What are we willing to give up to find meaning & a sense of belonging? - Highlights - TARA ISABELLA BURTON

What are we willing to give up to find meaning & a sense of belonging? - Highlights - TARA ISABELLA BURTON

/

Author of Here in Avalon · Social Creature
Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World 
Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?

Spirituality & Selfhood: TARA ISABELLA BURTON - Author of Here in Avalon, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

Spirituality & Selfhood: TARA ISABELLA BURTON - Author of Here in Avalon, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

/

Author of Here in Avalon · Social Creature
Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World 
Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?

MARCIA DeSANCTIS - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life"

MARCIA DeSANCTIS - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life"

/

Journalist, Essayist, Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life
100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

I started looking over the stories that I had done. I would say the majority of the essays were not really about travel. They were more about aging and marriage and memory and all of those things, but I did find in the travel essays those kernels of things that I wanted to explore - bigger kernels of things that were sort of scratching at me from the inside like a piece of sand in my pocket that was irritating me and that I wanted to explore. What I found was that the theme of coming and going, the theme of arrivals and departures, the theme of entrances and exits, and the theme of home and away seemed to repeat itself. I felt that whenever I was somewhere, there was always a tide home. And when I was home, there was always the urge for going. And so I just weeded out and weeded out and really wanted to keep this theme of home and away.