Sunday Morning Reading

The road to our time at the family lake house is a mile long and a bumpy washboard filled with twists and turns. Arriving after shaking out a filling or two, there’s a leveling out that leads to a sort of peace, even if only for a few days. I’m not sure I leveled out fully this weekend, but the moments to breathe differently sure helped. Even if the weather only cooperated for a few hours.

Thanks to science, apparently the human origin story  is being rewritten according to Ross Anderson in The Human-Origin Story Is Being Radically Revised. Probably a good thing given that today’s story tellers keep rewriting recent history. So it begs the question as to who might listen to any new version science rewrites.

Speaking of science, and also how we might define the human story and its origins, Claire L. Evans takes a look at the creation of brains in labs in AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive. 

Whatever the twists and turns, bumps and bruises of history, science, and the stories that make up different versions of our lives, I happen to agree with Lauren Leek that everything is being flattened to feel all the same. Check out Temperature Zero For Culture: Why Everything Is Starting To Look The Same.

Given the intermittent rain storms, it was a battle to keep most of us away from our phones this weekend. Neil Steinberg suggests maybe adults need to adopt the practice of some schools in Maybe Adults Should Follow Students In Setting Down Our Phones.

Natasha MH takes a look at crippling anxiety is Sunshine After The Rain. Be the sunshine.

Dealing with anxiety can be painful. Lots of that to go around these days. David Todd McCarty examines The Upside Of Pain.

Disunion by Kurt Anderson is a terrific short story. It may be speculative fiction, but it feels all too real. I don’t know why, but reading this does not make me feel anxious or cause me pain.

With things flattening out, I believe the extreme edges are where things always matter. Robin Ince writes How I Became An Extremist.

Using quotes from throughout history, literary and otherwise, Jordan Dworkin built a fascinating webpage that tours through the ordinary things of an apartment, reminding us that the things we take for granted were once new and invented somewhere along the line and that “we remain restless in the midst of progress,” and our lives today are “a gallery of past generations’ heroic efforts to do the same.” Check out Ordinary Abundance. It’s a lovely piece and worth your time. I wish I felt the same about the things we’re trying to create today.

(Photo by the author)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.