The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates tells of how, when he got in trouble with his teachers as a kid, his mother would have him write about what he had done. He would answer a series of questions that led him to examine his own behavior, exploring how he felt and what he thought about the situation. In his stirring open letter to his son, Between the World and Me, he writes that “these were the earliest acts of interrogation, of drawing myself into consciousness.” For those of us who have no single sacred guidebook that outlines the dos and don’ts of life, this kind of self-examination is required.
