Medium
Among my on-line reading sites is Medium. Medium is an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic. I pay a monthly fee to be a member so that I can read everything. Many good (and some less so) articles appear here, and when I can tear myself away from Daily Kos I read some, but mostly I read Umair Haque, a brilliant writer and economist. If you’ve ever read about doom, or become a doomscroller, you ain’t seen nothing. Every day his subject is the decline of civilization, and I fear he’s mostly correct.
A sample from today. This is the lead-in; I think you have to be a member to read his posts.
How’s Our Civilization (Actually) Doing? You Probably Don’t Want to Know
Are We “Doomed”? Wrong Question. Why Is Everything Falling Apart, Faster and Faster?
I tend to be a positive, optimistic person, and yet I do enjoy his posts, and all other doom scrolling. I watch the news, even though I know it’s not good to do that before bed.
I ran across Susan Sontag’s list of likes and dislikes in the Times; apparently a well-known list.
Things I like: fires, Venice, tequila, sunsets, babies, silent films, heights, coarse salt, top hats, large longhaired dogs, ship models, cinnamon, goose down quilts, pocket watches, the smell of newly mown grass, linen, Bach, Louis XIII furniture, sushi, microscopes, large rooms, boots, drinking water, maple sugar candy.
Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, mustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food.
My list varies, as does most people’s; we are individuals, after all. I would add flowers and doom scrolling to the like list; rap and cilantro to dislike list.
Have fun with the lists if you wish. YMMV.
We often grow Amaryllis outdoors, but this extremely cold winter drove them indoors. This just opened: