For the longest time, I could not understand why certain things about corporate life bothered me so much. Team-building activities. Afterwork drinks. Company-branded clothes. The forced small talk. The strange enthusiasm around Christmas parties. The expectation that you should not only work for the company, but somehow also feel like you are part of the company. There is nothing objectively wrong with any of these things. People enjoy them. Companies organize them. Sometimes they are...

Hello, my fellow humans. If you spend enough time on the internet, eventually it starts sounding like every single thing in life is equally important and urgently needs fixing immediately. One person tells you to heal your inner child, another says you need to wake up at 5am and optimize your dopamine receptors, somebody else insists you need better boundaries, better habits, better sleep, more discipline, more protein, more mindfulness, less cortisol, less screen time and apparently also a...

The idea of “free education” is one of Europe’s favorite myths. It sounds noble, progressive, egalitarian. You imagine open doors, equal opportunity, and knowledge available to anyone who shows up with curiosity and a pen. But if you trace the roots of the modern European school and university system, the picture becomes less romantic and more functional — functional in a Prussian sense. The Prussian education system, established in the early 18th and 19th centuries, was not created to uplift...