Keely Adler

“That feeling of helplessness comes out of the fact that all our agency is being channeled through these media,” he said. “We have these events that are ponderously large, like climate change or gun control, and to view them only through the lens of what happened or the abstraction of what people are saying strips away the notion of our agency and ... See more

Rather than mocking her for sticking around past her supposed sell-by date, online audiences — even on teenager-heavy TikTok — love her for it. She is, in fact, one of a handful of over-50 fashion mentors on social media to attract an all-ages crowd.

Digital communication redirects the flows of communication. Information is spread without forming a public sphere. It is produced in private spaces and distributed to private spaces. The web does not create a public.

In other words, lots of people see themselves as generalists, whether they use the word or not, and lots of people realize the value of these interstitial roles but not many brag about it, and not many hire for it.

Optimal distinctiveness is the theory that layering multiple affiliations into one identity can be predicted both mathematically and intuitively; in essence, humans are always balancing the need for inclusion and the need for differentiation.

Don’t brush your tastes away. Take your delight seriously. You could reach out towards historical figures, cloud formations, and badger tracks in the snow. Claim them as familial instructors. They have a kind of warmth attached. These are useful, odd ideas. Uncertainty requires such expansiveness, requires some flex, some curiosity.