OZY Daily Dose

Alex Taylor was not looking for his rightful role as an NFL prospect when he transferred from Appalachian State in 2017. He was looking for something to prevail over the notion that football was his identity. Taylor was looking for a cultural fit, a place to feel more relaxed, an abatement from the industrial complex of Division I football. “It was a business at App State,” Taylor says.

When my best friend saw my fiancé’s picture, she gasped. He has those cruel, hawkish Old World features that are so intense you want to hide behind a fern, but you also want to do whatever he says. Then you see that his eyes are sad — melting gold-flecked chocolate. You feel him falling, and you want to catch him, save him. My best friend lives 3,000 miles away. I don’t think my friends who met him in person were similarly impressed. He was nervous meeting them, jittery.

“If the judgment had gone in favor of ‘the Muslim’ party, our blood would have flowed on the streets! Right-wing hordes would have descended on the land.… That is the simple truth. Why is it that no one has the courage to just say that?”These angry words burst from a young Muslim student at Delhi University. He said it as only the young can — simply and directly, shorn of legal sophistry or academic qualifiers.

In brightly colored ads on London’s Tube, investment company Wealthify tries to grab the attention of aspiring savers not by highlighting potential returns or its low barrier to entry. It proffers instead a more unusual pitch to catch commuters’ eyes. “Want to invest ethically?” one ad reads. “Stay true to your values.

Chloe McKenzie crouches on the floor, a gaggle of childrensitting criss-cross applesauce around her. “What do you do with an apple seed?” “Water it!” the preschoolers chorus. McKenzie, the founder of BlackFem — a nonprofit focused on teaching financial literacy to disadvantaged students — nods in response. The kids gazing up at her are bright and curious. But they aren’t here for storytime.

In this occasional series, OZY takes to streets and neighborhoods across the globe to ask a simple question: “How was your day?” Alvin SuarezNew York On Sunday, I have practice. My alarm goes off at 8 am and I start pounding my chest. The hunt for coffee begins with the giggling of my daughters behind me, who have joined in and are pounding their chests. We quickly eat as a family. I throw on my “Suarez” jersey and head down to the court.

When Alex L. stood onstage at her graduationfrom P.E.A.S.E. Academy (Peers Enjoying a Sober Education) in 2017, the Minnesota teen’s tears weren’t just from relief at graduating. While other high school students might be thinking about college at this major milestone, Alex was simply happy to be alive. “I never saw myself living to this moment,” she says.

As the season changes into fall, there’s something soothing about turning on a reliable romantic comedy, whether you’re a fan of Bridget Jones or prefer the other Mr. Darcy. “The comfort of knowing that everything is going to be all right by the end, no matter what, provides a very appealing escapist fantasy,” says Beatriz Oria, professor of film studies at the University of Zaragoza.

On a recent trip to the 630-square-mile Addo Elephant National Park, dense thickets of spekboom (a fleshy shrub with purple stalks and leaves like bloated ticks) made it hard to spot the elephants, lions and rhinos that call this slice of paradise home. Driving home from the park, however, I passed through mile upon mile of yellowed grassland dotted with sheep and goats. Not realizing it then, my drive was actually a form of time travel.

The first time I saw Rajesh sloshing in the mud, his face was lit up with joy. He was building his future home at Sristi, in Thazhuthali village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. A few months later, the 160-square-foot handcrafted house was ready, built completely by the men at Sristi — a nonprofit organization that helps intellectually challenged people lead self-reliant lives — using local materials.