September '23
The Seventh Side
Hi! Welcome to the seventh issue of The Good Side of the Internet. Super glad to have you here. For a brief run-down on what all the hullabaloo is about, please visit the About page for this publication.
This newsletter has been split into two sections. The first is external links that I truly adored, with my own little endorsements. The second is similar, but within Substack. There once was a third, compiling all the recommended readings on
over the last month, but I’ve decided to discontinue the mini-TGSotI, so all links can be found in one place, right here.The ones with the little asterisk next to them come Highly Recommended (by me). Please do heed the trigger warnings if they’re present. For access to paywalled essays, feel free to reach out. I’m always open to discuss/debate/listen to your opinions about any of these links and would probably ascend to a higher plane of joy. Happy reading!
TGSotI Reviewed
Notes from Grief Camp* | The Walrus
Every summer, more than a hundred kids spend a weekend at Camp Erin swimming and canoeing. They also learn to deal with death
TGSotI Review: Full of empathy, grace, and vulnerability, this month’s list starts with this lovely piece. It’s equal parts sad and joyful, all parts beautiful, and incredibly illuminating. It opens up a complicated and emotional dialogue, and takes you through the narration with such care. Highly Recommend!
Lobby Life | Slate
Most hotel guests are just passing through. Stay awhile.
TGSotI Review: Until I read this, I had never really thought about hotel lobbies as standalone structures. In my head, they had always been the most liminal of spaces - to get the room key, to cross on the way to the restaurant, to wait for the cab. All things that fed directly to other, larger things. This article, very interestingly, made me reconsider the role, the importance, and the effort that goes into creating a truly good hotel lobby.
The Ones We Sent Away | The Atlantic
I thought my mother was an only child. I was wrong.
TGSotI Review: I’ve noticed that the personal essays that tackle neurodivergence or elder care always have a tone of such empathy surrounding them, and this one is no different. There is pain, yes, but there is joy and love as well. The writer takes you through all the emotions that she and her mother go through, both good and bad, with such expertise, that you’re invested before you even realise it.
What Does Love Mean?* | DailyGood
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds: "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.
TGSotI Review: What is there to say? I remember coming across this page a couple of years ago and being very awed at it, but when it cropped up on my radar again a few weeks ago, ‘stunned’ would be a better word to describe how I felt. My favourite is Billy, 4. Very Highly Recommend!
Epiphany at the Y | VQR
Learning to Swim Later in Life
TGSotI Review: A lovely ode to swimming, public pools, the community of swimmers around you, and how the body grows, learns, weakens, and adapts.
Don’t Denigrate The Dinosaurs | Noema Magazine
When people first encountered extinct beasts, they tended to blame them for their demise. But if we can learn to stop pillorying the perished, we can learn a lesson in humility that’s vital in an age of ecological crisis.
TGSotI Review: I never expected to feel anything about dinosaurs at all, but I’m suddenly very concerned about how we perceive them. Did you know that there are large groups of people across the world and across history that blame the poor things themselves? For going extinct? This essay gives a very thorough timeline of the scientific-world-at-large’s attitude towards the extinction of dinosaurs, and species themselves. It ends with hope, with the following lovely paragraph -
We may have been the first and only animal to have pilloried others for having perished. But we are also the first and only animal to begin apprehending the wrong of doing so. History reveals that this knowledge has only just started to seep into our consciousness. This has hardly yet stopped the wholesale destruction of ecosystems. But it is cause for urgency: to produce a viable planetary civilization that, rather than parasitizing the planet that birthed it, enters into symbiosis with it. After all, we don’t any longer have even the meager excuse of our recent ancestors: that of ignorance.
The ‘Deserving’ and the Damned* | The Swaddle (tw: suicide)
Can the IIT crisis be fixed?
TGSotI Review: Painfully eye-opening, with a crystal clear comparison of how the same situations are not actually the same for every student, this is another of The Swaddle’s absolute masterpieces. It gives an in-depth view of the competition, start-up culture, networking requirements, not-ragging, the job search, and social debt. Thorough, incredibly researched, and very informative. Highly Recommend!
Why All Great Thoughts Are Conceived by Walking* | Atmos
In the French Alps, writer and philosopher Simon Parcot teaches us about the connection between mind and feet.
TGSotI Review: I’m a walker. Twenty minutes from the station to work? I’m walking, baby. Don’t want to sit still after lunch? The corridor will see me strolling with a book. Lots to think about? Pacing is my favourite activity. Any article that tells me that I’m actually stimulating mental activity while walking around has my immediate endorsement. I especially adore the ideas of ‘soft fascination’ and ‘philosophical walks’, as well as the excerpt I’ve given below. Highly Recommend!
“This is the logic behind my philosophical walks,” says Parcot. “Take the body outside, and use it not as a tool but as a companion, a friend, to make thought more alive, more dynamic. Just as the Greeks did.”
Boundary Issues | Parapraxis
How boundaries became the rules for mental health—and explain everything
TGSotI Review: The fact that ‘therapy speak’ has seeped into everyday conversation, often incorrectly, is not a new claim. Crying ‘Boundaries!’ seems to be the latest way to avoid accountability and honestly, just refuse to be human in all its connectedness and community. This article gives a super insightful wrap-up of the growing use of the term, and how it’s rife with misinterpretation and contradiction.
In-house Links
This section contains links to pieces from different Substack newsletters. The reason I’ve demarcated it is because there’s more room for interaction with the authors here. The ones with the little asterisk are from some of my favourite publications, which are, in my opinion, well worth subscribing to.
Van Gogh’s advice to a young artist from
The Unlikelies from
*
That’s a wrap for September ‘23! Feel free to make me the happiest person alive by reaching out to discuss any of it. If you want weekly poetry and song recommendations, plus a sometimes-nonsensical-sometimes-profound-sometimes-toopersonal article, we’d be happy to have you over at
.If you’d like, please share this with your friends. Or your mother. Or on your Instagram story that you share a Spotify link on once in six months. Or anybody who you think would enjoy it. This is a fresh-out-of-the-oven publication, and I am deeply passionate about telling people what to read.
Thanks for reading, and see you next month!