There’s a scene in the movie “Elf,” where Buddy (Will Ferrell) first gets to New York City, and goes into a dingy diner that has a sign outside that reads, “World Best Cup of Coffee,” and exclaims, “Congratulations! You did it! The world’s best cup of coffee!!” I always think of that scene when I...

This week is National Suicide Prevention Week! A few months ago, a woman once sent me a message on Facebook that began: “No pressure, but you might save a life.” She went on to tell me her problem and then asked for a solution. The first thing I did was take a deep breath followed...

I have a love-hate relationship with December. Many people do. As a person with an extremely fragile psyche, who has a low threshold for stress, I feel like December adds another 50 percent of things to be scratched off of my “to do” list, and therefore tells my sympathetic nervous system that panic mode is...

“Beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” That was the password to the file share (motherboard) at the technology company where I used to work. I was expecting, “Cloud123,” or something boring and bland like that. Not the quintessential Japanese aesthetic known as “wabi-sabi.” I shed a tear or two when the engineer setting up...

“You,” he said, “are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.” That quote belongs in Emilie Autumn’s psychological thriller novel, “The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.” It’s the essence, I think, of Robin Williams. He was so real—so passionate, brilliant, empathetic,...