I actually enjoy Instagram. I enjoy seeing what people who I have some connection to are doing around the globe. I'm even old-school Instagram. I'm here for your "What did you have to eat today?" I'm fine with that.

Sometimes a loss that just comes out of left field rings in a very weird way when you have actually sort of relied on this small moment with this or that person, as a moment that actually has defined something for you in your life.

The early 2000s for me were a very emotional time, politically. I'd been through Reagan and been through first Bush and Clinton, and it's not like I had an easy time through those years. But I just thought it was particularly rough. I have to say the World Trade Center attack was very weird for me. The events that followed were worse. It was a really long swath of time.

My "degree" has done nothing for me at all. But that I've learned - the critical thought processes I've tried to keep sharp - these things were furthered along by college. I hated so much of my life "at university," but I also loved so much of it, and the things that I loved about it have kept me in a sort of "scholarly pursuit" to this day. Maybe it messed me up because I believe that there are things like truth and beauty, and that art and discussion can help us find them and enhance our lives.

The obsessive documentation is itself adjacent to hyper-consumption in our society. The desire to just have everything all the time and adjacent to that is - it might be a little hokey but - a certain loss of identity that then only gets sort of found or ascribed to these moments that are documented. If so much of your experience is devoted to the thought of documentation, you're already sort of spinning out this narrative from this moment that you are attempting to control instead of just experiencing it.

I'm even old-school Instagram. I'm here for your "What did you have to eat today?" I'm fine with that.

It's almost weirder sometimes when you don't have a full life experience with someone's ups and downs, knowing what they've been through. Sometimes a loss that just comes out of left field rings in a very weird way when you have actually sort of relied on this small moment with this or that person, as a moment that actually has defined something for you in your life.