study, to find and contribute to an engaging community, to make art, and to party my ass off. But I'm not sure I'll do it again.
Not everyone who lives on the streets is derelict, addicted, or unstable. Some of them we might even learn from. That's what I aim to do.
Meditation has inspired me to "let go." But how can I engage the good fight if I give in?
If you could sum up your life philosophy in two sentence or less, what would it be?
I want you to want me, yet I want to not give a fuck.
Mark began pedaling three years ago after his wife died. Nothing made sense after her death, he said, so he walked down his front porch steps, straddled his bike, and left everything. He's crossed Texas, Nebraska, and most of the western states at least a couple times since then. A real Forrest Gump.
Society would tell us to suppress our dark side. But this just feeds the beast. So how do we navigate our darkness in safe ways?
Adulthood is often marked by a zombie-like dance between meaningless work and just as meaningless entertainment. But youth is alive. That's why we must fight to stay young.
Nearly every artist dreams of being well-known. But holding onto this dream makes creative work a nightmare. To recoup the dividends of art, we must move beyond desires for fame and fortune.
A 20-year-old vagabond, misfit, poet and artist stamps his soul on letters sent home before disappearing forever.
The changing leaves remind me that the process of dying is strangely beautiful.
There is one thing that causes me more internal conflict than anything else: the desire to be liked.
If Plato were alive today, he might be a hipster. He’d have the beard, for sure; he’d challenge ideas coming from institutions and people in authority; and he’d likely embrace a life of minimalism.
Adventurers are unique in one way. They derive pleasure from the very antithesis of pleasure: struggle. Is this bravery, or just foolishness?
Teresa Bird is a 25-year-old native of Minneapolis who’s staying true to her name, and flying. She’s handcrafting pies and sharing them from a 1969 Volkswagen bus while traveling the country. And in the process, she’s helping others discover their wings.
Recently I invited you to share your thoughts on courage and vulnerability. I asked you to write whatever came to mind, and email it to me. Here are your stories.
Had death come for Willy in that moment, in that matchbox garage, I suspect he wouldn’t have shuddered. Nor would he have succumbed without a terrible fight.