I don’t have a journal ATM so forgive me starting a bajillion threads but I wanted a general place to share articles I’m interested in! Here’s the latest:
Making it in America cannot just mean you have options and resources that weren’t available to your elders. It must also mean you recognize the responsibility to today’s strivers, in things large and small. […] People bring true dignity to work, not the other way around.
We are happy with what we have and we don’t need more, but we hold on to our security. I realize it is not guilt I feel anymore, it’s responsibility; the ability to respond.
But when CJI began holding listening sessions with drivers who had been responsible for a serious injury or death, they found that many were in fact distraught about what they had done. Deprived by the system of any chance to atone, some were living with PTSD or had contemplated suicide. “What they said repeatedly was, ‘All I wanted to do was try to make am-ends. I was longing to do something or say something to this person whom I knew I had deeply impacted,’” said Packer. The staff was struck by how profoundly the reality often differed from the impressions formed by victims’ families. They became increasingly convinced that restorative justice practices could better serve the needs of all involved, creating a confidential space where drivers could express remorse without legal consequences, and where victims could receive the apologies they were looking for.
I loved this longread about design and how everything copies everything else. It really goes places. Chairs! Video games! Terracotta warriors!
Also this:
Unlike Steve Jobs, John Carmack never changed his mind about copying. When his boss at Softdisk suggested that they patent Carmack’s PC scrolling technique, Carmack reeled. “If you ever ask me to patent anything,” he said, “I’ll quit.”
Loved this piece and made me think about what I consider the average home size to be
Oh also this helped me unlock the reason I was feeling annoyed at my sister, who is buying a house in the Chicago burbs rn, and keeps qualifying it by saying it’s not their “forever home.” And I’m like dog, why not?? Why would you buy a house that you already plan to upgrade in 5 years lmao
I’ve read this article a few of times since you posted it a year ago. I’ve been left with a different feeling about restorative justice each time, kinda like the author’s summary of Anna and Robin.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get my own feelings sorted, but that’s a great article. Thanks for posting it.
Substack is one of the main ways I read long form essays these days. Are there any you love that I should subscribe to? My interests: motherhood, being fat (fashion specifically), poetry, music/playlists, general culture writing
None of mine would fall into your specific categories
Field Notes (nature)
Chasing Nature (nature)
Reasons Not to Quit (sometimes has fat content)
Department of Salad (food)
Which are you following atm that you’d recommend to others?
To change is one of the great dreams of every heart – to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain. So often we look back on patterns of behavior, the kind of decisions we make repeatedly and that have failed to serve us well, and we aim for a new and more successful path or way of living. But change is difficult for us. So often we opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the danger of difference. We are also often surprised by change that seems to arrive out of nowhere.
We find ourselves crossing some new threshold we had never anticipated. Like spring secretly at work within the heart of winter, below the surface of our lives huge changes are in fermentation. We never suspect a thing. Then when the grip of some long-enduring winter mentality begins to loosen, we find ourselves vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly negotiating the challenge of a threshold.
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.
I just found this thread and really loving everything you share here @noodle. It reminds me that my brain can contemplate wonder and not just diagrams, spreadsheets, and mittens.
How does sub stack work? I am intimidated and need a tutorial. I remember when it became a thing I couldn’t see any/more than one article from an author without money I didn’t have. So I dismissed ot wholesale.
You share many good things for me to noodle so I’d like to learn
It is basically a newsletter subscription platform. So you find writers you like, sign up for the free version, and if you like their content you can throw em $5 a month or whatever to unlock paid content. Some will also unlock it for free if you are in need and send them a note. There’s also an app where there is a social media-like newsfeed but tbh I don’t get much from that. I prefer to get the newsletters in my email and consume them that way. Some smart folks on there! But it ain’t perfect, for sure there are also some reactionary trad wives or other idiots