Kickoff For May 11, 2020
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
I Quit My Job at 50 to Reinvent Myself. Pro Tip: Don’t Do This, wherein Ivy Eisenberg recounts her attempt, at age 50, to shift out of an unfulfilling career in IT, and how she was forced back into that part of the working world.
Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore, wherein we learn some reasons, both historic and economic, why the hours in which we work, rest, and socialize are becoming ever more desynchronized.
If work dominated your every moment, would life be worth living?, wherein Andrew Taggart muses about a state in which many people exist: where work is the dominant force in their lives.
Writing
Notes on Craft, wherein Jem Calder discusses something many a writer can relate to: working at a numbing day job, feeling that he’s squandering his abilities, and writing in the office to retain some sense of selfhood while working in a place I despised.
Relearning to Write After Law School Buried My Voice, wherein Akhila Kolisetty recounts how legal writing stripped the emotion and personality out of her words, and how working with victims of domestic abuse helped her regain both.
Waterlines: On Writing and Sailing, wherein Martin Dumont tells us how nautical-themed literature sparked his love of sailing, and how working as a naval architect inspired him to start writing fiction seriously.
Odds and Ends
Jerry and Marge Go Large, wherein we learn how, working with his wife, an intellectually-curious retiree in Michigan managed to find and legally exploit flaws in two state lotteries, made millions, and how it all ended (though not unhappily).
A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel, wherein we discover that the world of Classics isn’t as boring as it seems, especially when an Oxford don is accused of improperly selling ancient manuscripts to the fundamentalist billionaires behing Hobby Lobby.
Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow, wherein Neil Strauss treats us to a profile of the tech entrepreneur that presents a side of him that the media rarely (if ever) shows.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.