# The Universalist > The Universalist is a magazine of ideas — a space where culture, society, and the moral questions of our time meet thoughtful, unhurried reflection. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About us URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/about/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T08:28:51.000Z The Universalist is a magazine of ideas — a space where culture, society, and the moral questions of our time meet thoughtful, unhurried reflection. We write about the world as it is and as it might be: the books, films, and art that shape how we see ourselves, the debates that define public life, and the quiet shifts in how we live, believe, and belong. Our subjects range from literature, history, and the arts to ethics, religion, and the social currents running beneath the headlines. What unites them is a conviction that serious questions deserve serious, humane attention — and that the effort to understand others is where understanding ourselves begins. In an age of noise and acceleration, The Universalist keeps a different rhythm. We value nuance over certainty, dialogue over division, and the long view over passing outrage. We take seriously both the life of the mind and the life of the spirit, and we believe that conversation across differences — of belief, of culture, of conviction — is not a weakness to be managed but a discipline worth practising. The Universalist is created in Krakow by the editors of the oldest Polish weekly, Tygodnik Powszechny founded in 1945\. For nearly eight decades, our our parent title has stood at the heart of Central European intellectual life — a meeting place for the writers, thinkers, and dissenting voices who helped shape the region's conscience. Its pages have carried the work of two Nobel laureates, the poets Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. Through the long aftermath of war, censorship, and political upheaval, it remained a rare and resilient space of independent thought. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/49/63/496333ff-fce2-434f-8c02-f078107497d3/content/images/2026/09/PHOTO-2026-09-22-10-13-24-1.jpg) \-- The publications available at The Universalist are translations of the original articles published in Tygodnik Powszechny, and provided by a translation company, GTG Foreign Languages. ### Legal Notice URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/legal-notice/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T14:56:55.000Z **© 2026 Tygodnik Powszechny sp. z o.o.. All rights reserved.** The website available at www. theuniversalist.com, including its layout, visual design, name, logo, designations, database, editorial materials, articles, photographs, graphics, audio and video materials, infographics, illustrations, files, compilations, the selection and arrangement of content, and all other materials published on the Website, are protected under applicable law, including copyright and related-rights legislation, database protection law and unfair competition law. Economic copyrights, the related right of the press publisher, and other rights in the Website content are vested in Tygodnik Powszechny sp. z o.o. or, as applicable, in other rightsholders with whom the Publisher has entered into appropriate agreements or obtained the necessary permissions. Unless mandatory provisions of law provide otherwise, any use of the Website content requires the Publisher’s or other relevant rightsholder’s prior, express consent. 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Dworska 1C/LU3-4, 30-314 Kraków, entered in the Register of Entrepreneurs maintained by the District Court for Kraków-Śródmieście in Kraków, 11th Commercial Division, under KRS number 0000045152, NIP (tax identification number): 6760056914, REGON (statistical number): 350319302 (hereinafter: the Service Provider), collects and processes information about users and their behaviour in the following ways: 1. Through data voluntarily entered by users into forms. 2. By storing cookies on users' end devices. 3. Through web server logs collected by the Service Provider. 2. The Website collects information voluntarily provided by users in the form completed during account registration. The Website may also record connection parameters (timestamp, IP address). 3. Users may optionally complete an additional demographic profile in their account, which is used for statistical purposes. 4. If the data provided in a form makes it possible to identify a natural person, that person has the right to request from the Service Provider access to their personal data, its rectification or erasure, and restriction of its processing, as well as the right to object to its processing and the right to data portability. This may, however, result in certain features of the Website becoming unavailable. 5. Once logged in, users can easily change their data, including updating it or effectively deleting it. Permanently deleting an account requires contacting the Service Provider at: contact@theuniversalist.com 6. Data provided in forms may be transferred to entities that technically provide certain services, in particular internet domain operators, payment service providers, and other entities with which the Service Provider cooperates. 7. The Website uses cookies. Cookies are IT data, in particular text files, which are stored on the Website user's end device and are intended for use with the Website's pages. Cookies usually contain the name of the website they originate from, the length of time they are stored on the end device, and a unique number. 8. The entity that places cookies on the Website user's end device is the Service Provider. 9. 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Persistent cookies are stored on the user's end device for the period specified in the cookie parameters or until the user deletes them. 11. Web browsing software (web browsers) usually allows cookies to be stored on the user's end device by default. Website users can change these settings. Web browsers allow cookies to be deleted. Cookies can also be blocked automatically. Detailed information on this can be found in your browser's help section or documentation. 12. Cookies can also be restricted or disabled using a feature available upon entering the Website's home page, which allows users to choose which categories of cookies they accept. 13. Restricting or disabling cookies may affect certain features available on the Website's pages. Disabling cookies necessary for authentication, security, and storing user preferences may make it difficult, and in extreme cases impossible, to use the web pages that make up the Website. If cookies are disabled, it will not be possible to use restricted-access services or individual user settings. 14. Cookies are placed on the Website user's end device and may be used by external providers cooperating with the Service Provider, namely: AddToAny, Adobe Fonts (provided by Adobe Inc. or an affiliated entity), Facebook (provided by Meta Inc. or an affiliated entity), FaniPay (provided by the FaniMani Foundation), Ghost (provided by Ghost Foundation), Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Google Tag Manager (provided by Google LLC or affiliated entities), Microsoft Clarity (provided by Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited), X (provided by Twitter International Unlimited Company or affiliated entities), SalesManago (provided by Benhauer Sp. z o.o. or an affiliated entity), Stripe (provided by Stripe Inc. or an affiliated entity), and IAB Trusted Advertising Partners. 15. We recommend reading the terms of service and privacy policies of the companies listed in point 14. 16. In the case of Microsoft Clarity, Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited acts as an independent data controller. 1. Purpose of processing: analysis of user behaviour on the website (heatmaps, session recordings, error rates) in order to optimise the Website, as well as Microsoft's marketing purposes. 2. Scope of data: information about on-site activity, mouse movements, scrolling, and device and browser data. We have taken steps to ensure that data entered in forms is masked and not passed on to the tool's provider. 3. Data transfers: data may be transferred outside the European Economic Area (including to the USA) on the basis of the Standard Contractual Clauses used by Microsoft. 4. Legal basis: your voluntary consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR). 5. How to withdraw consent: you can manage your preferences via our cookie management panel or your browser settings. You can also opt out of Microsoft Advertising's use of your data at: Microsoft Opt-out. 6. The full Microsoft Privacy Statement is available at:[ https://privacy.microsoft.com/pl-pl/privacystatement](https://privacy.microsoft.com/pl-pl/privacystatement?ref=theuniversalist.com) 17. Cookies are used to collect information, recommend content, monitor traffic on the Website, and manage ad delivery. Third parties, including the providers of the technologies listed above, may use cookies to collect or receive information from the Website and elsewhere on the internet, and use it, among other things, to provide measurement services, to tailor advertising to the needs and interests of Website users, and for purposes related to fraud prevention and transaction security. 18. As regards information on user preferences collected by the Google advertising network, users can view and edit information derived from cookies using this tool. 19. The Service Provider advises that restricting the use of cookies may affect certain features available on the Website's pages. 20. Information about certain user behaviour is logged at the server level. This data is used solely for administering the Website and ensuring the best possible provision of hosting services. 21. Resources viewed are identified by their URLs. In addition, the following may be recorded: 1. time the request was received, 2. time the response was sent, 3. name of the User's workstation – identified via the HTTP protocol, 4. information about errors that occurred during HTTP transactions, 5. the URL of the page previously visited by the user (referrer link) – where the user reached the Website via a link, 6. information about the User's browser, 7. IP address information. 22. The above data is not associated with specific individuals browsing the pages. 