Tricky Sol

When Zohran Mamdani responded to Cuomo's attacks with 'What I don't have in experience I make up for in integrity,' I knew I'd witnessed something rare—a politician who actually answers questions, has a strategic plan grounded in precedent, and understands that well done is better than well said. NYC's first Muslim and Asian-American mayor isn't just making promises; he's offering lifelines in a landscape of economic anxiety

I used to think my brain could handle anything—doom-scrolling at midnight, absorbing everyone's drama while ignoring my own mental health. Then I realized my mind had become a digital hoarder, running Windows 98 software while trying to process global catastrophes and celebrity gossip simultaneously. Turns out, my brain's fragility wasn't a bug; it was a feature that needed protection.

Every time someone strums a banjo in Nashville or a rock guitar screams through stadium speakers, you're hearing the echo of the greatest heist in cultural history. From the banjo's African origins to rock and roll's Black pioneers, American music was built by Black hands—but the wealth it generated was systematically diverted elsewhere. Recognition without reparation is just another form of exploitation.

We've turned dinosaurs into content machines—CGI spectacles, video game bosses, breakfast cereal mascots. But a former assassin standing in a museum understood what we've forgotten: a dinosaur's mystique comes from not moving. In our rush to resurrect them through technology, we're murdering the very thing that made them magical: their profound, mysterious stillness.

Before there were words, there was rhythm. Before cave paintings, there were bone flutes. Music didn't happen to us—music made us. That unconscious head nod when the bass drops isn't a casual response; it's evidence of the invisible river flowing through you, connecting you to humanity's oldest technology for creating meaning, building community, and conjuring the spirit that makes us most fully human.

We're taught to think in straight lines—progress, growth, liberation—as if you level up and never look back. But that's not how anything actually works. Everything that matters oscillates: sacred and profane, creation and destruction, the versions of yourself you're becoming and leaving behind.

Most people drift through life with opinions about everything but convictions about nothing. One question separates those who live intentionally from those who simply react: What are you willing to die for? The answer reveals what truly deserves your life.

When Bach is performed in a cathedral versus Carnegie Hall, who decides whether it's sacred or profane? Religious institutions have spent centuries claiming authority over this distinction, but their narrative—that artists who leave religious contexts are "selling out"—reveals more about power and economics than spirituality. Maybe the real profanity isn't leaving the church, but limiting the sacred to institutional control.

Six years ago, I was imprisoned in my own mind, drowning in negative self-talk and echoing beliefs that were never mine. At 24, I've rebuilt myself from the ground up—and discovered that personal growth doesn't progress in a straight line. Like a mathematical function oscillating toward infinity, I've learned that the magic happens in the space of infinite possibility.

Between 1740 and 1834, it was illegal to teach Black people to read—slave masters knew books were weapons of mass liberation. Now we have unlimited access to more knowledge than any generation in history, and we're choosing TikTok instead. Your ancestors died for the right to read; the least you can do is honor that sacrifice by picking up a muthafuckin' book.

Every utopian vision hides an uncomfortable truth: to build the better world, we must destroy aspects of the current one. The question isn't whether destruction will accompany creation—it's whether we'll be conscious participants in shaping what emerges from the necessary endings

Pride isn't just a celebration—it's a revolution birthed by Black and Brown trans women who threw the first bricks and paid the highest price for demanding the right to exist. What they created wasn't just safety for queer people; they cracked open society's rigid ideas about gender and self-expression, giving everyone more freedom to be human

A chance encounter with Billy Joel's "Movin' Out" in a store led to an unsettling realization: his 1977 critique of the American Dream wasn't just commentary—it was prophecy. In 2025, as people flee hostile states, question complicity in global crises, and reject systems designed to extract everything while giving nothing back, Joel's message about refusing to grind yourself to death for things that don't serve you has evolved from personal liberation to collective resistance

A throwaway line from Fleabag's therapist turned into an existential crisis. Turns out, the science of why we're attracted to religious figures reveals something profound about sacred longing, forbidden desire, and what we're all actually searching for.

At 55, Cree Summer is having the best sex of her life, and it's not because of technique. It's because she finally understands what "safety" really means: a partner who approaches challenges with confidence instead of panic. Turns out, your nervous system needs to feel safe before your body can surrender to pleasure - and that changes everything about how we think about intimacy.

Seven blogs. Seven invitations to remember what we've been taught to forget: that our bodies hold wisdom, that sovereignty means conscious connection not isolation, and that the sacred lives in every corner of our lives—from the dance floor to the dinner table. This isn't philosophy to study; it's a framework to embody, weaving together the fragments of ourselves that the world demands we keep separate.

'You know that's spiritual, right?' I told my roommates as we watched women dancing at a Caribbean carnival. They laughed, but I was serious. The twerking they saw as purely sexual connects to West African sacred practices—embodied wisdom about healing trauma and honoring the divine that the Western world has deliberately forgotten.

That unexpected moan over Outback Steakhouse wasn't just me being dramatic—it reveals something fascinating about how our brains process pleasure. The brain doesn't distinguish between different forms of satisfaction; it's all just dopamine flooding the same neural circuits. When we're honest about what we hunger for, both on our plates and in our bedrooms, we end up living healthier, more fulfilling lives.

Christianity taught me to starve the flesh to feed the spirit, but the blues tradition reveals a different truth: our bodies aren't obstacles to the divine—they're the pathway to it. While the church preaches denial and division, blues musicians have always known that salvation doesn't come from conquering the flesh but from honoring the wholeness of body, mind, and spirit as one indivisible expression of humanity.

Watching my sister Joeyannie transform photography from a college hobby into @certifiedvisuals_byjoey taught me something unexpected: I wasn't just supporting her journey—she was architecting mine. Her relentless creativity, from "For Colored Girls" to wedding shoots, didn't just build a business; it gave me permission to turn my own vision into reality. This is what happens when the pillar you've been holding up reveals she's been holding you all along.