We've curated a list of our narratives that have the highest and lowest Doe Print scores for the Goodwill value. Read these to expose you to stories from a wide variety of authors.

Doe Print Value - Goodwill

Since my childhood, I’ve always been a somewhat silent individual, speaking only when it was most necessary to speak. Asking others for the things they owed me or raising my hand in class used to be nerve-wracking tasks. But as I grew up, I always liked hearing people talk about their feelings and their hard-to-explain thoughts. Maybe it’s because I used to be confused and uneasy with my feelings. Listening to others discuss theirs was a source of personal satisfaction.

And during the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything went virtual, I was working from home, listening and talking to many people across the world for the length of each day. It’s not like I didn’t have my family and friends to talk to—but somehow, remaining continuously engaged with strangers was more relieving at that point in time.

These days, there are lots of platforms to talk to strangers online. In August of 2020, four months into the pandemic, I first came across the platform 7 Cups, a website that provides online therapy and free support to people experiencing emotional distress by connecting them with trained listeners. The listener interacts with the person seeking help via an anonymous and confidential chat.

At the time, I wanted to talk to people, hear from them—anything and everything. I just needed to remain engaged in some conversation. So I did. I talked to people all through the day—from 8 a.m. to 5 a.m.—with little breaks in between. I would often speak with many people at the same time on numerous platforms, such as Qeep, HearMe, Wakie, Whisper, Chatous and Omegle.

On most platforms, users were trying to find people to talk about sexual stuff. But on platforms like 7 Cups and Wakie, most people wanted to just share their feelings, their struggles with family, their difficult relationships with boyfriends and girlfriends, their job loss during the pandemic. Some college students just missed going to school with their friends.

On various platforms, I connected with people from different age groups at different stages in their life. They all had different things to share and talk about. 

A 22-year-old girl, who had gotten married just three months before the lockdown shared the difficulty she was facing with her husband’s family. A pregnant Italian high schooler had run away with her boyfriend and cried while sharing how much she missed her family. A young lady from the U.K. lost her husband during COVID-19 and discussed how, for the last five months, she had been spending sleepless nights alone. 

One older lady from Australia shared how her life was just perfect and peaceful and how good she feels talking to new people. An unmarried uncle from India was running his business and became tormented because of the absence from his life. Another Indian, an engineering student, shared his hope to drop out of college to pursue photography full-time. An American psychology student just wanted to genuinely listen to people and their thoughts. 

I liked getting to hear from all of them, mostly because I was engaged in continuous conversations, receiving a barrage of notifications and reading lots of messages. It was hectic but fun. Some shared how much better they felt after talking to me and letting their feelings out, and they relayed the struggles of finding an empathetic, non-judgmental listener around them. 

At the time, I was working as a UX/UI designer. I didn't have any major projects on my hand and my workload was light, but I still woke up early to respond to people's messages—during breakfast, lunch, meetings, dinner and late nights. My brain was buzzing with a headache but I remained glued to my phone. Slowly and gradually, continuing conversations started becoming overwhelming, and I learned to know the reasons for my obsessive behavior.

Continuous conversations with different people throughout the day were actually my attempt to run away from myself—from my thoughts, deepest fears, desires and insecurities. I wanted to erase my broken past friendships and relationships, my worries about my career and about my looks. Instead of examining them, I got addicted to getting a constant influx of notifications; they became the source of my ecstasy due to their dopamine hits. 

Because of my constant messaging, I was barely sleeping at night, which had started causing hallucinations. I started seeing people sitting in front of me, talking to me. Images of words revolved around me. I discovered that I was sabotaging my relationship with my friends and family. I was using conversations to channel the affectionate feelings inside me that weren’t allowed to be shared in the open thanks to the pandemic.

After continuing this crazy practice for some months, keeping certain feelings inside me, there came a phase of debilitating exhaustion. I finally decided to break free from this practice. I got rid of all conversational applications from my phone and deleted all of my accounts.

I pursued a digital detox for ten days, in which I didn't use my phone or internet, and I also took leave from my office on the grounds of my mental health. It was very difficult. I focused on my diet, meditation, physical exercise and reading, and it worked. I felt better. 

Throughout this whole episode of conversations, notifications, strangers, hallucinations and sleepless nights, I experienced the perils of the internet and crucial insights about myself. They’ll stay with me. 

Mental Health

I Became Addicted to Chatting With Strangers Online

In the summer of 2011, nearly 14 million people watched the United States fall to Japan in the FIFA Women’s World Cup final. Less than a month later, a handful of those same U.S. Women’s National Team silver medalists, including newly minted superstar Alex Morgan, stepped on a field in Rochester, New York for the Women’s Professional Soccer league final to a crowd of 10,000. 

It was the last game the league ever played.

WPS was far from the first women’s soccer league in the U.S. to go under. Sponsorship money was scarce and sustainable interest, despite the blips on the radar such as the rabid World Cup following, wasn’t to be found either.

However, in the WPS’s wake, U.S. Soccer helped forge a new league. The National Women’s Soccer League started play in 2013, and despite multiple teams folding along the way—and having to walk some oft-thin ice along the way—the league is on the verge of its ninth year, with more sponsorship money, fan support and media coverage than any of its previous iterations ever had.

The next two years will be critical for women’s professional soccer in the U.S. NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird revealed in January that U.S. Soccer’s guidance of the league has now moved to an informal role, meaning the safety net that has helped keep it afloat is now gone. However the timing, in conjunction with what’s happening on the field with U.S. Soccer, offers the league an opportunity for truly unprecedented growth.

First, it’s important to understand the league is already growing bigger and faster than it’s ever been. While jumping on now would still likely let you claim “I was there before it was cool” in the long run, you’d certainly not be getting a seat at the front.

In many ways, women’s soccer interest looks like the stock market. There are peaks and valleys, but if you zoom out over time, there has been steady growth. While sports leagues across the country suffered immensely from COVID-19, the NWSL saw ratings rise 500 percent year over year in 2020. (Yes, you read that right: 500 percent.) This was thanks to a television deal with CBS Sports that saw league games on a major broadcast network for the first time. The league’s other broadcast partner is Twitch, the Amazon-backed streaming platform which is growing rapidly on its own. Twitch pushes the NWSL’s product, and recently saw viewership peak at 35,000 during the 2021 NWSL Draft.