23. The above data is used solely for server administration purposes. ### Terms of Service URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/terms-of-service/ Last updated: 2026-10-01T13:13:08.000Z This document (hereinafter: the "Terms of Service") sets out the rules governing access, privacy, and the provision of services through the website (hereinafter: the "Website") operated by the Service Provider. **I. General information** 1. The Website is operated by Tygodnik Powszechny Spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością (limited liability company), with its registered office in Kraków at ul. Dworska 1C/LU 3-4, 30-314 Kraków, entered in the Register of Entrepreneurs maintained by the District Court for Kraków-Śródmieście in Kraków, 11th Commercial Division, under KRS number 0000045152, NIP (tax identification number): 6760056914, REGON (statistical number): 350319302, with fully paid-up share capital of PLN 2,666,000.00; contact telephone: (+48) 668-477-039; email: contact@theuniversalist.com. 2. The Service Provider can be contacted quickly and efficiently by telephone at (+48) 668-477-039 and by email at contact@theuniversalist.com and bok@tygodnikpowszechny.pl. Telephone contact is available Monday to Friday on working days, from 9:00 to 15:00\. The Service Provider's preferred form of contact is email. Telephone calls are charged according to the caller's tariff, but at no more than the standard rate for a call. **II. Definitions** **Terms of Service** – these terms, made available in a form that allows the User to save, reproduce, and read them at any place and time. With regard to services provided electronically, the Terms of Service constitute the terms referred to in Article 8 of the Act of 18 July 2002 on the Provision of Electronic Services (Journal of Laws of 2002, No. 144, item 1204, as amended), available at [https://theuniversalist.com/terms-of-service](https://theuniversalist.com/terms-of-service?ref=theuniversalist.com) **Website** – the site[ www.theuniversalist.com](https://www.theuniversalist.com/) **Service Provider** or **Provider of (Paid) Digital Content and Goods** – Tygodnik Powszechny Sp. z o.o., with its registered office in Kraków at ul. Dworska 1C/LU 3-4, which provides Free Services through the Website and supplies Paid Digital Content (Time-Limited Access) and Goods on the site under the Terms and Conditions for Paid Digital Content and Goods, on the terms set out in these Terms of Service. **User** – an adult natural person with full legal capacity, a legal person, or an organisational unit without legal personality but with legal capacity, who uses any of the services provided by the Service Provider. **Registered User** – a User who has created an account on the Website, obtained a unique login/username and password, and has access to Restricted Services after logging in. **Consumer** – a User who is a natural person performing legal transactions through the Website that are not directly connected with their business or professional activity. **Services** – all services available on the Website provided electronically to Users. **Open Services** – free services available to Users upon entering the Website, without the need to create an account. **Restricted Services** – services available to users who have created an account on the Website, including the newsletter service. As part of Restricted Services, users can read articles made available by the Service Provider, save texts to read later, and receive messages about selected articles, promotions, and major events organised by the Service Provider (newsletter). **Free Services** – all services provided by the Service Provider to Users free of charge. **Paid Digital Content (Time-Limited Access)** – certain Restricted Services provided through[ www.theuniversalist.com](https://www.theuniversalist.com/) on the terms set out in the Terms and Conditions for Paid Digital Content and Goods, to which the provisions of these Terms of Service apply in matters not regulated therein. **Account** – a set of resources and permissions within the Website's system, available to Users free of charge, that enables them to use Restricted Services. **Materials** – texts, photographs, graphics, video, multimedia, audio and audiovisual materials, excerpts of articles, and other content made available by the Service Provider on the Website as part of the services provided. **Articles** – self-contained news or opinion materials published on the Website. **III. Types and scope of Services provided** 1. On the Website, the User may in particular use the following Free Services: 1. as part of Open Services – reading selected Materials made available by the Service Provider in such a way that the User can access them at a place and time of their choosing through all web pages that make up the Website; 2. as part of Restricted Services – reading articles made available by the Service Provider, saving texts to read later, and receiving messages about selected articles, promotions, and major events organised by the Service Provider (newsletter). 2. On[ www.theuniversalist.com](https://www.theuniversalist.com/), which constitutes the Website, the User may also use Paid Digital Content, described in detail in the Terms and Conditions for Paid Digital Content and Goods. In matters not regulated by the Terms and Conditions for Paid Digital Content and Goods, the provisions of these Terms of Service apply accordingly. **III. Rules for using the Website and technical steps involved in concluding the agreement** 1. Users may: 1. use the Website without creating an account or logging in, as part of Open Services; 2. create an account using the tools available on the Website and log in using the access credentials set during account creation. 2. To use Restricted Services, the user must create an account on the Website and provide an email address. The Service Provider will send the newsletter to that email address. Legal basis: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (hereinafter: "GDPR"), and the Act of 18 July 2002 on the Provision of Electronic Services (hereinafter: "APES"). 3. A User subscribed to the newsletter may unsubscribe at any time of their choosing. 4. An account is created by completing the form available on the Website and providing the required data, namely an email address and, optionally, a login/username, and setting a password. Once the password has been set, the User will be able to log in to the Website by entering their username and password. The password should be unique and difficult to guess. 5. After creating an account on the Website in accordance with paragraph 2 above, the User will receive a welcome message (confirming that they can use the Website) with an activation link at the email address provided. 6. The User has 7 days to activate their account. If the User does not activate the account within this period, it will be suspended for a further 14 days, during which the User may unlock the account by confirming their email address. After this period, the User's account will be blocked. 7. All system emails (including the terms of agreements) will be sent to the email address provided during account creation. Providing an email address is voluntary but necessary for the proper provision of services through the Website (including sending the terms of agreements). The email address is not made public. 8. The Terms of Service, once accepted by the user, constitute an agreement between the Service Provider and the User, the subject of which is the provision by the Service Provider to the User of the electronic services specified in the Terms of Service. As a rule, the agreement is concluded when the user creates an account on the Website and simultaneously accepts the Terms of Service. **IV. Terms of service provision** 1. The Service Provider advises that it has the status of a business, and that consumer protection provisions apply to the Sales Agreement concluded in accordance with these Terms of Service. 2. The agreement for the provision of services available after creating an account on the Website is concluded between the Service Provider and the User for an indefinite period, and the User's first login to the Website requires them to read these Terms of Service. 3. The Service Provider continuously monitors the technical functioning of the Website to ensure that it operates correctly and, within the scope of the services provided, is responsible for its correct operation. 4. The Service Provider is obliged to provide its services free of defects and is liable if the service is defective, in particular due to physical or legal defects. 5. The Service Provider has implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that processing meets the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (hereinafter: GDPR). 6. The Service Provider is not responsible for the content of advertisements that do not constitute marketing communications for the Service Provider's own products and services, in particular those marked "self-promotion" or "publisher's own advertisement". Upon receiving credible information that an advertisement published on the Website is contrary to the law or to accepted standards of decency, the Service Provider will prevent access to it by removing it. Users may report abuse of this kind to contact@theuniversalist.com. 7. The User is the only person authorised to use their Account. 8. The User is obliged to comply with these Terms of Service, to use the Website in accordance with its intended purpose, and to refrain from any activity that could disrupt its proper functioning, in particular through the use of specific software or devices. 9. The User is also obliged to use the Website in a manner consistent with social and moral norms and with the law, and in particular not to supply content that infringes the rights of the Service Provider, other Users, or third parties, including their personal rights and intellectual property rights such as copyright, or any other content that incites violence or hatred, or is pornographic, vulgar, obscene, hateful, aggressive, discriminatory, or otherwise of this nature. 10. The User is also obliged to refrain from activities such as: sending or posting unsolicited commercial information (spam) on the Website, registering on the Website more than once, using other Users' accounts or sharing their own Account login credentials with others, and carrying out IT operations or any other actions aimed at obtaining other Users' passwords. 11. The User is obliged to use all Materials and Articles published on the Website solely for private use. Use of the Materials beyond the scope of this provision requires the consent of the holders of copyright and related rights; failure to obtain such consent may result in the User being held liable. Sharing the Materials with anyone other than close relatives and friends, including posting them online in a manner that makes them accessible to an unlimited audience, is prohibited. 12. If the User is found to be in breach of the provisions set out in the points above, the Service Provider is entitled, in accordance with applicable law, to remove content posted by the User and to take any action aimed at remedying the resulting damage. 13. The Service Provider may withdraw the User's right to use the Website, and may restrict their access to some or all of the Website's resources or the Services offered through it, with immediate effect, if the User breaches these Terms of Service or applicable law. 14. The User is obliged to notify the Service Provider without delay of any unauthorised use of their account and of any breach of the rules set out in these Terms of Service. **V. Technical requirements for using the Website** 1. The Website can be used provided that the User's IT system meets the following minimum technical requirements: 1. an up-to-date version of one of the following browsers supporting CSS and JavaScript: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Edge, Safari; 2. internet access; 3. the browser must accept the necessary cookies. 2. Use of Restricted Services requires an active, correctly configured email account that allows an account to be created on the Website and the newsletter to be sent. 3. The Service Provider is not responsible for the Website malfunctioning if the User's hardware and software do not meet the above technical requirements. 4. The Service Provider is not responsible for the User's overloaded internet connection or for other inter-operator connections. Nor is it responsible for disruptions to the Website's functioning caused by unauthorised interference by Users that is in no way attributable to the Service Provider. 5. The Service Provider reserves the right to temporarily suspend the Website's operation where changes and improvements to the system, maintenance work, or the handling of a failure so require. **VI. Complaints procedure** 1. Complaints concerning the functioning of the Website and the Services provided may be submitted by the User by email to bok@tygodnikpowszechny.pl or contact@theuniversalist.com. The Service Provider undertakes to investigate the circumstances of any irregularity thoroughly. 2. To allow the complaint to be handled as quickly as possible, it should include a description of the reason for the complaint and the data needed to identify the User, including their email address or login/username. 