Kickoff For August 8, 2022

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:

Ideas

The lady vanishes, wherein learn about philosopher Mary Hesse and her ideas, and how she and those ideas were gradually eased into obscurity — a victim of collective forgetting.

Philosophy for Passengers: Reflections on ‘Passenger Time’, wherein Michael Marder looks at different, sometimes slower and more relaxed, ways of perceiving time.

Skepticism is a way of life that allows democracy to flourish, wherein Nicholas Tampio looks at what skepticism actually is, and it’s not the dogged and stubborn and inflexible contrariness that many perceive it to be.

Writing

Andrew Chee on staying organized while writing, wherein the [what kind of writer] explains how he keeps track of what he’s written and how he tracks revisions.

How to Be an Incipit, wherein Paul Vacca looks at first sentences and what makes a great one.

Aristotle goes to Hollywood, wherein we learn that ancient Greek philosopher’s Poetics encapsulates all the rules of storytelling, rules which are still relevant and useful to writers today.

Odds and Ends

The Future of Tokyo, wherein Cole Lubchenko looks at how Japan’s largest city is planning to transform itself into an urban area that is friendlier to pedestrians (and the environment).

Lost in Thought, wherein we learn about research that indicates prolonged meditation can have harmful psychological effects on some people.

What would a flying-free world look like?, wherein Jocelyn Timperley examines the impact on the environment, economies, and on people if we all stopped traveling by air.

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

Scott Nesbitt