As I watched team members add to the running ledger of their collective joys for 2025, it occurred to me that we might be looking in the wrong place if we want to reclaim our humanity from machines. Perhaps a more uncontroversial and profound Turing test is the mystery of the absolute arbitrariness of what makes us happy. Looking over this year’s list, patterns emerge—trips, new friends—but much more here inheres in the mundane, lowercase, sense-activating thinginess of life: walking through clouds of butterflies, eating candy alone, homemade stew, wearing pink glitter, cold clementines in a hot bath. Joy is not second-hand. Its unpredictability identifies us as precisely as our fingerprints. Let computers have mega-concepts like creativity while we claim—and celebrate—what lives in the moment, and takes its value from its vanishing.—Carmine Starnino, editor-in-chief

Carine Abouseif – Senior Editor

1. Buying a tomato plant for my balcony this summer—and picking exactly one tomato every morning.
2. Making my way through Ann Patchett’s books and essays.
3. Every song on Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving.
4. Running into piles of crispy leaves with my son and yelling: “Splish, splash, splosh!”
5. Afternoon espressos with a dash of milk.

Mostafa Al-A’sar – Contributing Writer

1. Swimming in Lake Ontario.
2. Making new friends.
3. Watching movies.
4. Moving to a more spacious apartment.
5. And, of course, writing for The Walrus.

Soraya Amiri – Contributing Writer

1. Feeling safe and that I belong after receiving my Canadian passport.
2. Finding hope that I will see my family again.
3. Continuing my voice as a writer and journalist, reading messages and feedback on WhatsApp after our articles are published, and feeling the deep impact of these stories.
4. Meeting kind and supportive people and making new friends.
5. My marriage.

Ally Baker – Head of Research

1. Eating cold clementines in a hot bath.
2. Crate digging at Aux 33 Tours and Sonik Records in Montreal.
3. Hopping multiple trains to chart a path from Berlin to Cologne to Scotland (with stops in Brussels and London) to visit dear friends in the blistering August heat.
4. Spending an entire day in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the better part of it standing in front of this self-portrait by Paula Modersohn-Becker and Max Ernst’s The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child Before Three Witnesses.
5. Learning that the Truth in Journalism Project informed part of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY’s free high school journalism curriculum, Journalism for All.

Ketsia Beboua – CIBC Digital Fellow

1. Signing the lease on my first apartment.
2. Driving along Ottawa’s Sir George-Étienne Cartier Parkway.
3. My cat, Benjamin Button (“Benji”), doing literally anything ever.
4. Adding more whipped cream to my hot chocolate every time it melts.
5. My friends’ reactions when I revealed that chickpeas are, in fact, garbanzo beans.

Marina Black – Chawkers Fellow

1. Reading over twenty books and logging them on Goodreads—I highly recommend the Dune series.
2. Photographing Dan and Eugene Levy on the red carpet at my first Toronto International Film Festival.
3. Family trip to England, and taking my dad to Abbey Road.
4. Spending time with my feline fur baby Felix.
5. Closing life chapters and entering new ones—like joining The Walrus!

Claire Cooper – Managing Editor

1. A magical trip to Scotland with my sister. It felt like a nine-night sleepover with lazy nights spent gossiping in our pajamas, and days spent exploring at our own pace.
2. Hopping on the Blue Jays fan bandwagon just in time to watch seven nail biter games of the World Series.
3. Easier mornings now that my youngest sets his own alarm clock.
4. A seafood pasta made in Margaretsville, Nova Scotia with gifted lobster (caught by my cousin’s husband and shelled by my aunt). Shared with friends I’ve been lucky to have since grade nine.
5. Night swimming in Georgian Bay during a heat wave.

Michelle Cyca – Contributing Writer

1. I gave up on tracking almost everything this year—no idea how many books I read, for instance—but I did track my mileage and was delighted to hit my 1,000 kilometre running goal for the year in early November.
2. All the nights I wondered what my kids were up to and found them snuggled up in my daughter’s bed, as she read a book aloud to her little brother.
3. My best friend started DJing one night a month and reliably draws an impeccable crowd of friends to pack the dance floor—her sets are truly........

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