Kickoff For June 17, 2019

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.

Let’s get this Monday started with these links:

Work

Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?, wherein we learn how and why millenials came to embrace the cult of the hustle, and about the negative effects of that embrace.

Workism Is Making Americans Miserable, wherein we see how work has gone from being a way to buy us free time to being central to our identities and lives, with the inevitable negative effects.

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, wherein David Graeber looks at how someone was out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

Writing

Old-school writing tools boost creativity, focus—and speed, wherein we discover that being a good writer has little or nothing to do with the tools that you use, but instead is a matter of focus and hard work.

Storytelling Tips from the Writer of Blade Runner, wherein Hampton Fancher imparts some solid advice that can make your fiction or screenwriting stronger, more interesting, and more compelling.

On Taking Time, wherein Elizabeth Cook explains that sometimes writing requires an author to step back and ponder, rather than merely put the first thing that comes into their heads on the page.

Odds and Ends

Unwanted at Midlife: Not Old, but “Too Old”, wherein we learn about middle ageism, which holds back or even halts the careers of perfectly competent and capable older workers in all occupations.

The Politics of UFOs, wherein we get a look into the community of UFO researchers and believers, the ways is which the community is riven, and how fears of provocateurs and infiltrators are widening those divisions.

Lost at Sea, wherein Joe Kloc enters the world of anchor outs, people living on boats and barges in the small bays around San Francisco, and tells us about their struggles to survive both day to day and outside of society.

And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.

Scott Nesbitt