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 Consider a pair of shoes from early 18th-century Britain—an era when high heels were not yet ensnared within the modern gender binary. While today’s fashion conventions would hastily categorize the shoe as feminine, such assumptions betray the profoundly cultural, not anatomical, foundations of fashion. Although there are measurable physiological distinctions between male and female feet—differences in width, arch, and proportion—these do not necessitate the vastly divergent aesthetic and structural choices seen in contemporary footwear. The dissimilarities we now associate with gendered shoes are less rooted in physical needs than in socially constructed expectations and the performative roles individuals were meant to embody. Footwear, being intimately connected to the body, serves not merely as a tool for mobility but as a mediator of societal function. It shapes posture, gait, and spatial access, thereby embedding social hierarchies and roles into physical comportment. Stilet...

 When I was a child, my parents would receive packages from home – fat cardboard boxes lacquered in thick tape, arriving not directly from Sierra Leone but routed through friends or relatives returning from brief sojourns. These intermediaries, entrusted with the burden of memory and request, would gather the desired relics of our distant homeland and, upon returning to the United States, assemble the pieces into new parcels bound for awaiting hands. Thus operated the unspoken but sacrosanct ritual of our diasporic community: collect, store, ship – a triad of obligation and affection anchoring our transnational connections. These parcels brimmed with things both mundane and sacred: black soap, smoked fish, Krio primers, religious paraphernalia, and crunchy kanya snacks – everyday items transfigured by scarcity into tokens of cultural survival. But above all, there was music. The cassettes and CDs traversed not just genres but geographies – calypso, highlife, milo jazz, palm-wine m...

 Not all violations of conversational norms denote aggression or pose a threat. In many instances, individuals deviate from these norms for reasons entirely devoid of malice. For instance, those on the autism spectrum may eschew unstructured small talk, preferring instead communication that serves a precise informational purpose. Chris Packham, a renowned British naturalist diagnosed with autism in his forties, exemplified this proclivity during an interview. When asked about socialising, he relayed his bafflement at the suggestion that he visit friends simply because “it would be nice to see them.” His response—“But what for?”—encapsulates a pragmatic utilitarianism, indicating a communicative approach grounded in purposeful interaction rather than social ritual. While we can only speculate about what diagnosis, if any, might elucidate C.S. Lewis’s characteristic silences, it is apparent that his communicative values diverged from the norm. Lewis preferred substance to banter, an...

 A new wave of self-sufficiency is sweeping across the globe. Leaders from the world’s largest economies are increasingly turning inward, advocating for economic independence rather than global interdependence. In the United States, former President Donald Trump famously declared his vision of “economic independence,” which included reducing reliance on international trade – a striking reversal from the very system the US helped establish after World War II. This system of globalisation, rooted in the idea that open trade benefits all, is now being reconsidered. China, too, has echoed similar sentiments. President Xi Jinping has long promoted zili gengsheng, or “self-reliance,” by encouraging domestic production and reducing dependence on foreign imports. From food to semiconductors, China’s policies reflect a desire to build internal resilience. Russia, under Vladimir Putin, has asserted its self-sufficiency in the face of severe Western sanctions. In response to efforts to econom...

 A profound wave of yearning for economic self-sufficiency is surging globally. Donald Trump’s declaration of “economic independence” for the United States appears to sever the nation from the intricate global trading edifice it so meticulously constructed post-World War II—a framework that has historically yielded considerable economic dividends across nations. Yet Trump is hardly singular in this trajectory. China’s Xi Jinping has long extolled zili gengsheng , or self-reliance, prompting concerted efforts to discourage imports and invigorate domestic production across sectors, from agronomy to semiconductors. Vladimir Putin, defiant in the face of extensive Western sanctions, asserted Russia’s total autarky. Narendra Modi echoes a parallel impulse in Atmanirbhar Bharat , advocating a self-reliant India. Even the once outward-leaning European Union is reconsidering economic autonomy in domains like energy and defence. This exaltation of autarky denotes a momentous rupture from t...

  When Nicolas Vermont entered the greenhouse, he encountered a spectacle both grotesque and unfathomable. In the early 20th century rural France, Vermont had arrived at the estate of his uncle, Dr Frédéric Lerne, a figure revered as both surgeon and scientist, whom he had not seen for fifteen years. Despite the warmth expected of familial reunion, Nicolas quickly grew perturbed by the doctor’s eccentric comportment. Compelled by a mounting sense of unease, he resolved to traverse the estate’s grounds under the veil of darkness in pursuit of truth. Within the greenhouse, he stumbled upon the manifestations of a scientific nightmare. At first glance, the amalgamations appeared vegetal: a cactus bizarrely flowering into a geranium, and an oak tree issuing forth cherries and walnuts. But curiosity turned swiftly to visceral revulsion. ‘It was then that I touched the hairy plant. Having felt the two treated leaves, so like ears, I felt them warm and quivering,’ he later recalled. The ...

