Is Life a Game

www.newyorker.com

In “The Score,” the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen argues that play is the meaning of life.You’re reading Open Questions, Joshua Rothman’s weekly column exploring what it means to be human.Every summer for the past few years, I’ve taught a multiday…

Eight Limes, No More: The Accidental Poetry of Found Lists – Longreads

longreads.com

A found list is a rare analog window into someone else’s needs—an accidental autobiography, a blank space to be filled with one’s imagination.

The Worm That No Computer Scientist Can Crack

WIRED

One of the simplest, most over-studied organisms in the world is the C. elegans nematode. For 13 years, a project called OpenWorm has tried—and utterly failed—to simulate it.

Open Thread: What are your most helpful ideas for difficult times?

This is Everything Is Amazing, a newsletter about science, curiosity and runaway balloons, large and small.

What Ever Happened to the Lady Jaguars?

The New York Times spent months with them in 2012 and 2013. Recently, we wondered: What happened to the girls? Had they risen from their circumstances and fulfilled their visions of a better life? We set out to find them.

Into the Wind

Bicycling

When I met Jenn in 2008, I didn’t know what to make of her. She was radiant. And tiny. When she was riding, she was stronger and fiercer than anyone I’d ever seen. She flowed up hills like she was a part of them.

Christmas on the Moon

Longreads

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Anchor

My dad grew up in early-20th Century Southern California.

A simple act of kindness changed the trajectory of a young man’s life

NPR

This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team, about people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. In our day-to-day lives, there are moments when we get to decide whether we want to offer a helping hand.

What If Instead of Trying to Manage Your Time, You Set It Free?

We all understand, rationally anyway, that time never stops, moves in only one direction, is owned by no one and is impossible to make more of.

The Birder

The Paris Review

I knew a birder once. I liked him—it’s pointless to deny it and in any case I don’t think I can write about him without it being abundantly clear—though we redirected early enough that friendship seemed possible. For him it always was a friendship, anyway.

Feeling It

Semi-Rad.com

My stories, art, and newsletter are free, and ad-free, because of the financial support provided by generous readers. You can help keep it all going, sustainably, via the link below: 

Free Spirited Solo Paddler Audrey Sutherland Did the Most Important Things

Adventure Journal

The first time Audrey Sutherland explored the rugged northeast coast of Moloka’i, she swam the 20-mile stretch.

Stamina

The Sewanee Review

As with most things when decided upon at first—a beloved, a political cause, or, in my own case, the writing of poems—it’s easy to think all we have to do is start doing: show love, be politically alert, write poems.