Everywhere we turn, there’s something demanding our attention—breaking news, financial uncertainty, political division, global unrest. It can feel challenging at times.

The mind may constantly ask:

“What if things get worse? How do I protect myself? Will I ever feel at peace?”

But what if the answer isn’t in the next piece of information or the next external change?

What if peace and stillness are already here, within you—waiting to be deepened?

~Eckart Tolle

how we see each other in a new light…

inquiry for today~ lean into each other….

a new kind of welcoming…

When someone is labeled “liberal” or “conservative,” what does that actually tell you? In American media, these terms don’t describe beliefs. They signal identity. And that shorthand often obscures more than it reveals.

History and politics writer George Dillard reflects on the death of Pope Francis and how quickly American outlets tried to slot him into a category. Was he a progressive pope or a conservative one? Neither label quite fits. Francis opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, but also condemned capitalist greed, defended migrants, and advocated for environmental protection. Dillard argues that forcing him into a red-or-blue framework doesn’t clarify his beliefs. It reduces Catholic doctrine to a familiar script, making a global religious leader legible to an American audience by rewriting him in our own image.

This kind of flattening shows up again in how the media covers world leaders. Dillard critiques the reflex to describe Jair Bolsonaro as “the Trump of Brazil,” Boris Johnson as “Trump with a British accent,” and Emmanuel Macron as “the French Obama.” These comparisons are seductive because they require no new understanding. They reduce distinct political histories to archetypes in our domestic drama.

PhD candidate Kem-Laurin Lubin explores why binary thinking persists so stubbornly. Part of the reason is cognitive: we’re naturally drawn to opposites and easy categories. But it’s also structural. Social media platforms are designed to reward fast, polarized responses. Like or ignore. Believe or dismiss. Support or oppose. Lubin points to LinkedIn’s reaction buttons, and music algorithms that sort users by race, taste, or assumed politics. What starts as a tool for convenience becomes a system of constraint. The more streamlined the interface, the harder it becomes to think beyond the choices we’re offered.

It’s not just that binary thinking polarizes; it narrows how we understand the world. What if the most honest answers don’t fit at all?

~Anna Dorn