Often, while perpetually treading water in the flood of curated content, we need a toehold. Something meaningful or substantive to balance the firehose of videos, images, headlines, etc. that leave us feeling like we’re on our second Four Loko.
But, to torture the metaphor, this flood, like all the ones before it, has reshaped the landscape. It feels harder now to find and digest something meaningful. We don’t have the space to both consume something AND consider it, evaluate it, interpret it. Time is shorter. Neglecting the content feels like opting out of society. On and on.
But The Poorer Quarters understands and is here to help. Below are a few small doses of substance that can hopefully serve as a palate cleanser when things feel too Loko.
In no particular order:
- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin – Short Story, Sci-fi
A four-page short story written in the 70s, but it still feels urgent. Explores themes of comfort, choice and our duty to others.
- What’s Expected of Us by Ted Chiang – Short Story, Sci-fi
Just one page is needed to destroy your perception of reality and your place in it.
- A Little Fable by Franz Kafka – Very Short Story, Fable
Three sentences. And a story I think about every single day.
- The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats – Poem, Apocalyptic
Already referenced here in TPQ. But it’s always worth a read even if only to remind yourself of the seventh and eighth lines in the first stanza.
- If– by Rudyard Kipling – Poem, Guidance
It’s funny how the advice you’re supposed to give to the next generation winds up being the advice you, yourself also need.