Sara Wheeler reflects on the experience of being a sibling to her brother who has a lifelong disability.

"Posting on social media on National Siblings Day, which fell on a Wednesday this year, brothers and sisters like me express pride. 'You love them more, not less' is a common thread. Because what all this is really about is the sibling's acute awareness of the lack of empathy routinely shown to the disabled - after all, childhood gives us, the siblings, a unique perspective. It's 'Does he take sugar?' times ten - ignoring the point of view of the disabled person and not even trying to stand in her shoes. Ask us. We know."

Producer: Sheila Cook

Zoe Strimpel reflects on the extraordinary experience of ‘crossing the rubicon separating non-motherhood from matrescence’.

‘I had never quite put aside an abiding ambivalence about having a baby, even during pregnancy,’ writes Zoe.

But in the space of thirty minutes - and the delivery of a baby girl by C-section - Zoe says, ‘my hop over the long-tended, long-contemplated border with motherland rapidly resolved as her tiny features came into focus and a sense of interestingness became a sense of desperate affection and even of familiarity.’

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A L Kennedy argues that, as a country with low productivity, we must urgently address our unhealthy relationship with work.

But creating more workaholics like herself, she says, is the last thing we should be doing.

'Toxic work doesn't just blight our business hours - it wearies our affection, steals our time for each other,' Alison writes.

'We rely on free moments and free energy to invent, to recharge, to create. An exhausted, stressed population is docile, but doesn't solve problems well.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray assesses what's going wrong for liberals in the US election.

'It's not chiefly Joe Biden's alleged faltering mental powers that lie behind Trump's march to the White House', John writes. 'Far more, it's the evident inability of American liberals to learn from their mistakes.'

And he believes they are displaying a 'reckless hubris' for which they risk being severely punished come November.

Adam Gopnik warns of our tendency to normalise evil behaviour. What may pass for entertainment in Mafia movies, must be seen through a different lens in real life.

"The risk of crime is not crime alone, but the abyss that opens at our feet when once we have decided that the rules that count for other people don't count for us."

Producer: Sheila Cook

Will Self believes we are reaching a state of 'peak envy'.

'Is it any surprise,' Will writes, 'that in this, arguably the second century of self, when for the most part humans see nothing around them but images of those better off than themselves, envy should be quite so epidemic: a greenish toxin - the very mustard gas of modernity.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant reflects on martyrdom past and present.

As Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is laid to rest, Sarah looks to history to ponder what his legacy might be.

And she turns to the work of the 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: 'The tyrant dies and his rule is over...the martyr dies and his rule begins'.

'History is a long game,' Sarah writes. 'And the shelf life of martyrs in particular is impressive.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Following a recent incident in a London theatre where, it appears, Jewish Israelis were targeted by a comedian because they wouldn't stand for a Palestinian flag, Howard Jacobson reflects on the power of mockery and the liberation of laughter.

'Do the best comedians truly turn the world upside down', Howard asks, 'or do they merely strap us into a fairground roller-coaster so that we can feign fear and scream in unison?'

He argues that the norms of outrage have been jettisoned in the reaction to events in Israel on October 7.

'Once the world is turned upside down,' he writes, 'humanity and justice fall like loose change from our pockets.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott says the idea of 'going down a rabbit hole' is often characterised as a bad thing - here, she makes the case for what's to be gained.

"These days we invariably use the phrase 'down the rabbit hole' to describe a negative experience...where people get lost, then become overwhelmed, ensnare themselves in conspiracy theories and can't get back out," she says.

"But I don't believe rabbit holes are bad in themselves. If we avoid them altogether we lose the chance to experience their joy and excitement."

She recalls her own experience of discovery - and tells the story of how Charles Darwin once spent eight years distracted by barnacles.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Tom Shakespeare reflects on the 'endangered skill of handwriting.'

'The most ambitious thing I author,' writes Tom, 'is the shopping list on my fridge. And several times a week I scrawl with my index finger when something is delivered'.

His handwriting, he says, has gone to pot. He knows he's not alone.

So he resolves to put that right and get more practice.

Producer: Adele Armstrong