Some say that reading is for people who refuse to get in the arena, who refrain from taking action, who prefer to hide. But I strongly disagree. For me, reading helps us to consider the perspectives of others, build our empathy, and most important, to follow the facts. Our lived experiences matter, and so do our personal truths, but reading offers a way to pass over, to connect, and to return transformed.

We live in a country where white people own 95 percent of the farms, while Latinx people own 3 percent and African Americans own 1 percent. Consider that Latinx people do 80 percent of the farm work, or that 100 years ago, Black people owned 14 percent of the farms — or that in South Africa, people of color own 27 percent.

According to food sovereignty activist Leah Penniman, owner of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black, our organized system of unequal food distribution amounts to food apartheid, which relegates white people to food abundance and people of color to food scarcity.

Most people think that mindfulness, “the state of active, open attention on the present,” helps us increase our happiness and sense of well-being, while decreasing our depression, anxiety, and stress. Thousands of schools across the country teach mindfulness to their students. It’s a good thing, right, despite its appropriation of Buddhist meditation teachings? Not so, says San Francisco State professor Ronald Purser, author of McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality. Instead of helping us gain clarity, mindfulness turns us inward, isolated from others, teaching us to accept the status quo instead of fighting against injustice. Our scary, chaotic world may overwhelm us, Prof. Purser suggests, but creating a private “religion of the self” is not the solution.

Everything was fine when Hannah came out to her family as a trans woman. But when they wanted to reintroduce themself as Salem — nonbinary, gender fluid, gender expansive — they hesitated, fearing isolation from their family, while at the same time feeling disconnection with themself. More and more young people identify as neither male or female. This article poignantly explores the struggles that nonbinary people face in a society that demands we choose a side.

When Vivia Wampler was 2 years old, she fell, hit her head on the stairs, and suffered permanent brain damage that left her intellectually disabled. Now an adult, Vivia wants to raise a child but thinks she should practice being a mom first. For the past several years, Vivia has taken care of Emma, a Reborn doll that looks, at first glance, like a real infant. The experience has brought Vivia many of the joys of motherhood — alongside the sneers of passersby, the leeriness of family, and the judgments of the author.

Get ready for a wild ride. At the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Rockland County, New York, many rich white parents refused to vaccinate their children last year, wishing to “reduce the load” of foreign substances in their children’s bodies. One parent said, “I just go based on what I believe. We’re all seed of God. We’re all stardust. My instinct is a guiding force.” When the health department banned unvaccinated students from attending the school, parents became enraged and sued.

We scoffed at Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin, and the other rich parents who committed crimes (bribery! mail fraud! racketeering! conspiracy!) to get their kids into college. But maybe Operation Varsity Blues is just a small part of the real problem: that the college admissions process is rotten at its core.

Enough is enough, you say. It’s time to practice digital minimalism, once and for all. That’s why you’ve quit Facebook and Twitter — but not Instagram. (The photos are so alluring!) You’ve taken the bold step to leave your phone outside your bedroom. (But you’re sleepwalking in the middle of the night to check it.) And you’re no longer opening your email after 8 pm (except to read The Highlighter, of course). If this is you, good job: Tristan Harris, creator of the Time Well Spent movement, who is on a mission to “reverse human downgrading,” is very proud of you. Not only will you have more time to spend with your friends and family, but you’ll also have the language to stop technology from destroying free will and wrecking democracy.