These broadcast deals, along with major sponsorship deals including Verizon, Google, Nike, Budweiser and Proctor & Gamble, were all signed in the aftermath of the 2019 World Cup.

This brings us to the here and now, on the verge of the Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Cup to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

The key for the NWSL is to capture the upcoming peaks to speed the growth of the curve. The Olympic delay caused by the pandemic actually serves as an opportunity, as the league won’t have to shoulder all the work to hold the attention of the women’s soccer world for the next three years until the sport’s marquee event. By narrowing the gap to just two years, the NWSL—and other world leagues, which are also quickly growing with increased investment—can highlight the stars people know in places they might not.

This should be made easy by a league that has become extremely star player-driven. As has become the norm in the NBA and even the NFL, players are having their way with where they get to play. U.S. National Team stars Crystal Dunn, Becky Sauerbrunn and Kelley O’Hara all pushed trades in the last two years to land in more desirable locations for personal reasons. Dunn and Sauerbraun joined Portland while O’Hara moved home to Washington, D.C.

There are also two new crops of young players that the world will get to know over the next three years. The first already has World Cup and/or Olympic experience, and includes the players most experts would agree are currently the best in the world. 

Lindsey Horan and Julie Ertz are the two most notable of those players to firmly be in the NWSL right now. Horan, 28, will spend 2020 in Portland while Ertz, also 28, and admittedly already well known for her key roles on the 2015 and 2019 World Cup squads, will suit up for Chicago Red Stars. Emily Sonnett, 28, was traded to Washington Spirit in January after helping the U.S. win the 2019 World Cup. Meanwhile, Rose Lavelle (25) and Sam Mewis (28) have opted to play overseas for now but are expected to eventually return to the league.

There’s an even younger group that could challenge for Olympic and World Cup spots this time around, but is likely a few years away, and will instead spend their summers making a name for themselves in the NWSL. The last five number one overall picks—Sonnett, Lavelle, Andi Sullivan, Tierna Davidson and Sophia Smith—all were in the U.S. National Team’s January camp. That list doesn’t even include Ashley Sanchez or Morgan Weaver, who both starred in the 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup in Utah.

The U.S. Women’s National Team’s run of dominance is far from over and many of its stars—both current and future—are going to be playing a lot of soccer all over the U.S., often outside of a U.S. uniform.

Washington saw crowds of nearly 20,000 at Audi Field in the fall of 2019. Before the pandemic, Sky Blue FC (New Jersey) announced their home games are moving to Red Bull Arena in anticipation of significantly larger crowds, and there is no reason to believe that promise won’t be fulfilled in a post-COVID world.

The NWSL is growing. There are seats on the bandwagon available, but they’re going fast. Now is the time to hop on before you get left behind.

Athletics

The Superstars Next Door: The State of Women's Soccer in the U.S.

From the outside, I appear to have it all: A successful career, a stable, loving relationship, close family and friends—all the things that many people aspire to have. I seem to be a well-adjusted individual who leads a happy life with nothing serious to worry about. But that is far from reality. The truth is, I keep a huge part of my life firmly beneath the surface. 

In September 2004, when I was ten years old, my life changed forever. Along with my two younger siblings, we went into foster care. My parents had separated, and my mom was unable to cope with looking after us as a single mother due to poverty and ill-health. At first, we lived in different foster homes that were traumatic—far from where we grew up—before settling into one placement that lasted a year. As I navigated the harsh new reality away from my parents, friends, school and everything that I previously thought was my life, I went from being a carefree, happy child to feeling detached and afraid to speak to strangers. 

The only creative outlet I had to help express my innermost thoughts was through writing. It became a haven for me. I kept diaries confessing how I felt, how much I missed my mom and dad and how excited I was to see them next. But what also kept me going was having my siblings by my side, going through a shared trauma. Despite our young ages, we knew we had to stick together to survive. 

In November 2005, we were fostered by a kind family that didn’t make us feel like typical “foster kids,” and I began to feel somewhat normal. A long-term placement, unlike our last, it was an environment we felt safe in. We were well-cared for, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I could finally laugh, smile, ease up. The protective shell that I built, allowing me to safely retreat into myself, had started to slowly become undone. I no longer felt terrified of my surroundings.

When I started high school, I thrived—I made new friends and I enjoyed my studies. My school and home were far from where I grew up, so this allowed me to repackage who I was. Like a superhero, I hid my true identity, passing my foster family off as my own, projecting a different life against the one I was actually living. I didn’t tell anyone about my background for fear of being bullied and negatively stereotyped as a problematic teenager living in foster care. This constant worry led me to call my foster mother and father “mom” and “dad” whenever I mentioned my family or when I'd invite friends over for sleepovers. I continued this façade, repressing what I’d gone through for a while until I finally told my two best friends about everything. Instead of judging me, they reassured me that not everyone would react badly to my real life. 

As I progressed through school, I kept in contact with my biological parents. Education was important to them and they encouraged me to go to college. I always wanted to go, leave where I lived, explore somewhere different and take on a new challenge. I thought college would improve my life. I didn’t want to let what I’d gone through define my life and stop me from aiming high, so I decided to apply for degrees in English, with aspirations of becoming a journalist one day. I ended up being accepted into every university I had applied for; I knew many people in my position were not quite as lucky.

After graduation, as I grew older, I continued to withhold so much of my past from people I met and became close with. I struggled with relationships for fear others would run from me, thinking I was damaged goods. But things changed in 2015 when I met my current boyfriend. At first, I worried about telling him everything about me. But I needn’t have worried. He was caring, understanding and someone who I could let into my life, flaws and all. 

In January 2020, at the age of 25, I finally sought therapy for the first time. Up until that point, for several years, I had experienced anxiety and depression due to repressing trauma and aspects of my life, without realizing how detrimental it was to my health. I felt exhausted living a double life and knew I needed help. As I began to open up to my therapist, it felt like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. At long last, I was able to work through the traumatic experiences that occurred in my life. Those sessions every Tuesday afternoon helped me more than I could ever imagine. 

Today, I continue to have a close relationship with both my biological and foster parents. I'm slowly starting to talk more about my past and no longer feel ashamed of it. If anything, I’m proud of my resilience and everything I’ve gone through. I finally feel like my authentic self and it feels liberating. In the future, I have plans to work with children and young people living in foster care who are going through the things I did and help them realize they're not a negative, outdated stereotype. Foster kids are so much more than that. We are human beings who are smart, loving and who can lead fulfilled, happy lives, just like everyone else.

