In the two years since my graduation from my conservative Christian college, approximately half of my friends have reaffirmed their faith: they’ve joined churches, volunteered in youth groups, and read the Bible in its entirety. Other friends have left their faith for something different: agnosticism or atheism. I find myself between the two camps, mostly intrigued by the latter. This is explored in the following four pieces.
longreads
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Eudora Welty on Moving from Writer to Reader
What her 1972 Paris Review interview reveals about her approach to the craft.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Would Happen If We Lived on Mars
Cabin fever might set in quickly on Mars, and it might be contagious. Quarters would be tight. Governments would be fragile. Reinforcements would be seven months away. Colonies might descend into civil war, anarchy or even cannibalism, given the potential for scarcity. US colonies from Roanoke to Jamestown suffered similar social breakdowns, in environments that were Edenic by comparison. Some individuals might be able to endure these conditions for decades, or longer, but Musk told me he would need a million people to form a sustainable, genetically diverse civilisation.
Posted inNonfiction
#Nightshift: Excerpts from an Instagram Essay
Jeff Sharlet | Longreads | September 2014 | 12 minutes (2,802 words) 1. Snapshots Dunkin Donuts, West Lebanon, New Hampshire The night shift, for me, is a luxury, the freedom to indulge my insomnia by writing at a Dunkin Donuts, one of the only places up here open at midnight. But lately my insomnia doesn’t […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
#Nightshift: Excerpts from an Instagram Essay
Jeff Sharlet | Longreads | September 2014 | 12 minutes (2,802 words) 1. Snapshots Dunkin Donuts, West Lebanon, New Hampshire The night shift, for me, is a luxury, the freedom to indulge my insomnia by writing at a Dunkin Donuts, one of the only places up here open at midnight. But lately my insomnia doesn’t […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
‘Living for a Plank and Four Wheels in a Profligate Culture’
My wife, Daphne, got to something I’d been trying to figure out for years when, after reading a particularly asinine article in the February 2003 issue [of Thrasher magazine], she said: “It’s really not OK that these people are using so little of their brains.” “Using so little.” It’s the perfect indictment of everything that’s […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Your Inner Drone: The Politics of the Automated Future
“As we grow more reliant on applications and algorithms, we become less capable of acting without their aid.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Your Inner Drone: The Politics of the Automated Future
“As we grow more reliant on applications and algorithms, we become less capable of acting without their aid.”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Honey Hunters
The most lucrative of all the forest’s products, and the most dangerous to gather.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
The Honey Hunters
The most lucrative of all the forest’s products, and the most dangerous to gather.