Contributing opinion writer
Nathan L. Williams
Latest Content
Searching for Peace, Alone
There’s something magical about setting some time aside to let your inner self wander.
Fictitious Alternatives
Stop dreaming of counterfactual timelines. Stop coveting a better past. Stop searching for your failings in the achievements of others.
The Human Face of Institutional Change
In an odd sense, our campus culture is right; each of us is a leader in our own, humble capacity.
What Gives?
PBHA seems focused on pushing Harvard students to volunteer their time instead of encouraging them to offer their most valuable resource to those in need—their money.
A Love Like Whiskey
Talk to a soldier, and you’ll quickly notice that we’re too damn tired, too damn hungry, and too damn sore to fake any of it.
Road Trip Romance
Love is about finding someone who is compatible—not perfect—and choosing to love them despite their imperfections in the hopes that they may one day come to love you too.
Simulated Suffering
Games like Hearts of Iron IV gamify conquest; they abstract the suffering of war and separates military conflicts from their dark political foundations.
Notifications
We’ve been deceived by Silicon Valley into thinking that its platforms can grant us happiness. The truth is, we’re mortals with an ever-shrinking amount of time left on earth.
Playing the Wrong Game
As the time for those I love has dwindled, I’ve come to question whether all the time I’ve spent studying was worth anything.
The Plight of the Self-Conscious Gringo
Am I somehow cheating if I claim the Hispanic identity without having shared in its suffering?
Pleasantly Grim
But amongst close friends, self-deprecating, cynical, dark humor—the language of the morbidly joyful—provides the perfect disruption.
“Brass to Grass”
Cadets and students alike tend to mistake inexperience and ignorance for incompetence.
Learning to Grieve
War is not beautiful. War is the screams of helpless men. War is the sobbing of orphaned children. War is the silence of a city wiped from existence.
Generic Inspiration
I want unfiltered answers, not a pat on the back or another consolatory sandwich from some OCS event.
Academic Purgatory
For eight weeks I had the pleasure of working at the Pentagon, and my god, I was about as useful as a broken office stapler.