Ancestry

I Used To Hide My Foster Kid Identity—Now I’m Embracing It

LeBron James and Leonardo DiCaprio are two of the most accomplished, highest-paid members of their respective fields in entertainment. Both have also been vocal champions of progressive causes during the span of their careers. But because these two globally recognized entertainers are represented by two different unions—the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and SAG-AFTRA, respectively—James is walking the progressive talk and DiCaprio is not. As both an enduring NBA fan and a working-class, union actor, let me explain.

This summer, while the NBPA was negotiating with team owners to create a safe healthcare “bubble” for its players and pushing them to advocate for more criminal justice reform, SAG-AFTRA gutted healthcare benefits for its most vulnerable members. 

If you missed hearing about this between the potential collapse of American democracy and the biggest pandemic in 100 years, you can be forgiven.

On August 18th, the same day the NBA celebrated its historic first day of the playoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic, SAG-AFTRA sent an email to members that it would be raising the minimum income requirement from $18,040 annually to $25,950. In addition, premiums would also increase and, most shockingly, members over 65 years old could no longer apply residual income from past projects toward healthcare eligibility. In one fell swoop, the union was making it more difficult for its lowest-paid members to qualify for healthcare, while simultaneously making it nearly impossible for retired senior members to meet the new requirements. And all during a global healthcare crisis in which most members had not worked since March.

We are a union of actors. We are the progressive, liberal, do-gooder types, right?  Surely it was a mistake. But upon digging into the overall dues structure of SAG-AFTRA, I found that my union of free-spirited artists is run more like a Republican think tank. Could the tired Fox News moniker of “Hollywood hypocrisy” actually be true?

Without getting too deep in the weeds, all members of SAG-AFTRA are required to pay an annual fee of $222.96 plus 1.58% of earnings up to $500,000. What about earnings above $500,000? Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Those earnings are totally free and clear from paying dues. So unlike our progressive federal tax code, which taxes the wealthiest Americans at a higher marginal tax rate (44 percent at the peak), the SAG-AFTRA’s dues structure is actually regressive. 

As an example, on the set of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, DiCaprio’s real-life stunt man actually ends up paying a bigger cut of his paycheck in dues than DiCaprio himself or his steely-abbed co-star, Brad Pitt. Mitch McConnell would drool at the opportunity of inverting the American tax code to benefit the rich like this.

What about my favorite entertainment product, the NBA? Is their union set up in this similarly regressive fashion?  Actually, quite the opposite. In the NBA, there is a salary cap on how much the biggest stars in the league can make. In exchange, the union negotiates that team owners pay role players and bench players more. Last season, LeBron James made $37.4 million. That’s a lot, but without a salary cap, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst estimates LeBron would be making closer to $50-60 million annually.  Why does King James take this pay cut? Because in a league where the average career spans only four-and-a-half years, it ensures that “middle class” bench or role players can make enough to live off until they can find another form of employment.

Meanwhile, in the world of Hollywood, our biggest stars—our LeBron James’s if you will—take no such pay cut to help out their fellow actors. In fact, just the opposite. They contribute to dues at a lower percentage of income than the extra whose name won’t even make the end credits. If SAG-AFTRA operated more like the NBA, or hey, even the tax code passed by Trump in 2017, then those megastars would contribute far more in dues and premiums so their less fortunate brethren could be provided the most basic health coverage.

After all, certainly Hollywood’s biggest stars could contribute more. Here’s a list of a few actors who earned more than $40,000,000 on just one film in the last ten years: Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Bullock, Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith and Johnny Depp. That’s LeBron James money right there. How much in dues did they pay on $39,500,000 of that? Zero. 

What about the average actor or performer in Hollywood? In 2019, less than 20 percent of union members were earning the $18,040 annual income then required to make healthcare. Certainly, if the biggest A-listers knew they could help keep a retired journeyman actor or an injured stunt woman on their healthcare insurance they would, right?

Now, I suspect most of these highest-paid actors are totally unaware that the dues structure of their union is a regressive, Republican fever-dream. After all, us actors have agents to do all the math for a reason. But hopefully, this might bring it to their attention. Because it’s one thing to bash Trump and other Republicans as cruel and heartless (they are). But it’s another thing to dip into your own wallet to help out a fellow actor who didn’t have a few big breaks go their way.  

And hey, what goes around, comes around. I’d like to think that even if Leonardo loses all of his fortunes to Toby McGuire in an all-night poker game, he too should live in a future where he can still get health insurance from his ongoing Titanic residuals. As things are structured now, he wouldn’t.

Doe Print Value - Curiosity

Doe Print Value - Closeness

Founder's Picks

The NBA Is More Liberal Than Hollywood

We can’t debate whether George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor and the expanding list of black U.S. citizens were murdered.

We can’t argue about whether white supremacy is alive and well in the country.

Did Silicon Valley escape an American white supremacist past as it espouses a meritocracy—a meritocracy where all are welcome to make a fortune based on their capabilities and not on their lineage (as was often the case back East)?

I came from Washington, D.C., which had been overwhelmingly black during my youth, and, as a kid, felt the twin pangs of privilege and guilt. As the lone white 13-year-olds at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre, my buddy Eddie and I never felt threatened in a sea of black people crooning along to the Temptations, the Four Tops or the Impressions.

However, my buddy, Sam, who grew up black in the Pennsylvania suburbs, knew a different world. He taught me the expression “hoopie” for the rednecks who threw the N-word at him as a kid there.

What Sam didn’t expect coming West in the 1980s as a computer scientist was that he would run into the same mentality in Silicon Valley. The Valley in 1985 was in its middle stage of expansion, and Sam found comfort working with other black men at Fairchild Semiconductor and Lockheed. They, like him, had gotten the computer skills to jump the digital divide. Unlike Sam, they had gotten their skills in the military.

Sam has never worked with a group of black people in the Valley since he left Lockheed in 1994. “None of them stuck around, I imagine,” Sam says. “Maybe they didn’t feel comfortable. The Valley has only gotten whiter over the decades.”