3. The Service Provider will consider the complaint and notify the User of its outcome without delay, and no later than 14 (fourteen) days from the date of receipt, to the email address provided by the User during account creation or by post to the address given in the complaint. 4. The above provisions do not preclude the User from pursuing their rights in accordance with applicable law. 5. The User may use out-of-court complaint and redress procedures. **IX. Personal data protection** 1. The controller of Users' personal data is Tygodnik Powszechny Sp. z o.o., with its registered office in Kraków, ul. Dworska 1C/LU 3-4, 30-314 Kraków. 2. Users' personal data is processed in order to provide certain services through the Website, in accordance with these Terms of Service, for as long as is necessary to provide those services, but no longer than until the User deletes their account on the Website. Providing personal data is voluntary but may be necessary for the provision of the above services. Users' personal data is also processed for the Service Provider's statistical and marketing purposes. The Service Provider will process Users' personal data in accordance with the applicable law. 3. The Service Provider will process Users' personal data in order to perform a given Service and to the extent necessary to perform it. Users' personal data will be processed for any purpose other than that indicated in the preceding sentence only where there is an appropriate legal basis for such processing; details are set out in the Privacy Policy published on the Website at [www.theuniversalist.com/privacy-policy](https://www.theuniversalist.com/privacy-policy/). 4. The basis for processing data in connection with the provision of services on the Website is Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (hereinafter: "GDPR"), and the Act of 18 July 2002 on the Provision of Electronic Services (hereinafter: "APES"): processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller, namely advertising and selling its own services. 5. Every User has the right to access their data and to have it rectified, erased, or its processing restricted, as well as the right to object and the right to data portability. Users also have the right to lodge a complaint concerning data processing with the supervisory authority, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO). Data is disclosed to third parties only within legally permitted limits. Data is not subject to profiling. 6. The Service Provider may be obliged to disclose information collected by the Website to authorised authorities on the basis of lawful requests, to the extent specified in the request. 7. In all matters relating to personal data protection, including the exercise of the User's rights set out above, the Data Protection Officer can be contacted at iod@tygodnikpowszechny.pl or contact@theuniversalist.com. **X. Final provisions** 1. The User may stop using the Services at any time by deleting the Account created on the Website and, in the case of the newsletter service, by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every newsletter message. 2. Information about the User is deleted from the database immediately after the User's cancellation has been registered, in compliance with the applicable law. 3. An Account on the Website can be deleted by sending an account deletion request to contact@theuniversalist.com or by using the feature available after logging in to the Account. 4. The Service Provider may terminate the agreement if the User breaches these Terms of Service or applicable law. 5. The Service Provider also has the right to terminate the agreement with 7 days' notice, subject to the requirements of the Civil Code and for the reasons indicated in paragraph 6 below. 6. The User's right to withdraw from the agreement for the provision of Paid Digital Content is governed by the Terms and Conditions for Paid Digital Content and Goods. 7. The Service Provider makes every effort to ensure continuous, uninterrupted access to the Website and the Services offered through it; however, the Website may be unavailable at times for reasons such as a change of hosting, Website updates, IT infrastructure failure, etc. 8. The Service Provider reserves the right to amend these Terms of Service, in particular for the following important reasons: 1. where an amendment is necessary due to a change in generally applicable law or because a provision of the Terms of Service has been deemed unlawful – to the relevant extent; 2. to fulfil an obligation arising from a final court judgment or an administrative decision; 3. for security reasons, including to prevent the service from being used in a manner contrary to the law or to these Terms of Service; 4. to introduce changes to the functioning of the Service, including those related to technical or technological progress, and covering changes to the Service Provider's systems. 9. The Terms of Service incorporating amendments made in accordance with the preceding paragraph will be made available to Website Users, who will be required to accept the new version at their first login to the Website after the amendments take effect. If the User does not accept the new version of the Terms of Service, they may terminate the agreement for use of the Website within 14 days of the amendments or at their first login after the amendments have been made. 10. Amendments to the Terms of Service made for reasons other than those indicated in paragraph 7 above, in particular the introduction of new Services, will not modify the content of agreements concluded with Users on the basis of the version of the Terms of Service in force at the time the agreement was concluded. 11. These Terms of Service are available on the Website and at the Service Provider's registered office indicated herein. 12. In matters not regulated by these Terms of Service, the relevant provisions of generally applicable law apply. 13. These amendments to the Terms of Service have been introduced as a result of the shortened Website registration process. ## Posts ### Living With Borderline: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and the Relief That Comes With Reaching Out for Help URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/living-with-borderline-symptoms-diagnosis-and-the-relief-that-comes-with-reaching-out-for-help/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T17:46:56.000Z Hurtful stereotypes, fear of rejection, and overwhelming emotions. This is what people with borderline personality disorder face every day. Monika, Ola, and Justyna tell us how they took back control of their lives. *By Anna Korytowska* --- "For me, borderline shows up mainly as very intense emotional experiences and as difficulty maintaining a stable sense of self. I often don't fully know who I am, what I want, what's actually mine, what's coming from emotion or fear, and what's coming from the specific situation I'm in. This comes with a chronic sense of emptiness, and a sense of being detached from my own identity," says 23-year-old Monika Piotrowska. ## **Borderline: When You Feel Too Much** By day, Monika works as a personal trainer and creates video content for well-known brands. On TikTok, as @piotrxwskaa, she talks about living with mental health conditions and raises broader awareness of mental health issues. Here's how she describes the emotional world of someone with borderline: "Sadness can be experienced like grief, anger like an inner rage, and joy can spill over into euphoria. Everything is very intense, whether the emotion is positive or negative." _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### The New Academic Year: A University Can No Longer Be a Diploma Factory URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-new-academic-year-a-university-can-no-longer-be-a-diploma-factory/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T20:17:36.000Z Universities have no chance of rising to the challenges of the future. So maybe they should play an entirely different role? *By Mateusz Mazzini* --- The turning point came on a particular autumn afternoon. We were, technically, still in one place — my twelve first-year journalism students and I — but beyond that shared physical space, I don't think there was really anything still connecting us. They were deeply immersed in their own worlds — digital ones, built by algorithms. My screen was the biggest in the room, but its size was inversely proportional to my ability to hold their attention. Excerpts from George Orwell's essay "Why I Write" — a founding text for understanding the role and practice of honest journalism — lay there lifeless. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Theologian Phyllis Zagano on the Diaconate of Women: There's No Theological Argument URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/theologian-phyllis-zagano-on-the-diaconate-of-women-theres-no-theological-argument/ Last updated: 2026-10-06T16:00:12.000Z Phyllis Zagano, theologian: The People of God have already decided on the diaconate of women, even though many Church leaders seem unwilling to accept it. *By Dawid Gospodarek and Phyllis Zagano* --- **Dawid Gospodarek: You've documented fifty years of the work of Vatican commissions on the diaconate of women. Is there anything in the archives we didn't know about before?** Phyllis Zagano: In complete secrecy, the commissions studied the history of the sacramental ordination of women in the Church. This is the subject of my latest book, *The Vatican and Women Deacons*. One of its appendices contains the text of an eighth-century liturgy for diaconal ordination. I published it in the original Latin. The instructions for that liturgy specified the correct pronouns to be used when ordaining a man or a woman. **The prevailing view in the Church is that the diaconate, the presbyterate, and the episcopate are one and the same sacrament of holy orders. So if the sacramental priesthood is reserved for men, the diaconate, by the same logic, should be too.** _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Sound of Leonardo da Vinci URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-sound-of-leonardo-da-vinci/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T16:00:28.000Z Sławomir Zubrzycki: From the very start, the instrument promised to be a revelation. According to Praetorius, the viola organista could play both town and country music, convey all kinds of feelings, and even imitate a drunk. *By Jacek Ślusarczyk and Sławomir Zubrzycki* --- **Jacek Ślusarczyk: At a time when *The Da Vinci Code* is such a staggering success, anything connected with Leonardo causes a sensation. How did you come across an instrument devised by da Vinci and long since forgotten?** Sławomir Zubrzycki: The first clue came through a Polish connection. A colleague of mine, Kazimierz Pyzik, a musician and music theorist with whom I've been playing contemporary music for twenty years, told me about a curious instrument built in the 1830s near Łańcut. It was called the klawiolin, or the “humpbacked piano.” It was built by Fr. Jan Jarmusiewicz — a remarkable figure: a music theorist and a member of musical societies in Lviv and Vienna. The instrument itself hasn't survived — all that remains is a brief description in the *Kurier Warszawski*. I was thrilled to read that the klawiolin had a unique property: played from a keyboard, using piano technique, it could produce the sound of bowed strings. Back in the early 1990s, though, I'd become interested in a different instrument: the clavichord. **Did you reconstruct one?** Yes — in 1992 I built a copy of Johann Silbermann's magnificent 1775 clavichord, which is now held in Nuremberg. Plenty of people, even in early-music circles, thought it was a bad idea: why build an instrument for concert performance? But once I'd built it, I discovered a certain secret of music. