Great essay. Keep up the good work. We truly live in an age of dissolution, in which all tethers and safe boundaries to an ordinary healthy life have been severed.
Thank you!! I was weary of leaning in on that message- I felt like people would accuse me of turning a homeless man’s life into a political piece but it was the result of honest introspection.
Readers are more astute at judging intent with the written word than one would think- it's satire and irony which often don't translate too well into print. Generally, people trust writers who describe situations, people, and their histories more when the author leaves the reader to draw their own conclusion.
I think there is room for data-driven pieces which really get to the nuts and bolts of a particular social issue. I also think that there is room for articles and essays which look at the drivers of social and economic issues, as an alternative to the binaries of Left and Right. But the most powerful pieces will always be those which depict life in all its gory, gritty messiness, because the authentic can be felt through the fact that life refuses clean categorisation and diagnosis.
It was great that you didn't lean into the Sackler and Purdue pharma. Sometimes the power of a piece is more about the temptations and pitfalls you avoid.
A fascinating and harrowing story. I hope that Israel will find his way off the streets and see his short term goals achieved, and from there build a better life for himself. Thank you for sharing the story of your fellow young man with us.
Stories like abund everywhere in our age. People will read such stories in the future, just like as we read The Grapes of Wrath, and wonder how could we survive so much misery and despair.
"Most people I would’ve been weary of answering that question to, but he said it with enough anticipation that I was already able to terse out his opinion."
I really like this sentence. At first I read it with my English teacher's eye and I thought I'd spotted four mistakes, but when it came to correcting them, I realized that any change would be for the worse. This sentence makes sense in a way that speech often does, but writing often does not.
Great essay. Keep up the good work. We truly live in an age of dissolution, in which all tethers and safe boundaries to an ordinary healthy life have been severed.
Thank you!! I was weary of leaning in on that message- I felt like people would accuse me of turning a homeless man’s life into a political piece but it was the result of honest introspection.
Readers are more astute at judging intent with the written word than one would think- it's satire and irony which often don't translate too well into print. Generally, people trust writers who describe situations, people, and their histories more when the author leaves the reader to draw their own conclusion.
I think there is room for data-driven pieces which really get to the nuts and bolts of a particular social issue. I also think that there is room for articles and essays which look at the drivers of social and economic issues, as an alternative to the binaries of Left and Right. But the most powerful pieces will always be those which depict life in all its gory, gritty messiness, because the authentic can be felt through the fact that life refuses clean categorisation and diagnosis.
It was great that you didn't lean into the Sackler and Purdue pharma. Sometimes the power of a piece is more about the temptations and pitfalls you avoid.
top tier journalism. thank you.
A fascinating and harrowing story. I hope that Israel will find his way off the streets and see his short term goals achieved, and from there build a better life for himself. Thank you for sharing the story of your fellow young man with us.
Modern women are abismally stupid. Fucking jesus.
Stories like abund everywhere in our age. People will read such stories in the future, just like as we read The Grapes of Wrath, and wonder how could we survive so much misery and despair.
"Most people I would’ve been weary of answering that question to, but he said it with enough anticipation that I was already able to terse out his opinion."
I really like this sentence. At first I read it with my English teacher's eye and I thought I'd spotted four mistakes, but when it came to correcting them, I realized that any change would be for the worse. This sentence makes sense in a way that speech often does, but writing often does not.
Great read, I do hope Israel can turn his life around!