For 70 years, Silicon Valley merely reinforced East Coast establishment order, granted with nicer weather, surfboards, dress jeans and Arcteryx vests. The rich (whites) got richer (whiter). And when the rich could not find the talent for their tech jobs here with failed U.S. science and math education programs, it turned to bringing in educated Indian and Chinese workers in enormous numbers using H-1B visas. This gave the new immigrants opportunity and a chance to live the American Dream.

The spirit of the Apollo missions which had filled the space program with qualified Americans in math and engineering has been dissipated among youth with the allure of Wall Street finance, commercial real estate and Kardashian make-up-your-own-celebrity-status nonsense.

When I would work out in the company gym of the networking giant where I spent over a decade, I was often the lone white guy. Unlike in the large East Coast city where I was a minority to the historically 80 percent black population, I was the minority to all the wonderful Indians who also worked at the company. As was fitting to the white order, many of them were employed as contract workers, not deemed worthy of a full benefits package.

Evidently Silicon Valley can rip off Indians just as well as black and brown U.S. citizens.

Sam found the Valley’s institutional racism an assault on his person. At the company where we worked together, Sam found very few other blacks. The company made a big deal about supporting local education nonprofits, but they never tried to recruit any of the local brown and black residents.

“For the company to say that they only had to reflect the racial demographics of the local population was an insult. There were not many blacks in Silicon Valley, and the ones who were there were poor folks in East Palo Alto. I was never in the ‘in’ group at the company and never able to break through the glass ceiling. What really smelled weird was that I got excellent reviews but was never encouraged to seek a promotion or become a manager. It was as if my solid work history never mattered.”

For the people of color born in the Valley’s disadvantaged communities, little has been left to them. In bringing in our Indian brothers, we have outsourced local black and brown people’s potential to a more educated immigrant group. Believe me, this is not a knock on our Indian compatriots. It’s one thing to fill engineering jobs with smart immigrants in the short or medium term. It’s another thing to make it your long-term policy, ignoring improving opportunities for the less fortunate already here and in need of a hand up.

White supremacy is not just the belief that whites are superior to brown, yellow and black people. It can disguise itself in a white dominance of society where others are not treated as equals economically, politically—societally. You don’t need to think like George Floyd’s killer to be a white supremacist. The established order can offer up little opportunity for others in their community to move up in the pecking order.

Just as there were Africans who helped capture Africans for Arab slave traders, just as there were blacks who served as enforcers with slaves on the plantation, Silicon Valley did what colonialists have always done. It turned to “safe brown talents” to bring in the crops: Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella were hired as the CEOs of Google and Microsoft respectively.

On that note, Cisco was sued in late June by the State of California for discriminating against certain Indians. An engineer who is a Dalit—formally called “untouchables”—alleges that he was discriminated against by Indians on his Cisco team who happen to be Brahmins, the highest caste of the Indian social hierarchy.

Inequities and violence against Dalits have persisted for a long time after India banned the caste discrimination in 1950, just after independence. Cisco investigated the allegations and took no action. Now the engineer claims that his Indian manager retaliated against him afterward. Cisco took no further action on the discrimination claim.

I remember that Facebook was embarrassed a few years ago when it was revealed that only seven percent of its workforce was black. Not to be accused of a similar disparity, Google reported a higher number. However, in a cynical move to cover their asses, it was discovered that they had converted every janitor, security guard and cafeteria worker to full-time status so they could post a better number.

Here in the Valley, a group of white Sand Hill VCs has historically funded white men, and investors and founders get the spoils of a good deal. Yes, thankfully, there are some great Indian entrepreneurs.

Maybe everyone gets rich except the local disadvantaged communities.

Is that racism against brown and black populations here? Or white supremacy in the form of a callous disregard for raising the incomes of local disadvantaged populations who clean the toilets and serve Mexican food in sparkling corporate cafeterias?

Yes, many companies invest more than others through their corporate philanthropy. Cisco, VMware and Salesforce stand out among others. After the Black Lives Matter nationwide embrace of what we hope will be long-term change, Google finally ponied up $175 million for racial justice and equality efforts. Another cynical Google move to be engaged late in the game? After that move, Apple and Amazon made similar substantial commitments.

Sam has never found promotion opportunities in the Valley since he left our company almost a decade ago. After leaving his last company, “a white boys club,” Sam is four months into what he hopes will be his last job before he retires. He just hopes the job will last long enough. A couple of weeks ago, he was surprised when his new boss gave him Martin Luther King Jr. Day off.

“Was it a change in the established order?” I asked him. “I doubt it,” he replied. “This was just one nice guy who had probably been woken up by Black Lives Matter and the national chaos. The Valley pretends it’s so progressive. It’s blue through and through, which makes it suspect when you realize that it’s always been a white man’s game. As long as these companies don’t recruit blacks from back East or change the system for blacks and Latinos here, nothing will change.”

There’s little argument that tech culture (white) is driving out historical culture (brown and black) in San Francisco. As well as in East Palo Alto (EPA). Once dubbed “the murder capital of the U.S.,” EPA still houses a significant number of poor blacks and Latinos with few opportunities but to be the housekeepers and restaurant workers across the highway in Palo Alto, the global epicenter of technology innovation.

Despite lip service and STEM funding from giant Valley leaders, EPA remains the neglected stepchild of the Valley. When Facebook moved in as a neighbor, many thought the social network would revolutionize EPA with projects that would develop opportunities for local residents. That has not even been tried. Instead, its employees— young techies with big paychecks and stock options—are moving into the neighborhood, causing a drastic rise in rents.

Companies that haven’t paid taxes and are often run by privileged white men, many born privileged, are targets of reformers like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But real tax reform would never happen in today’s Washington paralysis. Government cannot do it. Republicans would not allow it.

That’s why Silicon Valley needs to stand up and call out its own white supremacy by transforming local communities. Keep the tax breaks and use those savings to make Silicon Valley a real leader for equality in our racist society.

Save East Palo Alto and surrounding black communities before they are annihilated.

We can’t tech our way out of this. No technology can GPS us out of the societal corner the protests and riots have put us in.

It’s time for Silicon Valley to show some cojones if it ever had them. If not, grow some.

Here is a beginning list of actions that the Valley can take with their tax savings for low-income local families in East Palo Alto and San Jose:

Mandatory Pre-K: STEM education in middle or high school doesn’t count when you can’t spell, write or type. You can’t compete if you can’t compute! It all starts in those first few precious years.

