I’m 38 and I realized last spring that the question I’m carrying into my forties isn’t “what do I want to do next” — it’s “what have I been doing for someone else all this time,” and the difference between those two questions is the difference between five more years of the same life and a different life entirely, and I’m not yet sure which one I have the energy for

Posted 12 May 2026, by

Daniel Moran

Last spring, on a Sunday afternoon in Bangkok, I sat down at my kitchen counter with a coffee and tried to write a list of things I wanted to do in my forties. The list was supposed to be aspirational. The list was supposed to clarify, for me, ...Read More

Adults who have no close friends aren’t always antisocial — some simply find shallow connection more exhausting than time spent alone

Posted 11 May 2026, by

Expert Editor Editorial Team

There is a particular kind of adult who reaches midlife with no close friends. By the standard cultural reading, this configuration is interpreted as a social deficit. The adult is, in the available cultural vocabulary, lonely. They are isolated. They have, in some implied way, failed to maintain ...Read More

Psychology says people who had to read their parents’ moods as children may be praised as emotionally intelligent adults — but for some, the skill began as vigilance

Posted 11 May 2026, by

Daniel Moran

There is a particular kind of person, present in almost every workplace, who is universally described by their colleagues as emotionally intelligent. They notice the small shifts in the room. They catch the tension between two people before either of them has said anything. They know, often before ...Read More