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### A Conversation With Olga Tokarczuk: On Her New Book, the Right to Forget, and an Epidemic of Stupidity URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/a-conversation-with-olga-tokarczuk-on-her-new-book-the-right-to-forget-and-an-epidemic-of-stupidity/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T10:08:34.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Blank Spots in Earth's History: When the Planet Nearly Froze URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/blank-spots-in-earths-history-when-the-planet-nearly-froze/ Last updated: 2026-10-01T16:46:56.000Z A vast hole yawns in our planet's geological record, spanning as much as a billion years. Perhaps this is because the entire Earth was once locked in ice — ice that put life to an extreme test and ground down thick layers of rock. *By Łukasz Kwiatek* --- The American researcher Lynn Margulis developed two seductive ideas — one earned her a place in biology textbooks, while the other captured the imagination of science-fiction writers. The first was endosymbiosis — the theory that explains how simple single-celled organisms acquired specialized organelles, including mitochondria. But that's a story for another time; for now, here's the basic idea to set the scene: the single-celled ancestor of all animals, plants, fungi, and protists engulfed another, smaller organism, yet failed to digest it. The would-be victim learned to function in its new environment and to cooperate with its host. According to Margulis's theory, now widely accepted, almost every one of our cells is home to swarms of descendants of that bacterium — happily left uneaten all those years ago — churning out energy for us. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Hermann Hesse, Literary Guru of Meditation: The Phenomenon of Siddhartha URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/hermann-hesse-literary-guru-of-meditation-the-phenomenon-of-siddhartha/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T16:00:41.000Z In the years after the Second World War, contemplation became a lifeline for many who had been traumatized by their wartime experiences and were searching for meaning in life. *By Maciej Bielawski* --- Let's now look at this story from a different perspective — from the perspective of those who lived through it. Above all, this was a time of wars, rightly called world wars, since they engulfed, directly or indirectly, every continent. The death toll from these conflicts exceeded 100 million, which means that death and suffering affected a great many people, either directly or indirectly. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### The Age of the Offended: How Self-Absorption Hurts Us URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-age-of-the-offended-how-self-absorption-hurts-us/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T17:10:32.000Z Prof. Dariusz Doliński, social psychologist: We expect other people to treat our perspective as central, the way our therapist does. We want to be understood and heard, not to understand and hear others. *By Ewa Pągowska and Dariusz Doliński* --- **Ewa Pągowska: A Polish travel company recently described on LinkedIn how its Mother's Day newsletter had prompted an unexpected response: a stream of replies such as "I grew up in an orphanage, thanks for the reminder," or "I don't have a mother, thanks for taking that into account." And it wasn't the only company to report reactions like that. What happened here?** Prof. Dariusz Doliński, social psychologist: According to the American psychologist Prof. Ellen Langer, ignoring the perspective of the person you're addressing — failing to tailor what you say and how you say it to your audience — is a basic communication error. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### A Ball at the Elevation: What to Do With a Child at Mass URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/a-ball-at-the-elevation-what-to-do-with-a-child-at-mass/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T16:10:23.000Z I took the ball away from my daughter — she answered with a shriek. I gave it back — it flew off across the nave. A moment later, the two of us fled the church. *By Zuzanna Radzik* --- Mass fell between nap time and lunch. A playground would have suited that slot better. I went to whichever church was closest, somewhat unprepared. I should have brought some quiet distractions — a sketchpad, crayons, a few nice books. Somehow I'd never needed a special survival strategy before. At our Flemish church, there's a little table, building blocks, crayons, and two swings. Here — nothing. And in the stroller, only sandbox toys, a ball, and a bubble-blowing set. None of it much good in a church. The start was lovely. My daughter climbed up onto her own chair next to me, gazed at the liturgy sheet with an impressive show of understanding, and cast sidelong glances at the older woman behind us, who responded with a smile. Perfect. Again and again. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Suspects in China, Unwelcome in Kazakhstan: Who Are the Qandas? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/suspects-in-china-unwelcome-in-kazakhstan-who-are-the-qandas/ Last updated: 2026-09-27T22:30:45.000Z They fled to Kazakhstan to escape Chinese repression. But today it's Kazakhstan that hunts them down when they speak up for relatives in China's Xinjiang. A story about people who are strangers everywhere. *By Agnieszka Pikulicka, reporting from Kazakhstan* --- Alimnur Turganbay crossed the Kazakh-Chinese border in July 2025 and then vanished without a trace. Turganbay, a truck driver, often drove this route. He clearly didn't think he was taking a risk — he had left China's Xinjiang province with his family back in 2017\. That was when he renounced his Chinese citizenship in favour of Kazakh citizenship. There was nothing unusual about that. Thousands of ethnic Kazakhs, citizens of the People's Republic of China, have for years been taking the opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland. So Turganbay went back to his country of birth only for work. This time, though, something went wrong. His family knew he couldn't have just vanished. It wasn't like him. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Robots Can Outrun Humans. But at Home, They Need Our Help URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/robots-can-outrun-humans-but-at-home-they-need-our-help/ Last updated: 2026-09-26T21:32:23.000Z A humanoid can lose to a dirty sock. Whether robots built in our own image find a place in the world will depend on how well AI copes with the mess of real life. *By Agata Kaźmierska and Wojciech Brzeziński* --- This August in Beijing, the robot Tiangong Ultra ran 100 meters in 8.86 seconds. Usain Bolt's world record, set in 2009, stands at 9.58 seconds. The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, which built Tiangong, also reported that its robots had broken human records in the 400- and 1,500-meter races. The progress is genuinely staggering. A year earlier, Tiangong had taken 21.50 seconds over the same distance. At the same event — the second-ever World Humanoid Robot Games — other robots fell over, fell apart, and had trouble stopping. They also faced tasks resembling real work: serving hotel guests, performing rescue operations, and operating simple equipment. There, however, the robots were far less impressive. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Your Loneliness Is Their Best-Selling Product URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/your-loneliness-is-their-best-selling-product/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T22:30:36.000Z Living alone has become easier and more convenient than ever. Large corporations have built an entire business model around it. *By Jakub Dymek* --- There is one thing that the internet — as it forced its way into our lives in the first decade of the 21st century — promised above all else. That we would never be alone again. People from all over the world, friends and strangers alike, within arm's reach. Uninterrupted contact with family and a live stream of information about what our old school friends were up to. The ability to join any subculture and share even the most niche interests. People willing to play — in both the innocent and the less innocent sense — 24/7, in every time zone. **The Loneliness Epidemic in a Thicket of Connections** No one can say that, in this respect, the great digital platforms, smartphones, and the surrounding thicket of screens and notifications have let us down. On the contrary: we are glued to devices from which someone is always talking to us, eager to sell us something, grab our attention, or urgently share even the most trivial piece of information. Nor can one deny that if we truly want to stay in touch with the people close to us, we have better tools to do it than ever before. And finally: there is no shortage of entertainment or opportunities to meet someone. Algorithms are happy to take the first step on our behalf. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What Are Birds Singing About? They Say More Than We Thought URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/what-are-birds-singing-about-they-say-more-than-we-thought/ Last updated: 2026-09-22T21:29:38.000Z Artificial intelligence has firmly established itself in many fields of science. It may help us uncover the rules governing birdsong — and even its meanings. *By Wojciech Mamak* --- For a long time, studying bird communication meant a lot of squinting. The human ear is too slow to catch the split-second nuances in a chaffinch's trill. The sound had to be frozen in visual form. In the mid-twentieth century, researchers used early sound spectrographs that converted bird music into visual data — a jagged graph (a spectrogram) representing the time and frequencies of a recorded sound. To find the "grammar" of birdsong, one had to determine visually where one syllable ended on the graph and the next began. To obtain a spectrogram that a human could interpret, however, a bird had to be recorded in a soundproofed laboratory chamber. But wild birds don't sing in a soundless vacuum. They sing in a raucous, chaotic theatre of rustling leaves, the patter of rain, the crack of branches, and the overlapping voices of a dozen other species. For researchers and early algorithms, the natural environment was too noisy to analyze in depth. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Punishment Without a Crime. Why Do People Confess to Crimes They Didn't Commit? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/punishment-without-a-crime-why-do-people-confess-to-crimes-they-didnt-commit/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T22:05:49.000Z Aggressive interrogation techniques sometimes lead suspects to confess to crimes they didn't commit. And they begin to believe they deserve the punishment coming to them. *By Kaja Głomb* --- A few months ago, Paul Heaton, a respected criminologist from the University of Pennsylvania, announced that he had got ChatGPT to confess to a crime the model hadn't committed. Several foreign media outlets treated the experiment as almost definitive proof of the harm caused by a widely used police interrogation technique. And while the whole attempt understandably raises eyebrows among AI specialists, psychologists are glad that Heaton has reopened the discussion around false confessions — a phenomenon that has cast a shadow over more than one police investigation. