october 2015

Imagine it’s 2026. A man shows up in an emergency room, wheezing. He’s got pneumonia, and it’s hitting him hard. He tells one of the doctors that he had COVID-19 a few years earlier, in late 2021. He had refused to get vaccinated, and ended up contracting the coronavirus months after most people got their shots. Why did he refuse? Something about politics, or pushing back on government control, or a post he saw on Facebook. He doesn’t really remember. His lungs do, though: By the end of the day, he’s on a ventilator.

You’ll pay for that man’s decisions. So will I. We all will—in insurance premiums, if he has a plan with your provider, or in tax dollars, if the emergency room he goes to is in a public hospital. The vaccine refusers could cost us billions. Maybe more, over the next few decades, with all the complications they could develop. And we can’t do anything about it except hope that more people get their shots than those who say they will right now.

In 2008, the New Yorker writer Claire Hoffman asked Prince what he thought of social issues like gay marriage and abortion. Reported Hoffman of his response: “Prince tapped his Bible and said, ‘God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’”

This exchange caused one of the last great controversies in Prince’s career. The “homophobe” label attached itself to him, accompanied by the bitter shock of many fans. “The irony, it burns,” wrote the blogger Joe Jervis. “The pop star who made his name on his effete, androgynous ‘Is he GAY or not?’ persona—now he hates us.” Representatives for Prince would tell Perez Hilton that the New Yorker misquoted him: “What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment,” Hilton wrote. But the years after that saw Prince actively avoid talking about gay rights, and some writers saw subtle homophobia in a few of his later lyrics and actions.

“How to Build a Life” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.

Arthur C. Brooks will discuss the science of happiness live at 11 a.m. ET on May 20. Register for In Pursuit of Happiness here.

Think for a minute about your friendships. Some friends you would text with any silly thought; others you only call a couple of times a year. Some are people you look up to; others you like, but do not especially admire. You fit into these categories for others as well—maybe you are helpful to one person, and a confidant to another. We get different things out of different relationships, which is all well and good.

There is one type of friend almost everyone has: the buddy who can help you get ahead in life, the friend from whom you need or want something. You don’t necessarily use this person—the benefit might be mutual—but the friendship’s core benefit is more than camaraderie.

Dear Therapist,

I’ve been married for 25 years to a man who went from having many sexual issues and hang-ups to being impotent, and I am now in a totally sexless marriage. He can’t be helped, and frankly, I am not attracted to him at all anyway. We’re good partners and parents, and our family works well.

At the suggestion of a therapist, I sought out and found a wonderful man in a similar situation. We became friends and then lovers. The sex is the best of my entire life. It has given me so much joy and made me feel alive again. It’s also one of the best relationships I’ve ever had. No games, lots of laughs and connecting on many levels. The whole affair has made me a happier person and less resentful of my husband and marriage.  

The Trump presidency may be over, but the Trump era has only just begun—at least when it comes to influence over the nation’s courts. Measured solely by the number of judges he appointed, Donald Trump’s impact is staggering: 234 judges, including 54 powerful appellate judges, almost one out of every three. By comparison, President Barack Obama appointed 172 judges (30 of them appellate) in his first term, while George W. Bush managed 204 (35 appellate). But Trump will have an even greater influence than this measurement suggests. That is because his judges won’t reach the apogee of their power until the early 2040s, when Trump-appointed chief judges are on track to simultaneously sit atop nearly every appeals court in the country.