Maison Tranquille

  Still Learning On admiring thinkers without becoming their disciples I like Sam Harris. I really do. I genuinely admire that he is rational, clear-eyed, and serious about ideas. He respects evidence, distrusts extremism and sloppy reasoning, practices mindfulness, and cares about the long-term welfare of humanity. On many things we agree. And yet I cannot follow him regularly. Something pulls me back, and I have spent a bit of time trying to understand what that something is and what it tells me about myself. It is not his arguments. But I need more than a good argument. I need compassion alongside clarity, and tenderness toward the messy, contradictory reality of being human. When I lose that sense of warmth in a voice I am following, I tend to withdraw. I want truth, but I also want heart. I want discernment, but not without mercy. I feel the same way when I try to follow Brené Brown. She is doing something genuinely worthwhile by encouraging honesty, working to reduce shame, a...

I’ve been watching Astrid et Raphaëlle, a French crime series, and I can’t stop thinking about something that keeps happening while I watch. One of the leads, Astrid, is autistic. She has these particular movements, hand gestures, a kind of rocking, small repetitive motions she doesn’t bother to hide. And I’ve noticed that sometimes, without meaning to, I find myself mirroring her. And it feels… good? Settling, somehow. Which made me curious. Why? Turns out our nervous systems don’t really care whether we’re autistic or not. They still crave rhythm, repetition, and something to hold onto. Rocking a baby. Knitting. Walking the same path. Making potholders, honestly. These things work because they work, not because we’ve been given permission to need them. There’s also something about the way Astrid moves through the world without apology. She doesn’t mask. She doesn’t hold herself tightly for other people’s comfort. Watching her is like being handed a small permission slip: you don’t ha...

I used to think belonging was something you found at the right level of life. Now I think it’s something you allow, wherever you are—if you can quiet the part of you that’s still arguing with the moment. At first glance, “I’m not good enough” and “I’m too good for this” seem like opposites. But psychologically, they often grow from the same soil—uncertainty about where you truly belong or how you measure up. Thinking you’re too good for something can act as a kind of emotional armor. Instead of sitting with the feeling that you don’t fit, the mind flips it: I’m above this. That feels safer. When you land somewhere that doesn’t match your internal sense of self, there are really only two moves. You collapse inward—I failed, I’m not good enough—or you protect outward—I don’t belong here, I’m too good for this. The second one keeps something intact. It holds your sense of identity and possibility while everything else feels uncertain. I know I’ve carried both voices. One that says I cou...