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Maní in the Yucatán: The Place Where They Tried to Burn the Memory of the Maya URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/mani-in-the-yucatan-the-place-where-they-tried-to-burn-the-memory-of-the-maya/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T17:52:56.000Z In the small town of Maní in the Yucatán, the memory of the Spanish conquest of the Maya mingles with religion, ancient rituals, and questions about the future. We visited this "magical town." *By Stanisław Strasburger, from Maní (Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico)* --- Maní: the name of this Maya town of around five thousand inhabitants, located deep in the Yucatán Peninsula, appears proudly on the main square, written in colourful letters as tall as a grown adult. As if someone might end up here by accident and only realise their whereabouts from the sign. To get here, you have to turn off the motorway at a petrol station, 80 kilometres from Mérida. Beyond it, a narrow road gives the impression of having been carved through the subtropical forest. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What Happened to the Cro-Magnons? The Tangled History of Europe's Hunter-Gatherers URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/what-happened-to-the-cro-magnons-the-tangled-history-of-europes-hunter-gatherers-2/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T16:54:07.000Z More than 50,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans began migrating into Europe and interbreeding with Neanderthals. The genes of some of them survive to this day. *By Łukasz Kwiatek* --- The name Paul Broca is most often encountered in neurobiology textbooks. This French physician made his name performing the autopsy of Louis Victor Leborgne, who had lost the ability to speak in adulthood. Leborgne could articulate only the syllable "tan" — which earned him the nickname “Tan” among hospital staff and, later, in the scientific literature — despite understanding what was said to him. After Tan's death, Broca observed extensive damage in the left hemisphere of his patient’s brain. This region of the human brain, associated with speech, is known today as Broca's area. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### The Secret Life Of Bats. Species From Three Continents Have Made Their Home In Israeli Bunkers URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-secret-life-of-bats-species-from-three-continents-have-made-their-home-in-israeli-bunkers/ Last updated: 2026-09-16T14:55:13.000Z Eran Levin, zoologist: Mouse-tailed bats would make ideal pets. They are clean, smell wonderfully of fruit, don't take up any space because they hang from the ceiling, like people, and can be trained just like dogs. *By Maria Hawranek and Eran Levin* --- ### **Maria Hawranek: I was surprised to learn that bats are so diverse and account for one-fifth of all known mammal species.** **Eran Levin:** It is the second-largest group of mammals after rodents. Their name means ‘flying mouse’ in many languages, but they have little in common with rodents. They are related to predators and ungulates, such as pigs and cows. We know over 1,500 species that live in all ecosystems except the Arctic. Traditionally, they were divided into bats that feed on fruit and those that consume animal protein, although they also eat nectar, pollen and even blood. Fruit-eating bats can weigh up to half a kilogram and have a wingspan of two metres. Insectivores include the so-called microbats. The world’s smallest bat, the Kitti's hog-nosed bat, lives in Thailand and weighs about 2 grams – it is the size of a bumblebee. ### **What species live in Israel?** Mostly carnivorous ones, with just one species that feeds on fruit: the Egyptian fruit bat. It is easy to come across it in any city. People plant lots of tropical trees that bear fruit all year round, so the Egyptian fruit bats have plenty of food. They are a bit like a plague. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Was My Grandfather a Nazi? Germans Are Opening Up Their Family Archives URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/was-my-grandfather-a-nazi-germans-are-opening-up-their-family-archives/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T09:41:03.000Z Millions of NSDAP documents have been posted online this year. Germans are increasingly looking into their ancestors’ wartime experiences. Will digital archives break through the wall of family amnesia? *By Paweł Zarychta* --- A few months ago, the acclaimed German writer Judith Hermann published her autobiographical novel entitled *Ich möchte zurückgehen in der Zeit* (I Want to Go Back in Time). The novel’s heroine, the author’s alter ego, sets off on a journey from Germany to Radom in Poland to discover and understand her grandfather’s story. Why this particular city? One of the few mementoes that the family of Judith Hermann (born in 1970) had kept of this grandfather was a photograph of a young man on a motorbike, wearing a Waffen-SS uniform. On the back side of the photograph was a short, faded inscription: ‘Radom’. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Human Cannibalism. When Did It First Appear And What Does It Tell Us About Ourselves? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/human-cannibalism-when-did-it-first-appear-and-what-does-it-tell-us-about-ourselves/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T09:04:39.000Z Why has a behaviour that is widespread in the natural world and has recurred many times throughout human history become subject to one of the strongest human taboos? *By Kasper Kalinowski* --- On 9 March 1945, at 9 am, the commander of a Japanese battalion, Major Matoba – who was later taken prisoner by the Americans – issued an order regarding the consumption of the meat of American airmen. In the surviving note, we can read, among other things: _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ian Rankin’s Scottish Tenacity. What Is the Secret Behind the Success of His Crime Novels? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/ian-rankins-scottish-tenacity-what-is-the-secret-behind-the-success-of-his-crime-novels/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T17:10:51.000Z Ian Rankin, author of the John Rebus series, has never really experienced a dip in form, even though he has sold tens of millions of books. After a break of several years, he returns with *A Heart Full of Headstones*. *By Piotr Kofta* --- The contemporary crime novel is governed by the law of the series. Of course, the first writer to put on these golden handcuffs, more than a century ago, was Arthur Conan Doyle: he wanted to write great historical novels (and indeed he did write them—nobody reads them today), but the public demanded stories and novellas about an eccentric detective so insistently that he was forced to drag Sherlock Holmes out of his grave. Naturally, the monstrous advance straight from the United States also played its part. Be that as it may, few writers today produce standalone novels within the genre, and even then they usually do so in between volumes of their current best-selling series because, as established writers, they can afford to. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### No More Kisses URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/no-more-kisses/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T13:14:48.000Z A vice-president with African-American or Asian roots, such as Kamala Harris, was unthinkable even to people whose job it is to make up stories in Hollywood. *By Piotr Tarczyński* --- No American politician aspires to the role of vice-president; no one enters politics in the hope of one day living at Number One Observatory Circle rather than in the White House. “Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice-president. And nothing was ever heard of either of them again,” Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s deputy, once said. He was quite right, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of you have probably never even heard of Thomas Marshall. Kamala Harris, who on 20 January 2021 will become the first female vice-president in the history of the United States, stands out from her predecessors not only because of her gender, but also because of her Jamaican-Indian heritage. She is only the third woman ever to be nominated for this position by one of the two major parties. Although Americans have never before had a real female vice-president, popular culture has presented them with enough fictional ones for a certain image of a female vice-president to become firmly established in the collective imagination. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Society Can Be Kind. Why Did Millennials Allow Themselves to be Convinced Otherwise? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/society-can-be-kind-why-did-millennials-allow-themselves-to-be-convinced-otherwise/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T21:47:34.000Z Agata Sikora, essayist: Millennials were promised a world without major conflicts — all they had to do was get on with their lives. The price of this peace of mind was to be withdrawal from public life and the belief that only the private sphere matters. *By Monika Ochędowska and Agata Sikora* --- ### **Monika Ochędowska: According to WHO data, more than 870,000 people die every year as a result of loneliness. It’s as if the whole of Kraków had suddenly vanished from the map. Why is this happening?** **Agata Sikora:** Because social bonds are weakening; we are living in ever-greater isolation. And why is that? To a large extent, it stems from the fact that we have deeply internalised neoliberal ideology. We see ourselves as entrepreneurs or consumers making free choices rather than as citizens or members of a community. Each of us is supposed to be responsible solely for ourselves. If we don’t succeed—if, for example, we lose our job or fall ill—we have only ourselves to blame, because surely we could have worked harder, changed careers, or eaten more healthily. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Masturbation Isn't Always a Sin. The Church Knows This, But Prefers Not To Say So URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/masturbation-isnt-always-a-sin-the-church-knows-this-but-prefers-not-to-say-so/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T17:37:40.000Z Prof. Maria Beisert: Catholic moral norms diverge from what we know about human beings. Contemporary knowledge about sexuality says something different. *By Edward Augustyn Maria Beisert* --- **Edward Augustyn:** **Did you read Katarzyna Wasiak's piece, Professor?** **Maria Beisert, sexologist:** Yes. I hear many questions there that are probably the result of the author's deep inner dialogue. One of them is a question about the Catholic moral norm that doesn't allow a believing, single person with a disability — whether a woman or a man — to satisfy their sexual need. Is that need really so important? If we consider it merely a biological need, then we could say it isn't, because you can live without satisfying it. But that's a very primitive way of thinking. So it all depends on what place we give this need in our hierarchy. **Does everyone decide that for themselves? Isn't there one model within a single hierarchy of values?** That's a question my students always ask me. My answer is: why on earth should we assume there's only one model of sexuality? Why should we force everyone into a single scheme? _This post is for subscribers only._ ### One Universe Is Not Enough URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/one-universe-is-not-enough/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T08:43:27.000Z FR PROF. MICHAŁ HELLER, cosmologist: The mathematics underlying multiverse theory can enchant. But some people find these concepts infuriating. *By Fr Michał Heller, Łukasz Kwiatek, Tomasz Miller* --- **ŁUKASZ KWIATEK, TOMASZ MILLER:** How did it come about that science started talking about the "multiverse" — the existence of universes other than our own? **MICHAŁ HELLER:** We need to go back to the 1970s. At that time, a very live problem in cosmology was the question of the initial singularity — whether it existed or not. The prevailing opinion was that the singularity was merely a mathematical artefact, with no physical phenomenon corresponding to it. **Let's explain right away what the initial singularity is.