Affordable childcare and after school care allows mothers and couples to go to jobs while their young scholars are in school and not on the streets until their parents get off work.

Drastically reduce housing prices for high-density homes to be built on office park space relinquished by corporations. Due to a new lasting tide of remote work which some Valley developers believe will result in companies giving up 40 percent of their office space, this is a great target objective for a public-private partnership in the Valley. The housing could be first offered to the families of corporate service workers.

Mentoring of young students by current and retired tech workers so that they get positive learning experiences as well as middle and high school internships from greatly expanded corporate programs. This is particularly important as children grow from fifth grade until graduation. This is a necessary step for bridging local disadvantaged youth into a world where STEM, coding, engineering and the embrace of a six-figure tech salary can become a reality.

In the summer of 2020, in the midst of a pandemic which has wiped out jobs and lives disproportionately among brown and black people, I submit that we can resuscitate hope among the most defeated in our Valley.

To say that this is also in the interest of the privileged is an understatement. It could only take one more police murder to bring back broken curfews and rioters at the doorstep of your elegant Palo Alto home.

Science & Technology

Insiders

White Supremacy Still Reigns in Silicon Valley

During the beginning of this social distancing season, I hit the ground running. I had just gotten back from facilitating a healing retreat in Utah. But, the “I miss you, I wanna quarantine witchu” texts from a lover grounded my reality of how soon quarantine was coming. The stay-at-home order was announced that night. I went grocery shopping the next day, stocked up on all of the things I needed and surrendered to the circumstances of this global situation.

Most of my time was spent in bed. After expending energy in large groups, I tend to heal by prioritizing time for myself to do nothing but masturbate, binge watch anime, eat and day-nap. I did all of these things, while spending a month trying to find a new pattern of communication with my lover through our phones (a method we usually don’t use).

So, it was a shock to me during our first conversation since staying at home that they thought it would be better for us to change our romantic relationship to a platonic one.

I’m a methodical person. My brain is most comfortable when I can trace the threads that connect my thoughts, emotions and actions to one another. This goes for understanding others as well. So, when they couldn’t give me a reason why they wanted to end our romantic relationship, I began to spiral as my brain tried to make sense out of something that didn’t. I had to take a bath and process my emotions in water. There was this numbness that came on during the initial phone call that helped minimize the amount of pain I later would express on FaceTime. I have never cried in front of them. In the water, I felt myself coming back to me. The protective numb melted away and revealed this angry being that kept shaking their head and laughing as if I would wake up from a dream, but no.

The reality was that I was experiencing my first breakup ever from my first relationship ever—in the middle of a global pandemic.  

What lay beneath was coming to the surface all at once. In this closing of a chapter, I noticed a dramatic difference between how I and this lover communicate. I feel like I am mourning alone. I replay in my head the last times I kissed this person, held them, were fed by them, massaged them, not knowing they even would be the last. I feel that the blocks or challenges that we have romantically would only carry into a platonic relationship and the lack of acknowledgment of this by them doesn’t give me any sense of comfort stepping into a friendship with them. I have no desire to go there.

Because I am new to the shiftings of a romantic relationship, especially one that I had been in for one and a half years, I battle a pattern of gaslighting myself and my emotions. But, releasing images, stories, my own witnessing of what a breakup could or should be through both friends and family, and centering my own experience in relation to a very dramatic shift in my life, feels aligned. What came to the surface was me asking to be taken care of—so, I did.

I unfollowed them on social media. Seeing their face unplanned, when I already was having trouble sleeping (playing in my head the conversations and feelings I wanted to share with them the next time we talked), was something I wanted to avoid. I’ve been honing my thoughts around relationship, commitment, discomfort, anger, communication and intention.

I acknowledge the facts. This happened the day before the start of Taurus season. The season in which I was born. This happened days before a new moon. The magnetic pull of ceremony as a place to process these emotions was undeniable. So, ceremony is what I did. I set my altars with intentions of release and forgiveness. I wrote letters that I would never send while reading them to the planets. I am preparing for the Venus retrograde period that happens right before my birthday and spans both my mother’s and grandmother’s birthdays as well. There is a shift taking place in relationship to what I deserve, what I desire and what I need to do in order to make these things physical. Everything in me keeps saying, “Heal.”

It takes a lot of energy for me to ask for help. I have a high tolerance for pain because I experienced heartbreak at a very young age. The pain and toxicity of paternal abandonment inform my relationship to my emotions. The pattern of seeing the femmes in my family navigating painful experiences with very little open communal support informed me as well.

It’s a generational response to apologize for crying, for inconveniencing someone close to you with the weight of your emotions. It is a response I am learning to drop. I acknowledge that I hurt, that my feelings are valid no matter if this person truly did not intend to hurt me and to ask for help. So, I have. I talk to others in my community who have experienced romantic shift, sharing conversation, receiving affirmation for how I’m responding and asking them to make me break up playlists. 

The mantra “There is no day, there is no day; there are only darkness, eternal sea of darkness” plays as I dance with the sun, thankful for the light and the shadow that my being casts in its presence.

I think about what love is. If it were only a physical entity created between two people, just because we no longer weave energy in that way doesn’t negate the existence of it. It is still alive. It dances outside of my general orbit while simultaneously is closer to me than before. This love is a paradox. I mourn the lack of closeness I feel. I did not anticipate my access to this love would expire so soon and in such a way. 

But I see the echoes of it paint my day-to-day in pictures in my phone, smells of peppermint black castor oil, hair stopping up my drain and meal recipes I was excited to share. This energy we created together brought me a lot of things and has a mind of its own. I will never meet this energy again in the same way, for I have changed, this lover has changed and the energy lives its own life dancing between the memories of them, me and the places and people with whom we shared this energy. We created something infinite that cannot be bound even by my expectations of what I wanted it to be. This is both beautiful and scary for me.

This experience has made me question many things. Was it all a dream? How could it be real if it were to end like this? It takes my friends to confirm that all of my feelings are valid. That paradox exists. That something can be so free and so limiting at the same time. This polarity has shined light on what experiences I want. What love I deserve, what relationships I desire—romantic, sexual, non-sexual—and what intentions I want to thread between this spectrum of intimacy, time and my own understanding of myself.

