Taylor called this authenticity, and it became the unreachable horizon of modern life. It’s a concept that makes sense only in its absence; we recognize inauthenticity, phoniness, when someone’s clearly being a poseur. Yet the struggle to feel authentic—this is very real, even if we know better. In Taylor’s telling, everyone becomes a kind of artis

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Furniture is solid. Furniture is dependable. Furniture is rarely changing. Furniture is the heavy things that hold down the corners of your life.

But when you live in another country, like me, and you’re never sure how long, exactly, you’ll be living in that country, like me, your relationship to heavy things changes. Maybe this is true if you’ve mo... See more