It happened on Medium: October 2024 roundup
Much-highlighted insight, notable new publications, and evergreen lists
I’ve been thinking a lot about just sitting with things. Not in an actual physical sense, but in the emotional / psychological / existential sense.
It’s really easy to want to flood your brain with more more more, as fast as possible. Over the last couple of months, I’ve caught myself going back to the same bad social media habits I always regress into: only reading headlines on social media, barely skimming an article before deciding I get the full gist of it, replacing deep thinking with dopamine-saturated quick content.
And look, sometimes we all need a lil bit of those empty brain calories. But then I come back to Medium and get lost in a lovingly-crafted deep dive that makes me sit in whatever emotion I am feeling that day and I walk away feeling… better? I read a piece that makes me sit up, read closer, go deeper than I normally would with something I encounter on the internet, and I feel more grounded once I do.
Last month, nearly our entire Medium team met in North Berwick, Scotland, for one of our twice-yearly in-person off-sites (we all typically work from home), and one thing that I most appreciated about that time was the ability to sit with colleagues and actually think about what we do every day, and what we want this magical place to be.
Now, does this mean I’ve completely cut myself off from my other platforms? No, of course not, we all contain multitudes. But am I more likely to turn to the voices on Medium to help me sit with difficult things or emotions? You’d better believe I am.
And that’s because of what all of you, fair readers and writers, bring to it every day.
So let’s check out what we all read and wrote in October, shall we?
— Amy Widdowson, VP Communications
5 of October’s most-read stories
“How Old Is Your Body? Stand On One Leg and Find Out” by Yale associate professor of medicine F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE
“Understanding LLMs from Scratch Using Middle School Math” by Meta GenAI data director Rohit Patel in Towards Data Science
“The 28 Best Things to Eat, According to 10 Nutrition Experts” by Wise & Well editor Robert Roy Britt
“I Politely Quit My Job. Apparently, I Burned All My Bridges.” by Ellen "Jelly" McRae in Career Paths
“A day at Secret Starbucks” by Jill Bennett
Most commented-on and opened Medium Newsletter issues
Lately I’ve found that the Medium Newsletter + a strong cup of coffee = the best way to start a morning off right. When I checked in with our content lead Harris Sockel on what drove the most buzz this month, he pointed me to “How to make your weekends feel twice as long,” which caused me to take a long, hard look at how I spend my time from Friday-Sunday. Our most-opened newsletter in October was “Pursuing your passion feels like cheating,” which included the straight-to-the-heart line: “So, what is happiness? It’s not just ‘passion.’ It’s purpose. Something you love that people around you actually need.”
We love that y’all keep reading these evergreen lists from Medium staff
- Self-Improvement 101: Learn how to beat insomnia, cultivate emotional intelligence, create a realistic budget, and more.
- General Coding Knowledge by Medium backend engineer Eduardo
- And the list I personally found most helpful as well, Living Well as a Neurodivergent Person by our director of content curation Terrie Schweitzer
Most-highlighted passages in October
“I shall not quit something with great long-term potential just because I can’t deal with the stress of the moment.”
— Diana C., “I’m Losing My Writing Mojo”
“AI won’t take your job, a person using AI will; most likely you using AI will replace yourself not using it.”
— Alberto Romero, in “30 Things I’ve Learned About AI”
“When you know you are taking the wrong train, make sure to get out at the next station because the longer you stay, the more expensive the return trip will be.”
— Meena Rohith, “Write Your First 100 Articles Then Stop”
“There’s the risk of true vulnerability: uncertainty. True vulnerability requires that you don’t know. You don’t know how your share will be received; you don’t know how others will perceive you for sharing it; you don’t know if there’s a happy ending yet.”
— Ally Sprague, “Fake Vulnerability is Keeping You Stuck”
Two notable new publications
- Have a story you’ve written and you can’t find a Medium publication to pitch to? Check out CarolF’s Square Peg publication.
- Interested in “evidence-based strategies for fostering curiosity”? Check out STEM Parenting, edited by Silvia PM, PhD
And finally, one story that made me grateful I keep an e-reader with me at all times
“5 Massive Books That Are Worth Your Time” by Mark Manson. Look, between us friends, I must admit that I’ve started Infinite Jest more than once but stopped because the book was too heavy to carry. Mark reminded me that, since I can fit an entire library in my purse, I no longer have an excuse anymore.
For more great stories from Medium’s writers and publications, check out our Staff Picks. To learn something new from Medium writers every weekday, subscribe to the Medium Newsletter.