** Its popular name is the Big Bang. It refers to the universe beginning, theoretically, from a single point of enormous density and energy, and then expanding — which might resemble an explosion. The mathematical counterpart of this is a singularity, a state in which certain physical quantities tend toward infinity. Besides the Big Bang, singularities also appear elsewhere in cosmology — inside black holes. When a star collapses under its own gravity to form a black hole, certain quantities, such as density or spacetime curvature, also tend toward infinity. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sweet Killer URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/sweet-killer/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T10:08:39.000Z They don't catch thieves, don't detect drugs, and their positive impact on our health is questionable. So what exactly are cats for? *By Zuza Lamża* --- At the end of 2019, sad news spread across the media: after a long struggle with a bone disease, Lil Bub had passed away. Newsrooms around the world paid posthumous tribute to her, from the New York Times to Polish gossip sites. Everywhere, people recalled her extraordinary courage, her big heart, her charity work, and her never-ending optimism. On the one hand, none of this is surprising: after all, a star of the first magnitude had died — the host of a talk show that welcomed Whoopi Goldberg and Michelle Obama, the heroine of an award-winning biographical film, whose fans lined up for miles to get her autograph. On the other hand, only recently, tabby kittens like her, struggling with the same congenital anatomical problems, had little chance of survival. Let alone a career. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Ancient Board Games and Modern Archaeology: What Emperors and Slaves Played URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/ancient-board-games-and-modern-archaeology-what-emperors-and-slaves-played/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T17:48:09.000Z In antiquity, board games enjoyed enormous popularity across every culture and social class. To understand why, archaeology had to break free of a 19th-century vision of humanity — and turn to digital methods. *By Kamil Kopij* --- You buy a board game. You open the box, tip out dozens of tokens and pieces, unfold the monumental board... and suddenly realise there are no instructions inside. What's more, everyone who ever played this game has been dead for at least two thousand years. Nightmare, isn't it? For decades, historians and archaeologists faced exactly this problem. Wandering ancient sites, they practically tripped over stone blocks full of regular hollows, lines and geometric grids — yet knew nothing about the rules of the games played on them. That is, if it even occurred to them to interpret these artefacts as game boards at all. For a long time, in fact, scholars suffered from a peculiar blindness. It probably stemmed from the fact that modern archaeology was born in the 19th century, in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution. The researchers of that era were children of an age that placed particular weight on labour and utility. To them, ancient people had to be deadly serious: either raising monumental temples to the gods, waging bloody wars, or coldly calculating economic gain. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Microaggressions URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/microaggressions/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T11:32:26.000Z American universities have been taken over by a "safety culture." Psychologists disagree on what its long-term consequences will be. *By Jarek Gryz* --- A woman and a man walk into a car dealership intending to buy a car. Though the car is for her, the salesman addresses himself almost exclusively to him from the very start. A little boy is walking with his father in the park. Coming toward them is a pair of men holding A woman is riding a train when a Black man sits down beside her. She shifts her purse to her other side. Each of us has witnessed or experienced similar situations. Stereotypes organize our lives, and no one can fully free themselves from them. We manifest them often unconsciously, through gestures, words, or facial expressions. Perhaps none of the people in these stories would consider themselves a misogynist, a homophobe, or a racist, and all of them would claim that there was no bad intent behind their behavior. But that doesn't change the fact that each of the people on the receiving end of their actions might have felt offended. This is precisely what a microaggression is. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### It's Good to Be a Vertebrate URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/good-to-be-a-vertebrate/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T18:52:42.000Z The adaptive immune system is one of the most complex products of evolution. Many of its mechanisms remain poorly understood. *By Magdalena Kulma* --- Although the COVID-19 pandemic has somewhat skewed our perspective, it remains a fact that hundreds of years of scientific and medical progress have taught us how to protect ourselves very effectively against microorganisms. We've developed hygiene practices that have limited the spread and transmission of disease-causing germs. We've also created drugs and vaccines. Thanks to all this, we're no longer exposed, to anywhere near the degree our ancestors were, to diseases that once decimated humanity, such as plague, cholera, or the Spanish flu. But all these cultural inventions are merely an extension of what biological evolution has been doing for us for hundreds of millions of years. No form of support in the fight against pathogens would produce any positive effect at all were it not for the presence and functioning of our immune system. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Case of Lewis Carroll URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-case-of-lewis-carroll/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T09:20:03.000Z How should we interpret art that provoked no controversy at the time it was made, but rather fit comfortably within the prevailing conventions? Can it be charged today with the gravest of offenses? *By Urszula Pieczek and Maciej Topolski* --- On a warm day, July 4, 1862, thirty-year-old Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – amateur photographer and lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford – spent the afternoon in a boat on the river Isis, also known as the Thames, with ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters, the elder Lorina and the younger Edith. They had picnic baskets with them, and sang songs. At one point the girls organized a contest, the winner of which was to sit beside the "great mathematician." Afterward they asked him to tell them a story to pass the time. That was when Dodgson began spinning the tale of Alice and her adventures. Robinson Duckworth, a friend of the young lecturer's who accompanied them, recalled that "golden afternoon" this way: "I rowed stroke and he rowed bow... but the story was actually composed and spoken over my shoulder for the benefit of Alice Liddell, who was acting as 'cox' of our gig... I remember turning round and saying, 'Dodgson, is this an extempore romance of yours?' And he replied, 'Yes, I'm inventing as we go along.'" _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Objects and Living Beings URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/objects-and-living-beings/ Last updated: 2026-08-21T21:38:05.000Z Why, in today's world of endless possibilities, would anyone still insist on being a sculptor? *By Piotr Kosiewski* --- The exhibition "Sculpture in Search of Place" at Warsaw's Zachęta has taken over the gallery's main exhibition halls, but also the staircase, and even the building's façade. The list of more than a hundred artists is an impressive one. It opens with Xawery Dunikowski. As Zbigniew Libera points out, he was "the first artist in Poland to make an art out of sculpture." Before him – in Dunikowski's own words – "it was as if there were nothing." In his works from the first decades of the 20th century, he posed the question of sculpture's place and of the boundaries imposed upon it. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Dark Side of the World URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-dark-side-of-the-world/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T18:03:59.000Z Astronomical observations suggest that the matter we know makes up only a few percent of everything that exists. *By Sebastian J. Szybka* --- Science reveals that reality has many layers, some of which are not directly accessible to our senses. Physicists, reaching into one of these layers – the quantum world of particles – have discovered that it operates under laws quite different from "our" own. For instance, the properties of quantum objects seem not to be uniquely determined until a measurement is made. It's as if our socks could be both black and red at the same time, with their color only settling, with a certain probability, the moment someone looks at them. Neutrinos are among the residents of this world. Unimaginably large numbers of these particles pass through our bodies every second, yet it took several decades of developing sophisticated detection techniques to confirm their existence. That was finally achieved in 1956, by observing the behavior of other, already-known particles – protons. In everyday life it's very easy to forget neutrinos exist, because although they're everywhere (huge quantities are produced, for instance, in the Sun), they interact only weakly with the particles that make up everything we're familiar with. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Encyclical on Artificial Intelligence: How to Disarm AI URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/the-encyclical-on-artificial-intelligence-how-to-disarm-ai/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T16:45:26.000Z The Pope says "I call," asking where the technological race is heading as it pushes ethics aside. *By Sylwia Czubkowska* --- Project Stargate – the massive, $500 billion investment in data centers, computing power, and supercomputers – was announced by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. Its name naturally echoes the science fiction films and series in which scientists and the military join forces, using a stargate to unlock humanity's secrets and battle hostile alien races. Colossus is the supercomputer built in 2024 by Elon Musk's xAI to train Grok. The name harks back to the powerful supercomputer from a 1970 film, built to defend the United States. In the film, the computer achieves self-awareness, links up with its Soviet counterpart, and seizes control of the world, judging humanity too dangerous to be trusted to govern itself. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### If Humans Descended From Apes, Then Where Did Apes Come From? