Avital Balwit

Goya's The Madhouse Every week, I bike through the worst neighborhood of San Francisco and then get into the manual elevator at the historic, decaying building that holds my ballet studio. There, I spend a few minutes with the operator who is clearly and visibly insane. I enter some monologue that has been running for a long time. It doesn't necessarily involve you, it’s just whatever is on his mind: the need to go with the flow, the warranty on his phone, the changes these d

I feel profoundly American when I travel to Germany. I was only a few hours off the plane when I started to notice it. Someone in our group at Don Giovanni had to sit next to a stranger, a big conundrum for my German party. I couldn't care less, so I left my clump of conferring Germans and took my seat, gave him a smile, and forgot about it. Then we had questions about the second half of the program. The group went back to conferring over this difficult problem. I strode over

This is the post I wish someone had sent me as a freshman in college. I get a lot of mentorship emails. I probably call with one in ten of them somewhat randomly based on how much time and energy I have that given week, and I ignore the rest -- and I feel very bad about it. This post is some advice that I would give to those seekers. Does it matter what I study in college?  Yes and no. I studied Political and Social Thought, which is neither too closely connected to what I cu

One common reaction to this is that it will lead to a less meaningful life; that without struggle some essential form of human striving will have been lost. I find that argument somewhat appealing, but I'm also curious who decides what the exact optimal amount of struggle is, and for whom.