The Human Digest Series

I have been privileged to meet so many different people across this earth, different languages, different experiences, different lives. And yet, the more I travel, the less I notice the differences. When I return home and am asked what the highlight was, my answer is always the same: the people. Human beings, capable and complex, kind and compelling. 

I grew up in a world of radical political shifts, where human rights seemed to swing back and forth in a constant negotiation. Most recently, the right to marry, the right to love, has been held up as something that can be granted or denied. These realities shaped me, as did the people closest to me: my mother, my best friend; the friendships that anchor me; the choice I make every day to love openly and freely.

When I began my degree in philosophy, I was overwhelmed by the discipline. No one told me what philosophy was for, what it was supposed to accomplish. And for that, I am grateful. It allowed me to decide for myself. Philosophy became, for me, a way of digesting what it means to be human. And being human, I believe, is a much bigger deal than anyone lets on. It truly is a burden, but a burden to be shared.

The Human Digest grew out of that realization. I was lost when I first found my passion for writing. My declarations, my early essays, were my interactions with the universe, my way of processing what kind of person I wanted to become. Without knowing it at the time, they were my first deliberate step toward excellence. They were not answers but attempts: my surrender to the idea that words could help me shape a life of human excellence.

If I can leave only one thing behind, a lesson I am survived by, it is this: words and ideas change the world. Not only when they are reserved, thought out, or controversial, but always. We forget that the world does not belong to us, and so we believe that change must mean global influence. But our world is what we live in, our daily lives, our everyday interactions. It is our duty to help the one next to us. We do, indeed, owe them patience and kindness.

That is why I write, and why I publish. My goal is to reach one, to make one person think differently, to make one reader pause. If each time I write or speak, one person truly listens, then I have succeeded.

As for what’s next: I will graduate in December 2025 and pursue a triple JD/M1/PhD US/French law degree and Doctorate of Philosophy at Columbia Law School, Gradutate School of Arts and Science, and the Sorbonne School of Law in Paris. From there, I hope to join the United Nations as a human rights attorney. My aim is to make people in power stop and listen, to change lives in real, tangible ways, and, selfishly, to keep traveling the world, because that is where I have always found my greatest teachers.

-lae