I want so deeply to love me, so that everyone around me knows what love I need, what love I desire and what love I am capable of receiving.

I want communication that is deeply rooted in truths that flow freely like a river, communication that nurtures many growing things in its path so that they flourish, blossom and attract many a pollinator to lick many a nectar.

I want equivalent energetic exchange that is balancing and abundant. I want emotional vulnerability that is so courageous it is not swayed in the face of fear and grounds its roots into the earth at any wavering sign. 

I want a magnetic, long-term dance that mirrors courting swans, birthing seahorses and leopard slugs having sex. I want access to an unconditional love orgy to which time, distance, my selves and any beautifully aligned partners are invited.

I intend to show up fully to receive these blessed things, so I am taking this time to release anything I don’t need in order to open my arms and embrace a dream so clearly spoken from my exposed heart.

Love

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Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

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Best of 2021

Back in 2012, I started taking an interest in Tantra to learn about the capacity for our bodies to transmit energy in subtle and overt ways. As a cis, heterosexual guy, I saw the potential to alchemize my sexual obsessions into powers. I believed these powers could draw women to me and, when interested and open, could even bring them to ecstatic states with little to no physical touch. This was my deliverance, an evolution beyond the trifling games of dating and unfulfilling casual sex and into the mystical magic of deep, real human connection. I took myself, and this exploration very, very seriously.

I would go to workshops and meet Tantricas, breathwork guides, masculinity coaches and energy practitioners who would speak of orgasms occurring in non-physical ways through the sheer movement of energy. I would conspire in my journal and amongst friends to create group touch circles, where we could explore these realms in open, consensual ways. Looking back, I wasn’t sure how consensual I was in sharing these circles with other men but I was definitely keen to find a few ladies to “journey” with.

One day, I followed my curiosity down a Google hole of Tantric videos until I came across a demonstration of “Tantric massage.” I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Here was some schlocky guy, dressed in white, hovering over a massage table where a beautiful blonde woman—also in all-white spandex— was getting a “massage.” The man didn’t touch the woman in a sexual way at all—to my recollection, he didn’t even touch her. He moved his hands up and down her body about an inch to two inches from her skin, waving and pulling air around her, moving it with both hands like he was pushing water from her legs up to her neck, then pinching it away like he was sprinkling salt on her from afar. He held one hand over her head and another moved and swished around her torso and gut. It was all very surreal to watch.  

Slowly, but very clearly, the woman started to move and make noise. Her back arched and she started to moan. There was no doubt she was enjoying the experience and the massage was arousing her. I repeat: I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Without any real physical touch, this normal-looking guy was bringing a woman to orgasm by moving air and energy around her body. I was blown away.

I vowed to figure out how to do what this guy was doing. I wanted to learn how to use my energy to make a woman cum without touching her. This felt like the ultimate power. I began feeling this desire when I would talk to women, trying to energetically bring them into arousal through sheer will. When I had the opportunity, friends or dates would give me the chance to practice with them on the couch. I’d have them close their eyes and then mimic the motions and movements I saw on that YouTube video. After five or ten minutes of movement, I’d inquire, “Did you feel it?” Some said they felt something, or maybe they heard my hands moving around them; others didn’t feel anything. I persisted and kept practicing every chance I got.

One night, I was at my house with a new friend. We had kissed once before but she articulated that she just wanted to be friends and, though a little bummed, I let it go. Somehow in the course of the evening, I mentioned my studies in Tantric massage and her ears perked up—she wanted to try. I was a little hesitant at first, as she said she wasn’t interested in romance, but I thought I could keep things PG and maybe have some energetic success.  

She got on the couch and closed her eyes. I slowly and intentionally brought my energy into my hands by rubbing them together and orienting my attention towards them. Then I began to move them above her body. I swooped and pushed, drew back, held steady and continued for a while, my knees getting sore as I remained knelt over her. After what felt like a while, I saw her beginning to perspire a bit. She was moving and breathing audibly. I could sense a change was occurring. Excited by her body’s feedback and ignoring my physical discomfort, I continued to move my hands and circulate energy from her head to her pelvis to her heart and even her feet.  

Finally, she opened her eyes. “Wow, I really felt that,” she said. Then she asked if she could kiss me. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I get the magic to have an impact on this woman but now she did want to make out. We began kissing and, while fully clothed, the physical touch seal was broken. Through the thick denim in her jeans, I was able to bring her fully to climax. I felt superhuman.

This wild experience motivated me to play with my energy while having conversations with women or just hanging out. Sometimes we’d both be interested in energy work but our definitions weren’t always the same. Maybe we’d move or meditate together and I’d start to raise this out-of-body strength. Once I was sitting in meditation with a friend and she stopped us by saying she felt my energy overtaking her. It freaked her out and she was uncomfortable.  

I realized at that moment that consent still matters when it comes to energy work. Just because we can expand beyond our bodies doesn’t mean we always should. In fact, it’s very important to know when it’s appropriate to use this kind of sensual energy in an interaction and when it’s not. Since that “call-in” with my friend, I haven’t really found myself “playing” with this sexual energy in random spaces.  

Now that I have someone I plan to spend my life with, we occasionally practice “sex magic.” We light a candle and bring intention, breath and our own focused energy into our intimacy. I feel grateful to have someone who is game to exchange energy with me instead of a one-way massage, and we can break the physical touch barrier to deepen our experience from the get-go. 

Nevertheless, I’ll always be proud of my ability to transmit sexual energy without touch.

Doe Print Value - Stability

I Discovered the Joys and Limits of a No-Touch Orgasm

As a young girl, I would spend ages in sajdah (prostration) on the prayer mat, crying and asking Allah why I felt so different from the world around me. To a young, preteen me, it didn’t make sense that everyone around me was wrong. So, in the black-and-white way that I thought, that only meant that I was the one who was wrong. That it was my thoughts that didn’t make sense to anyone else and that I had to fix them. But trying to analyze my own thoughts would lead me down a rabbit hole of overthinking and feeling even worse about myself. 

I’ve struggled with anxiety and overthinking for years, but it’s only recently that I’ve come to realize that because for so long I never had a name for it. My own lack of understanding also meant that I didn’t know how to explain my feelings to anyone around me, even if I so badly wanted someone to share in my struggle. But one thing I had always been taught growing up as a Muslim was that you’re never alone, because even when everyone in the world leaves, you always have Allah to turn to. And so that’s what I did.

