Top Stories
Stories in Humans that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Paper Opus
Streaks of grey across a page, zigzagging here and there like the winding pass of a cliffside road. A random assortment of lines, each perfectly imperfect, curve and weave in and out of each other. Step back, and the basic form of a face appears, rendered in the faint traces of graphite. It is the bare bones, like a skeleton, waiting to be fleshed out. An array of drawing pens lay out on my lap, their permanence looming over me like a rain cloud hangs over a forest desperate for water. With a gentle sigh, I select one, raise it to the paper, and begin.
Robin LaurinecPublished 2 months ago in Humans- Second Place in Create Your Happiness Challenge
Pocket Treasures
My hands stay busy so my mind can focus. My laptop is set up on a cookie cooling rack, elevated above the surface of the desk which is covered in papers. My notebook is off to the side with bulleted notes capturing the highlights and questions that still remain after eight hours of back to back zoom meetings. The kids have finished another day of distance learning and escaped outside. I need to clean the remnants of lunch from the kitchen counter so I can start dinner. I scoot my chair across the floor which is covered in paper scrap confetti. Every surface is deconstructed paper piles.
Adelheid WestPublished 2 months ago in Humans 
Oh, for the love of Scissors!
I couldn’t have imagined that this Challenge would bring me so much joy! As I’m sure most people did, I started by looking around our home to see how many pairs of scissors we own and discovered that we have rather an abundance! Interestingly, almost every pair of scissors we own are made by Fiskars which seems to have become a household name in our home, even without intentionally making it so.
Monique GreenPublished 2 months ago in Humans
The Creation of Matter, or What Do You Do When The World Stops Spinning?
What I’d really like to be is everything. Is there an app for that? The older I get, the more I come to realize that the thing I’m really struggling with— underneath it all, hidden behind the daily desperation of “when will I finally become the person I want to be?” and the sometimes-hourly spiral sessions over my too-big feelings and too-small life— is that what I want cannot be quantified. No matter how hard I try or how intensely I think about it or how many different ways I find to write about it, I can’t seem to crack the code on balancing my desire for small, comfortable, everyday joys and my desperation for big, lofty, bucket-list happiness.
Tina WargoPublished 2 months ago in HumansHow to Be an Introvert at the Mall
Crowds are the worst. I generally hate shopping. Ten minutes inside a florescent-lit store will send me into a spiral of anxious foot-tapping and watch-checking until I can finally be free. Even before the pandemic, I avoided shopping malls like the proverbial plague.
Sarahmarie Specht-BirdPublished 2 months ago in Humans
Mrs. Wu and the special scissors
I was fortunate to have grown up on a suburban block with about 15 other kids all around the same ages. We would all ride our bikes until the sun set, play S.P.U.D. on the street and hang out at the local pool. Of course, the older kids got to hang out in the cool, teenage section, while us younger ones were relegated to always being near our parent’s view.
Patti HodderPublished 2 months ago in HumansI'm An Autistic, Quirky, Cute and Wannabe Polyglot
Introduction Since I was fourteen years old, I had one goal to work on for the rest of my life: to be a polyglot. I was always intrigued by various languages and how they sounded and were written. I grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood in which many of its residents spoke languages such as Tamil, Tagalog, Mandarin, Korean, Turkish and many others. Once I started devoting my time into studying and mastering the Russian language, I started exploring other languages like German, Arabic, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, etc. There were some languages that I chose not to study, mainly because I was less interested in them. But I hope to get back into these languages at one point.
Talia DevoraPublished 2 months ago in Humans
Anxious Attachment Style: How to Stop Letting Toxic People Ruin Your Life
Many of us have developed unhealthy attachment styles as kids. As adults, we are unconsciously still driven towards relationships that mimic the toxicity and pain we experienced in our childhood. We keep on struggling as we grow older and seem to always end up with the wrong people close to us — until we face some hard truths and learn our lessons.
Janette HoeferPublished 2 months ago in HumansThe four friends
Friends are an important part of our life, whether we are young, adolescent, adult or old. A life without friends is a life without fun, without happiness. And so finding right friends is very important. Normally we have fun-time friends- friends with whom we share fun times. We go to movies with them, we party out with them. We gossip with them, we discuss our crushes, our hates, our loves with them.
Energyia SinghPublished 2 months ago in Humans
The Lady Killer
From experience, I can tell you: conceit is a demon. After four years of promiscuity and success in the military, I created this grandiose image of myself. I was dubbed the “Lady Killer” from friends and peers. Never intimidated by women, I often led them from a bar to my place with ease. Comically enough, this confidence would hold no bearing when I pulled the wrong move at the wrong time, leaving me too embarrassed to speak.
Max AvellanedaPublished 3 months ago in Humans
How to Handle the Post-Pandemic Social Fatigue
by: E.B. Johnson As some of us struggle to find a sense of normalcy in this strange unknown world, many are dealing with a phenomenon they never confronted before. For the first time, millions are finding themselves stuck in a wave of social anxiety and fatigue. The relationships that once brought them joy are now bringing tension and exhaustion that’s hard to shake. We’ve all been drained over the last year, and our social skills have been drained too. If we want to get back on track to connection and fulfillment, then we have to confront our social fatigue honestly for what it is.
E.B. JohnsonPublished 3 months ago in HumansWriting On Vocal Helped Me Reengage With The World
I've had quite a few low days lately. I tend to joke around about my mental health a lot in my writing, mentioning my frequent bouts of self-doubt and using humour as a way to deflect past trauma, but in truth— life is a battle. Yes, writing out my woes has always eased some of the anxiety I feel daily, but as with all things, eventually, simply writing it out doesn't cut it any longer.
Lindsay Rae BrownPublished 3 months ago in Humans
