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-Matthew Williams | Thursday, September 7, 2017
How often do you hear the words: “How are you?” A friend who recently counted was asked this question seven times on a single walk from DeBartolo to Cavanaugh, and she responded “good” every time. I think this is problematic. You’ll want to know why. Before I explain why, though, we have to agree on
Matthew Williams | Wednesday, August 30, 2017
It’s a summer afternoon in the sculpture garden. The Washington D.C. heat makes it feel like you’re walking through a sauna dressed in ski gear. So, people are coming from all corners of the mall to meet at this post-modern park’s focal point: a circular fountain with eight dueling jets of cool water. I sit,
Matthew Williams | Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Expect nothing and you will enjoy everything. This sentence seems contradictory, but the idea it captures is one of the most meaningful nuggets of wisdom I’ve mined from my time at Notre Dame. It has the power to make the ordinary extraordinary, to make every day spectacular from the moment you hop out of bed,
Matthew Williams | Thursday, April 20, 2017
When I was a child, I loved brownies. My parents used to bake them on the weekend, and I still remember the sweet smell of melted chocolate and roasted almonds that would remove me from whatever I was doing, and escort me swiftly to the kitchen. Arriving with a cavernous stomach and an insatiable appetite,
Matthew Williams | Thursday, April 6, 2017
Last week, Kendrick Lamar released the music video for a song titled “HUMBLE.” The video has racked up millions of views because of its satiating cinematography, but there’s more to this new song than meets the eye. Buried beneath its poetic vocals lies a clear challenge from Kendrick to the whole hip-hop community: be better.
Matthew Williams | Friday, March 24, 2017
A system of ethics requires designating some things as “right” and everything else as “wrong.” How we draw this divide depends on our understanding of a higher good, of results that are somehow greater than the immediate effects of our actions. This consideration of consequences, beyond what is best for us, in the here and
Matthew Williams | Thursday, March 2, 2017
Going to college is an ideal in almost every human culture. As one of the major societal sifts that humans pass through on their way from adolescence to adulthood, college has many purposes. For some students, it provides the skills needed to take the next step in life. For others, it simply helps discern what
Matthew Williams | Friday, February 24, 2017
When facing the looming festival of love that is Valentine’s Day, men and women in the West encounter two disparate challenges. For a man, the procedure is relatively predetermined: buy roses, jewelry, and/or chocolates; write a sweet card; and deliver it in a way that is novel and sincere. A woman’s actions, on the other
Matthew Williams | Thursday, February 16, 2017
Of all the existential questions to get tossed around on Friday nights or over coffee on Saturday mornings, my all-time favorites are those considering the point of human life. They usually begin as raw why questions about our existence, which get mixed into questions of how to live a “meaningful” life, before finally rising into
Matthew Williams | Thursday, February 2, 2017
The process of domestication is one of the coolest things our ancestors figured out how to do. Starting around 13,000 years ago, they began selectively breeding crops for traits that were beneficial to humans. Around 2,000 years later, they figured out how to do the same thing with animals, directing the evolution of a species