I won’t pretend I’m the best Muslim or the most consistent at praying, but I do feel a strong sense of connection to God and Islam, and I really do love my religion. I would pray constantly to God to help me make sense of how I was feeling. I also became more receptive to conversations around me at dinner parties and gatherings that would often discuss how mental health issues were more prevalent in the “West” because they were removed from religion, and how, as Muslims, our faith was strong enough to overcome that. Although prayers made me feel good about doing the right thing as a Muslim, I didn’t feel that meditative peace that I was told I was meant to feel, and that scared me. 

I grew up amidst a general belief that mental illnesses were taboo to talk about—that they were just a general sign of being weak of faith. After all, how could Muslims struggle with mental health when they had God to turn to, when they subscribed to the belief that everything happened for a reason? So, even when I had no words to describe what I was feeling, I recognized how people around me felt and knew that I couldn’t talk about it. With no one to turn to, I began to put too much pressure on my prayers to fix it, not realizing that the very idea of a “quick fix” to mental health was far more damaging than it was helpful. 

When things refused to get better, my staunch beliefs didn’t allow me to blame my prayers, so I blamed myself. Clearly, I was a bad Muslim for not being able to find relief through my religion, and it created a very confusing and yet highly dependent relationship between me and my religious acts. I would force myself to try and act more religious and then feel worse about myself. This was often interspersed with periods of feeling completely removed from my prayers and any other religious practice. Even when I did carry them out, I felt like I was just going through the motions. I just couldn’t figure out how to get it right. 

Things have changed a lot since those early years when I struggled to put my feelings into words. Therapy and research, and no longer running away from my own thoughts, have allowed me to understand what I’ve been feeling for so long and to find out what I need to get better. It’s not prayer. But that doesn’t mean I don’t pray anymore. In fact, I still feel quite guilty when I don’t and I’m actively trying to feel more connected to my faith.

But finally coming out from the pressure of only feeling like a good Muslim at the behest of my mental health has made things infinitely better. I know I’m not the only one who has felt alienated because of community perceptions around mental health, and while it’s easier to talk to my parents about my struggles now, most people outside my family would still tell me to pray if I told them I wasn’t feeling too great. I know that prayers do work for some people, but I can speak from experience when I say that pushing them as a universal solution does more harm than good. 

After years of feeling shunned and alone, my immediate reaction to conversations about mental health in public is to assume that someone will judge me for being a bad Muslim. As far as I have come, there are still times when a random comment will push me into a spiral of self-doubt once again. The one thing I wish all of us could understand is that, for someone who lives in a world of self-doubt, relationships with faith and spirituality are more fragile than most. In my world, identities are so greatly shaped by those relationships, and fixing the damage caused to them can take a lifetime. 

My Mental Health Struggles Made Me Feel Like A Bad Muslim

“Should we slip it?” I asked my teammate as we looked down at the newly arranged slalom gates on the melting ski slope. We were getting ready to “pizza” around each pole in order to clear any excess snow in an effort to increase our speed for the race.

“Coach said if we push away any more snow, we might be skiing on dirt,” they replied. The pathetically bare mid-January ski slope we stood on was yet another victim of our changing climate.

I’ve been skiing since I could walk, and slalom racing since I could run. Since then I’ve traveled the world, shredding the gnar on mountains from California to Switzerland. There’s undoubtedly a certain amount of adventure and excitement that comes with flying to St. Anton, Austria, for some early-December skiing, but there’s also a more pernicious reason for the nine-hour flight and three-hour train ride: The warming climate has made snow patterns around the world less consistent. These days the average weekend warrior can’t just trek up to the Catskills in New York, the Green Mountains in Vermont or even the Wasatch Range in Utah and expect to find skiable slopes.

The ski season is getting shorter. Every ski area in the United States is projected to lose up to half its skiable days by 2050, according to a 2017 study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. By the middle of the century, the U.S. is projected to have 90 fewer days below freezing every year, according to a 2016 study based on data from the federally funded North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. New (and expensive) technologies—like cloud seeding, artificial clouds and snow guns that produce snow at temperatures above freezing—are being explored to counteract the shrinking season. But nothing can truly replace that fluffy champagne powder that nature’s lake effect so kindly bestows.

The country has watched in horror the past few months as inconsistent snow has wreaked havoc on the nation. The western U.S. was hit with a series of early-season storms that seemed promising at first. But the storms stopped for too long a time, leaving the early season powder to freeze, melt and repeat until it formed a deadly base layer. When the snow came back in late January and eager skiers, boarders, snowshoers and hikers who’ve been cooped up in quarantine headed to the backcountry, they set off a series of avalanches that have already taken 33 lives, and may turn this into the deadliest avalanche season since records started being kept. Not that recent years have been much less dangerous. In 2008 and 2010, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center recorded 36 fatalities. 

For as long as I can remember, skiing was my family’s safe space. When my great-grandmother died, we hit the slopes. When my dad lost his job, we hit the slopes. When my brother broke his ankle longboarding, we begrudgingly stayed home to give him some emotional support—but once he was healed, we hit the slopes. It was a way to let off stress, a way to bond and a way to mentor and teach. There was occasional drama: when my dad wanted first tracks on the corduroy groomers, but my mom wanted to work her legs on the moguls, or when I wanted to maneuver the obstacle course glades, but my brother wanted to speed down an untouched chute. By apres ski, though, all would be forgotten and we’d be one happy family yet again.

Christmas through New Year’s and Presidents’ Day week were our designated family ski vacations. Every year we’d choose a new mountain, and no matter where we were in the world, we’d all make sure to be there. As the season has gotten shorter, Christmas through New Year’s skiing has been less reliable. Even mountains in the Northern Rockies, like Jackson Hole, Wyoming, or Whistler, British Columbia, don’t necessarily have enough snow coverage to justify the trip. And you can forget about the gems further south, like Taos. We’ve canceled our Christmas ski trip in recent years. So far, it seems that Presidents’ Day week is safe, but I wonder if that will be the case for much longer.  Will it even be worth it for my future kids to learn how to ski if the season’s only a month and a half long like the data projects?

