“How are You?” President’s Note
The HPR ended its spate of pandemic-related magazine cycles — “Isolation,” “Hindsight 2020,” “Back to Normal” — with a cautious sigh of relief. Our most recent issue, “Lines in the Sand,” was our guarded attempt at imagining a future for the magazine in which the specter of the pandemic did not dictate every editorial move. “How are You?” continues along in that trajectory, although an irony remains: It was a theme our staff, finally reunited on campus, selected during our traditional quarterly magazine pitch meeting — yet still fully masked and sitting in a room enclosed by white, sterile walls.
In that room, as we debated the merits of “How are You?”, we investigated the topic of wellness anew, after two years during which its derivatives — public health, illness, death — were the sole occupiers of our minds. As the pandemic has unfolded, we’ve inquired into wellness largely in the context of individual health. Yet as this virus continues to reach across our world, it has infected much more than just our bodies. In the pandemic’s wake, entire institutions crumbled and reassembled, and it seems that our collective immune system — constituted by the organs of government, economy, and society — took just as big a blow. It has become clear: Well-being is not just seated within us as individuals; the concept bursts from within, wrapping itself around the static institutions which live and breathe along with us.
We open this intermediate period at the HPR, in which the pandemic’s grip has relaxed but remains, with a spring cycle that chases the definition of well-being in all its manifestations: the personal, the cultural, the political. “How Are You?”, a theme initially proposed by outgoing Culture Editors Sraavya Sambara and Amen Gashaw, poses the titular question to the wide sweep of individuals and institutions who inhabit the world around us. Our theme is ambitious in its reading of the term “well-being,” tapping into the core foundations of our society — our polity, our economy, and our community.
As you navigate the digital magazine — put together by a collaboration of our Covers editors, Tech team, and Designers — you will find a collection of pieces, a few of which we’ve cataloged here, that dig beneath this concept. In “It’s Mental! Psychological Wellness in Media,” Chase Melton discusses the portrayal of mental health in our media, questioning how television may be a powerful vehicle for breaking or reifying gendered stereotypes of wellness. Prince Williams takes health to the political level in “What is The Vaccine for Political Nihilism?,” investigating how the “virus of hopelessness” seeps into our political arena and whether it has an antidote. Sraavya Sambara’s piece, “Development Without Destination,” interrogates the obstruction of intergenerational mobility in the Global South, asking how foreign aid mechanisms can be better calibrated to serve those countries most in need. We hope that as you read the digital pages of this magazine, you appreciate both the presentation and the content that is showcased.
I would like to convey my sincerest thanks to our newest Covers Editors, Amen Gashaw and Liana McGhee, who entered this covers cycle with both resounding gravity and spirited levity as they worked to capture the way we think, write, and talk about well-being. In collaboration with our Design Editor, Maddy Shirazi, and our Tech Editors, Dom Skinnion and Lucy Ding, the two have reimagined our digital magazine.
Further, I would like to thank our newest team of editors who comprise Masthead 54, who have begun this year with a burst of energy. You may notice our “Campus” tab has now become “Local,” a change inspired by our new Campus Editors, Aidan Scully and Naomi Corlette, who have sought to expand the purview of the politics which most closely impact us as students — bringing stories in from around Cambridge and Boston in addition to those of our own campus. Additionally, our senior staff writer, Aishani Aatresh, is piloting a fellowship for those writers interested in the intersection of science and society, thus expanding the range of political subject matter typically covered by our magazine. With these ambitious pursuits, we look to expand the breadth and depth of our publication’s coverage — a project which begins the pages of this very magazine.
As you read this collection, we have a number of hopes. We hope you reflect on the measures of wellness you have come to rely on in your own life, from the satisfaction you derive from your work to the time you are able to spend with family. We hope you rethink the conception of well-being promulgated by the popular lexicon and find that well-being is not just a measure of personal contentment but an indicator of societal progress. And finally, we close with what we should have said first: We hope you are well.