 Natural selection, by its inherent nature, operates solely on existing variations, not hypothetical possibilities, no matter how optimal those hypotheticals might seem. This limitation constrains evolutionary progress to reactive responses rather than proactive advancements. Evolutionary change, therefore, is driven predominantly by insufficiency—a species alters because its traits are currently failing, not because a superior alternative beckons from afar. This understanding becomes more intuitive when one employs the metaphor of an evolutionary landscape—imagine a three-dimensional plane filled with elevations, depressions, ridges, and plateaus. The vertical axis symbolizes evolutionary success, or fitness, typically quantified by reproductive success, while the horizontal dimensions represent all conceivable combinations of traits an organism might possess. Though infinite, we simplify by imagining only two traits—say, lifespan and reproductive rate. Certain combinations, like ...

 Around 500 B.C., Heraclitus formulated a conception of time and existence that emphasized the ceaseless flux of reality. He famously asserted, “Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others, go flowing on.” In this brief, metaphorically saturated vision, Heraclitus encapsulated the radical transience of being—an ontology wherein all entities, including the self, are consumed in an unending succession of change. Even more enigmatically, he declared that “Time is a child, moving counters in a game; the royal power is a child’s.” This poetic yet cryptic line elevates time to a capricious, almost whimsical force, highlighting its arbitrariness and its fundamental authority over all things. According to Heraclitus, the present is primary, but it is perpetually vanishing, devoured by the progression of time. Nothing persists. What exists now quickly falls into the void of non-...

 In April 1649, the soil of St George’s Hill in Surrey, England, was disrupted by a group known as the ‘True Levellers’—later memorialised as the ‘Diggers’—who had resolved to reclaim the wasteland of Walton parish. Their intention was not merely to cultivate barren land, described by 1650 surveyors as “nothing but a bare heath & sandy ground,” but to symbolically and materially resist the enclosure movement, which had been systematically converting common lands into parcels of private property, stripping away the customary rights and access that had historically been held by commoners. Despite the land’s poor quality, the Diggers believed in its potential fertility. Over the ensuing months, they diligently worked the soil—applying composted turf, planting parsnips, carrots, beans—and even erected cottages, signaling a permanent commitment. Many among them were local, their participation shaped by years of rural discontent, heavy Civil War taxes, and continual friction with lan...

 Approximately 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens commenced their migratory dispersal from Africa into Europe and Asia. This exodus did not transpire in solitude; rather, it was marked by encounters with other large-brained hominids, notably the Neanderthals and Denisovans—our closest extinct relatives. For the majority of our evolutionary timeline, we constituted merely one branch within a broader hominin continuum, coexisting with species that mirrored us in form and cognition. Yet, by the terminus of the Pleistocene epoch, roughly 11,700 years ago, Homo sapiens stood alone. This solitary survival delineated a turning point—one at which our species achieved a singular status, a uniqueness that successive generations would amplify by erecting cognitive and cultural partitions between ourselves and all other fauna. Over time, these partitions ossified into seemingly immutable boundaries. We came to predicate our superiority on our capacity for intentionality—purpose-driven action—and ...

 In 1992, a woman known by the pseudonym Sheila sought the assistance of a distinguished psychiatrist. Since the passing of her mother in 1984, she had been besieged by chronic emotional disturbances—anger, melancholy, irritability—and increasingly tormenting nightmares. These dreams bore a consistent and disquieting pattern: she would experience a profound paralysis, a sensation of bodily vibration, and a harrowing perception of an external force commandeering her body. One particular dream stood out with spectral vividness—her home engulfed in a cacophony of high-pitched noise and blinding lights, as several diminutive, spindly-limbed beings cloaked in silver descended her hallway with deliberate intent. Initially, Sheila approached her pastor in search of a psychotherapy referral, but dissatisfaction with the first therapist led her to consult a psychiatrist. By 1989’s close, her dreams of these shadowy figures had escalated in both frequency and perceived hostility. Over the s...

 In 1612, the English philosopher Francis Bacon mused that adults fear death no less than children fear the dark. “And as that natural fear in children is increased with tales,” he remarked, “so is the other.” Our modern apprehensions surrounding death continue to be nourished by depictions of tormenting, mournful transitions into the abyss—just as in Bacon’s era. “Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, shew death terrible,” he observed. Yet, for Bacon, such dread is ultimately unproductive, even illusory: “It is as natural to die as to be born.” Still, one must ponder—what transpires when death is no longer final, when its conclusion is rendered ambiguous by persistence beyond the grave? What do we make of fears not solely confined to the act of dying, but extending into dread of the once-dead? In the centuries predating Bacon’s contemplations, such fears permeated the European psyche, catalyzed by proliferat...

 “I was born in the land of the priests of Aksum,” begins the Hatata, attributed to ZeraYacob in the 17th century, an opening both disarmingly candid and quietly radical. He identifies not with the priestly caste but as the offspring of a humble farmer, grounding what soon unfolds into an uncompromising spiritual disquisition within a life marked by simplicity and struggle. The Hatata, meaning “enquiry” in Ge’ez, encapsulates his metaphysical and ethical meditations—on God, evil, morality, and the riddle of human existence. A second text, frequently credited to WeldaHeywat, focuses with similar fervour on justice and moral veracity. These documents have not only come to form the axial pillars of what is termed Ethiopian philosophy but have also ignited ongoing philosophical conflict regarding their provenance and intellectual merit—contentions with implications for whether a distinct Ethiopian philosophical tradition can be said to exist at all. Broadly speaking, the philosophical...

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