The slow pace of global climate action is doing little to stem the melt. Mountain towns across the United States rely on winter tourism. For them, a bad snow season affects every facet of the town, from the resorts to the small businesses on Main Street. According to a 2012 study by Protect Our Winters and Natural Resources Defense Council, winter sports tourism generates $12.2 billion and attracts 23 million American participants. The study also found that the industry has lost over a billion dollars due to climate change over the last decade.

We need people in positions of power to take action immediately and stop the melt. Corporations that own ski resorts should ensure that all their ski infrastructure developments are carbon neutral. They also must ensure that every tree they clear for a new trail is replaced. Lastly, many ski resorts are in states with climate-change-denying state government officials. Ski mountains must use their political and monetary clout to lobby their government representatives to take immediate action.

The climate has changed, and the ski season has shrunk. With the proper action, the melting can be stopped and we can continue to ski on snowfall at or near our current level—which, while not as snowy as our forebears, is still incredibly fun.

Environment

Climate Change

Climate Change Is Killing Skiing

I came into this world through the love-hate dynamics of two quick-witted, young Black survivors. Both of my parents were Christians, born and raised in Detroit, a city known for its automotive industry and as its place as the on-again, off-again murder capital of our nation. My mother told me she met my father soon after he had joined the Hare Krishnas, a group practicing a form of Hinduism. According to the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism is considered the highest form of spirituality. The practice is focused on compassion, humility, kindness, love, community and selflessness—the exact opposite of what I experienced as a child. 

My father’s character towards my siblings and me did not reflect the teachings of the Gita. He appeared to be living a double life. I'm not sure how a Black family, living in the poorest and most violent area of Detroit connected with the Hare Krishnas and Hinduism. Everything felt awkward. The majority of its members were white people that had very little in common with us. My mother and father split up when I was one. After my parent’s separation, my mother and siblings became outcasts, and the community frowned upon unpartnered mothers. We moved in with her sister and from that point forward I saw very little of my dad. My family was one of two Black families in the community and we faced subtle forms of prejudice, but my father’s world was far removed from the principles taught by the Hare Krishnas.

Apparently, my dad had mastered the art of wearing a spiritual mask. He had enough spiritual practice to access a level of consciousness that separated him from other street men. My mother was a young, petite Black woman from a large poor family of nine. She was naïve or full of faith (depending on your point of view) and she followed people blindly. To her surprise, soon after saying “I do” at the altar, she learned later that evening that her new husband was part of one of Detroit’s largest 1980s drug cartels. My father told her that her duty was to simply follow his instructions without question. She did just that. She later confided in me that she felt like she had signed a life contract with the devil himself. 

My dad was the epitome of the stereotypical drug kingpin—he had multiple children and various women, was extremely dangerous, cold-hearted, emotionally unavailable, and wielded lots of power and influence in the streets. I often asked why God would give someone like Dad access to this level of power. How is this spiritual? As I entered my teens, I uncovered my dad’s plans for me to take over his position. What kind of person would desire this lifestyle for their own child? 

My recollection of these memories sends chills down my back. I spent my childhood in a dark space, lost and trapped in between two worlds that were polar opposites. I spent a few years living off-grid in a small community in the sticks of West Virginia. The people I prayed to God with were the same people who showed me the meaning of racism, hate crimes, physical and sexual abuse. After a few years of living in isolation in this community, I found myself back in the inner city, in training to properly be my father’s son. I was clinically labeled unfit for society by the age of 17. I began to see the world as the problem and rebelled until the moment that I was shot and found myself dancing with death.

Bang! The room instantly went silent and all I could hear was the growing echo of the loudest noise I’d ever heard. Immediately after my ears went dead, I went deaf and was overtaken by the sensation of my pulsating body. It felt as if time had slowed down. I heard my mind shouting inside my head, “Damn you shot me”. Somehow, I mustered the strength to scream it out. “Damn you shot me!” as I stared into her wounded eyes. 

“Arjuna, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Arjuna. Why did you make me shoot you?! I’m sorry, I just shot you, Arjuna. Oh my God, I just shot you.”

I felt the flow of blood when my fingers finally found the hole. Somehow, I remembered from watching E.R. to apply pressure to slow down the gushing blood. It felt like razor blades cutting through me. Everything seemed to rush into my head. It felt like my body was about to explode, like I was about to pass out. “This is it,” I kept thinking, “My mother is going to kill me.”

I was fighting with all my senses to keep my mind focused on breathing. Faintly, I heard people’s voices gathering outside my door and, for an instant, my mind raced. “Damn, people are just waiting for me to die to break in and take my money, drugs and guns.” I knew I couldn’t get too caught up in what I was experiencing. I saw flashing thoughts, hallucinations in my mind. “I’m going to die in the middle of a drug house floor?” “No, dying is not an option, especially not like this.” “What would my mother think?” I felt what little strength I had left leaving me. I felt the shallowness of my breath and my eyelids wanting to give up and close.

Thwack! Thwack! I felt her hand slap me across the face demanding that I “don’t die,” and to “open your eyes!” I told her I needed a moment to pray and speak with God. I experienced flashbacks of previous spiritual experiences and conversations with God and the image of my one-year old son flooded my mind. I couldn’t stop imagining what his life would be like if I died. “How can you live like this Arjuna?” I kept thinking to myself. “Spiritual people don’t live like this.”

I finally surrendered to the inner silence. While suspended outside of time and space, God finally answered my plea and assured me he was giving me a second chance: a fresh beginning and a new perspective on life. 

Since that day, I have learned to embrace my past, to forgive myself, to trust and follow my heart instead of following in my dad's footsteps, and to be grateful for everything that I am. I can now use all of my life experiences to inspire my children and others to believe that change and healing is possible. I honor both my mother and father for all the lessons they shared in making me the person I am. 

Following in My Dad’s Footsteps Nearly Got Me Killed

It’s normal to feel like your world is crashing when someone unexpectedly breaks up with you. So when my ex-boyfriend broke up with me over the phone while I was abroad, I went loopy. I sobbed in the bathroom and nearly messaged his mum to ask him to reconsider. Whenever something sends me spinning, I envision moving countries, growing a new identity, and becoming a whole other person who then can’t be bothered by something as futile as a shitty ex, so I started planning an escape to Singapore, and began looking for jobs there. I was, at turns, suicidal.

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