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/if-humans-descended-from-apes-then-where-did-apes-come-from/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T13:37:23.000Z The extinction of the dinosaurs, the emergence of pollinating insects and fruit trees, intercontinental journeys – a great many things had to happen in the world before the apes could be born from which humans would evolve. *By Łukasz Kwiatek* --- Under almost every article and video about human evolution, you can find comments from people who doubt whether something like evolution even exists. One question comes up again and again: if humans descended from apes, then where did apes come from? Not everyone who asks probably expects an answer, but the question itself is a fair one. Our knowledge of the origins of our simian ancestors is still full of gaps, but from the pieces of the puzzle gathered so far, a far-from-obvious story emerges. It has more twists, turns, and varied threads than the story of human origins – the one about the ape that came down from the tree, made its way onto the savanna, and started walking on two legs. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### How to Part Ways the Catholic Way? The Full Truth About "Church Divorces" URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/how-to-part-ways-the-catholic-way-the-full-truth-about-church-divorces/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T10:58:21.000Z Church courts in Poland are unpredictable, and their rulings inconsistent. As a result, some people receive a positive verdict almost immediately, while others wait years or walk away with nothing, feeling wronged. *By Ignacy Dudkiewicz* --- "It seemed like my case was straightforward. There were documents, witnesses, a church lawyer said: the marriage was contracted invalidly — and in the end the court ruled the same way. I just don't understand why it took nearly seven years and involved so much paperwork," says Maria. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Ozempic Changes Lives. But Not Everyone's in the Same Way URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/ozempic-changes-lives-but-not-everyones-in-the-same-way/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T18:03:57.000Z GLP-1 analogues have transformed the treatment of obesity and the lives of many patients. But the popularity of Ozempic and Mounjaro also reveals something uncomfortable about a new ideal of thinness, class inequality, and a market that sells hope at a high price. *By Michał Kuźmiński* --- "Everyone looks so great! Looking around this room, I can't help but wonder: Is Ozempic right for me?" joked actor and host Jimmy Kimmel at the opening of the 95th Academy Awards. Comedian Nikki Glaser welcomed guests to the 82nd Golden Globes as "Ozempic's biggest night." As the *Wall Street Journal* reported in 2022, the innovative diabetes drug had become "Hollywood's drug of choice," coveted by elites eager to shed a few kilos. Among those speaking publicly about using this new generation of drugs were Kathy Bates, Rebel Wilson, Tori Spelling, Stephen Fry, and Elon Musk. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Patti Smith in the Vatican Pavilion. The Church and Art at the Venice Biennale URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/patti-smith-in-the-vatican-pavilion-the-church-and-art-at-the-venice-biennale/ Last updated: 2026-08-10T21:36:56.000Z Patti Smith singing in a church at the Venice Biennale? For Fr. Antonio Spadaro, this is not a provocation but a "sound prayer." And a sign that the Church needs art that disturbs. *By Edward Augustyn, from Venice and Fr. Antonio Spadaro* --- **Edward Augustyn: Patti Smith singing in a church at the opening of the Vatican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. A bold idea.** **Fr. Antonio Spadaro:** Patti is an artist who has always united poetry, music, and transcendence. Her presence was therefore neither accidental nor decorative. Her entire artistic journey is a spiritual one, even if marked by provocations and rebellion. Her performance — kept to a small number of people, in order to preserve its contemplative, concentrated character — was not a concert but a "sound prayer." _This post is for subscribers only._ ### First of Its Kind: The Fruit Fly Connectome Has Been Mapped URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/first-of-its-kind-the-fruit-fly-connectome-has-been-mapped/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T17:58:14.000Z Members of the scientific consortium known as FlyWire first scanned fruit fly brains in detail using an electron microscope, then identified 140,000 neurons and 54.5 million connections between them, and provided their full description. *By Łukasz Kwiatek* --- More than 120 years have passed since the pioneering work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who painstakingly stained dissected neurons using complex techniques and discovered that they do not constitute a uniform, disordered mass but an extraordinarily complex network. And yet we are constantly reminded that neuroscience is a very young field, and that every important discovery about the brain raises a host of new questions — and, above all, reveals the scale of our ignorance. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Surrealism Keeps Coming Back to Us URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/why-surrealism-keeps-coming-back-to-us/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:29:19.000Z Surrealism is a revolt against the coldness of geometry, dead abstraction, the prose of protocol sentences. How does one create one's own world against them? *By Eliza Kącka* --- In the catering section of the SuperSam in Warsaw — barbarically demolished twenty years ago — a colossal panel spread above the bar. It measured, to an untrained eye, something like three meters by twenty-five. The work, as I was told, of Hanna and Gabriel Rechowicz, it shamelessly embraced the style of the American painter Yves Tanguy. Shamelessly, because in 1962 such a visual installation presents itself as a subcutaneous — or rather: pulsating beneath the plaster — rebellion. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Let's Talk About Loneliness. How to Face It? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/lets-talk-about-loneliness-how-to-face-it/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T11:57:33.000Z It costs billions, makes millions unhappy, and kills thousands. The United States and some European countries have recognized it as an epidemic. Poland has yet to join them. *By Przemysław Wilczyński* --- Student A: "It comes up when I'm at university and don't know people (...); when I feel unnoticed, ignored (...); when I'm let down by people I trusted, when I remember the people I've lost." _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sir Roger Penrose: "The Name "Big Bang" Was a Joke." URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/sir-roger-penrose-the-name-big-bang-was-a-joke/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:29:55.000Z Sir Roger Penrose on his path to understanding reality. An interview with the physicist who described the universe like no one before him*.* *By Marta Emilia Bielińska* --- **Marta Bielińska: Some people have favorite numbers, but a Nobel Prize-winning physicist probably needs to be asked something more abstract. Do you have a favorite symmetry group, for example?** **Sir Roger Penrose:** I hadn't thought of it that way before, but there is a symmetry group I'd like to mention — known as SL(2,C). I don't want to go into technical details, but I find it beautiful in a mathematical sense. There is something even more important, though — its connection to physics, because it appears in the theory of relativity and concerns spacetime. That is what is decisive for me. For mathematicians, there are probably far more interesting structures. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Archaeology as a Political Tool: Turkey and Israel Are Fighting Over Antiquities URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/archaeology-as-a-political-tool-turkey-and-israel-are-fighting-over-antiquities/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T11:46:26.000Z Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Benjamin Netanyahu are also competing over the material traces of the past. Excavations are a battlefield for competing visions of the past and claims to the land. *By Aleksander R. Michalak* --- The president did not mince his words. Speaking in August 2025 at an archaeological symposium in Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey is a world leader — on two fronts: both in the scale of its archaeological discoveries and in recovering what it has lost. Since 2002, as many as 13,000 artefacts have been returned to the country — those removed from its territory during the Ottoman era. Erdoğan also announced that Turkish experts would "carefully examine every centimetre of the country and every place where Turks have set foot," documenting the nation's heritage. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Trust and Recognition. What Their Crisis Does to Us and to Society URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/trust-and-recognition-what-their-crisis-does-to-us-and-to-society/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T08:30:55.000Z Vigilance and scepticism are necessary — they protect against manipulation. But when they become our default response to the world, we lose our sense of security. What can be done about it? *By Cveta Dimitrova* --- A woman wakes up on a conference table. We don't know who she is, what this place is. She doesn't know either. From a speaker come the questions: "Who are you?", "What is your name?" The only thing she knows about herself is which state she was born in. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Pete Hegseth Promotes a Brutal Warrior Ethos. The Middle Ages Teach Us This Is a Mistake URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/pete-hegseth-promotes-a-brutal-warrior-ethos-the-middle-ages-teach-us-this-is-a-mistake/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:30:57.000Z Does the cult of warrior spirit strengthen an army, or does it lead to strategic chaos? A martial arts historian reads the ideas of the US Secretary of Defense through a medieval lens. *By Maciej Talaga* --- The United States entered its confrontation with Iran with an overwhelming technological advantage, the world's most expensive military, and a Secretary of Defense who, in a programmatic speech, promised his generals they would "crush" every enemy with "violence, precision, and ferocity." The actual result, at least in military terms, has proved less impressive. Mistakes were made that military scholars will likely be analyzing for many years. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### In Defense of Tribalism. Three Evolutionary Instincts That Taught Us to Cooperate URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/in-defense-of-tribalism-three-evolutionary-instincts-that-taught-us-to-cooperate/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:31:08.000Z Michael Morris, cultural psychologist: The rise of tribes expanded our circle of trust. Today we can trust a complete stranger if they speak our language, practice the same profession, or share the same ideals. *By Kasper Kalinowski and Michael Morris* --- **Kasper Kalinowski: Aristotle described man as a "social animal," but you argue that a better term is "tribal animal." What is the difference?** **Michael Morris:** There are many social animals, and by objective measures we are not the most social. Insect colonies put us to shame in terms of collective care for offspring and cooperation in close proximity. We cannot therefore claim to be "the one" social animal. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### When Someone Close to Me Is Suffering Mentally. How to Care for Them While Also Caring for Yourself URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/when-someone-close-to-me-is-suffering-mentally-how-to-care-for-them-while-also-caring-for-yourself/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:31:24.000Z A diagnosis of mental illness means the whole family must face change. What difficulties and emotions do the loved ones of a mentally ill person encounter? And how can they help, while also remembering their own wellbeing? *By Anna Goc* --- "My name is Hania, and this is my story. At the age of 13, I developed depression. I would cut and hit myself to feel less of the pain. Then came the fear and the exhaustion. Panic attacks until I lost consciousness. A suspected bipolar diagnosis. On World Depression Day I ask: don't be indifferent, don't be alone." _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Did Great Civilizations Fall? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/why-did-great-civilizations-fall/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T09:03:56.000Z How did it come about that the civilizations created by the Romans, the Maya, and the inhabitants of Easter Island came to an end? It is easy to conclude that there is no hypothesis too absurd for some scholar to have put forward. *By Kamil Kopij* --- At the end of September 2021, the prestigious scientific journal Scientific Reports published an article that fired the imagination of people around the world. A group of American researchers argued that the town of Tell el-Hammam, located in present day Jordan, had been destroyed 3,500 years ago by an asteroid. They also identified the site with Sodom, thereby confirming the biblical narrative. The authors were soon, however, accused of manipulating illustrations, offering incorrect interpretations, and tailoring their conclusions to fit a preconceived idea. Today the article is regarded as a scientific botch job and a stain on the journal's reputation. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Weavers of History: A British Historian on the Place of Women in the Ancient World URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/weavers-of-history-a-british-historian-on-the-place-of-women-in-the-ancient-world/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T19:18:48.000Z Daisy Dunn, scholar of the ancient world: On Roman tombstones, women were praised for their virtue and their spinning of wool. Yet without poets, priestesses, prophetesses, and rebels, the history of antiquity could not truly be told. *By Kasper Kalinowski and Daisy Dunn* --- **Kasper Kalinowski: What irritates you most about popular representations of women in antiquity?** **Daisy Dunn:** Oversimplifications, which are especially glaring in films. Women are usually portrayed in one of two ways. Either they are shown as incapable of anything beyond cleaning and weaving — entirely uninteresting and passive — or as manipulators, schemers, and murderesses plotting to kill their own husbands. We almost never see anything in between. And how many women in the modern world can be described as "entirely evil" or "saintly"? Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes. It must have been the same in antiquity. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### Lucid Dreaming as a Second Life. Can We Control Our Dreams? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/lucid-dreaming-as-a-second-life-can-we-control-our-dreams/ Last updated: 2026-09-17T13:04:31.000Z One in every two people in the world will experience at least one spontaneous lucid dream in their lifetime, but a great many people try to train themselves how to induce lucid dreams on demand. What do psychology and neuroscience tell us about lucid dreaming? *By Piotr Szymanek* --- It is 12 April 1975\. The sun rises lazily over the city of Hull, UK. The psychologist Keith Hearne is nearing the end of a long night in the laboratory. Out of nowhere, the machine he has been monitoring for over an hour goes haywire. Fifty years later, Hearne will say in an interview: "I felt as though I had received a signal from outer space." That spring day marked a breakthrough: for the first time in history, communication had been established with a person while they were asleep. ### When and How We Dream Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Aristotle who observed that people sometimes realize they are dreaming while still in a dream. This phenomenon has come to be known as lucid dreaming. Long before Hearne, many thinkers reflected on what these dreams are, where they come from, and what potential they hold. They observed their own lucid dreams, attempting various methods of inducing these unusual states of consciousness. They had little choice: lucid dreams remained accessible only through the dreamer's subjective experience and impossible to measure objectively. For the fledgling psychologists of the early twentieth century, oneironauts — as "professional" dreamers capable of inducing lucid dreams are called — appeared no different from any other sleeper, despite the smoldering ember of consciousness within. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### People on the Spectrum Often Mask Their Neurodivergence. What Price Do They Pay? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/people-on-the-spectrum-often-mask-their-neurodivergence-what-price-do-they-pay/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:31:48.000Z Masking is not an occasionally used tool but a constant effort aimed at surviving in a world created by and for the neurotypical majority. *By Jędrzej Grodniewicz and Anna Urbanek* --- Imagine you receive an invitation to an exclusive party hosted by a somewhat eccentric circle. You rarely attend such events and are not entirely sure how to behave. You read a little about the etiquette in force there, but the handbook is extensive and confusing. Stress washes over you. A great deal depends on the people you will meet here — among them your teachers, doctors, future employers. You do everything you can not to stand out too much. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### "I'm Staying in the Church." Who Are the Young Catholics? URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/im-staying-in-the-church-who-are-the-young-catholics/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T08:46:43.000Z Media attention focuses on the crisis in the Church and accelerating secularization. But many young people still find their spiritual home in Catholicism. *By Piotr Sikora* --- "Faith is, above all, a decision. My conscious faith began with that decision. Faith is trust arising from experiencing God in everyday life. To believe is to open one's heart to His presence and learn to find Him in the ordinary. For me, faith means seeking God in every single second," says twenty-five-year-old Weronika from Łódź, founder of the popular Instagram profiles @zbogiemsprawa and @kato\_single. ### A Conscious Minority Weronika's profiles have tens of thousands of followers. Statistically speaking, however, Weronika is in the minority within her generation. As sociological research indicates, the secularization of Polish society accelerated sharply during the pandemic. The trend was particularly pronounced among young Poles. In 2021, the proportion of 18- to 25-year olds who did not attend church at all was twice as high as in 2015\. Today it is one in every three young people, while only one in four attends services regularly. Among people in their thirties, the proportion of believers is only slightly higher. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Animals Can Learn What Death Is. But They Will Understand It Differently From Us URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/animals-can-learn-what-death-is-but-they-will-understand-it-differently-from-us/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:32:23.000Z Philosopher Susana Monsó: Many of us have watched a cat torment a mouse without killing it. The killing bite is distinctly different from that cruel play. This is evidence of cognitive control over behavior. The cat chooses when it kills. *By Maria Hawranek and Susana Monsó* --- **Maria Hawranek:** **Is the view that animals possess minds still controversial among researchers?** Susana Monsó: Among comparative psychologists, no — animal minds are the subject of our research, and we agree that animals have beliefs and desires that guide their behavior. Controversy is more likely to arise around the question of whether they have consciousness. In the history of philosophy, however, which takes a very intellectualist view of what it means to have beliefs or desires, there have been many who consistently defended the idea that animals have no minds at all. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Chess Without a King: Why Magnus Carlsen Grew Tired of Competition URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/chess-without-a-king-why-magnus-carlsen-grew-tired-of-competition/ Last updated: 2026-09-23T21:38:00.000Z The whole chess world is begging Carlsen, the maverick and perhaps the most inspiring athlete of our time: "King Magnus, come back!" *By Rafał Stec* --- He hasn't really left at all. The fascinating paradox is that the Norwegian champion abdicated, yet retained his power — and in many respects has even grown more powerful. In July 2022, he shook the chess world by announcing he would not defend the world title he had held for a decade, but he didn't withdraw from competition entirely. He wasn't crushed by depression, as so many other famous athletes have been, nor did he feel burned out from constant pressure or fatigued by a discipline he had practiced since early childhood — as tennis star Ashleigh Barty was, when she hung up her racket for good while leading the WTA rankings, shortly after winning the Australian Open. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._ ### When Will You Fall in Love with a Chatbot? Artificial Intelligence Is Getting Better at Impersonating the Human Soul URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/when-will-you-fall-in-love-with-a-chatbot-artificial-intelligence-is-getting-better-at-impersonating-the-human-soul/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T07:34:41.000Z We stand on the threshold of another AI revolution. Growing lonelier, we reach for the illusion of closeness in the digital world. *By Agata Kaźmierska* --- At first, the only noticeable change was that 14-year-old Sewell lost interest in things that had previously excited him, like Formula 1 racing or playing online with friends. After coming home he'd shut himself in his room, and his parents assumed it was simply adolescence. But when he started getting into trouble at school and refused to talk about it, they sent him to a psychotherapist. Sewell didn't want to discuss his problems with him either — he already had someone else to confide in. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Small Towels. What My Mother's Illness and Death Taught Me URL: https://www.theuniversalist.com/small-towels-what-my-mothers-illness-and-death-taught-me/ Last updated: 2026-09-20T20:22:38.000Z Her faith was probably a bit like smoking: she'd have just one cigarette in the evening, standing under the awning and savoring that moment of relaxation before sleep — which I'm not sure ever actually came. *By Bartosz Sadulski* --- Two things leave me no peace and never will: tinnitus and grief after my mother's death. Both are hard to get used to. Probably because, as Joan Didion wrote: "Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be." I don't know what I expected, but I desperately didn't want to go through it. ### **Recurring grief after a mother's death** This year will mark fourteen years since her death — soon I'll be able to watch Czterdziestolatek ("The Forty-Year-Old") and say it's a film about me. The unprocessed grief still returns in waves. I started writing this piece in January, quite suddenly in the middle of the night, because I realized what I'd been doing: every time before I leave the house, I nervously peer through the kitchen window, hiding behind a large leaf of a monstera plant perched precariously on the fridge, to check whether my neighbor is smoking a cigarette. _This post is for subscribers on the The Universalist tier only._