Love has an outer range of maybe 30 yards

On the tragedy of distance and five other essential reads for the holidays

We are about to enter the period where it becomes difficult to judge how quickly time is moving. I’ll be in Istanbul, where I hear things move pretty fast, and then Bodrum, on the Aegean Sea, where I hope to be idle. 

Idleness, I’ve learned, isn’t nothing. It’s a democratic exercise. Amid the relentless demands of society, politics, culture, and the economy, we seldom ponder what we ourselves should demand from these realms. As Mark Slouka suggests in his brilliant essay, ‘Quitting the Paint Factory’, perhaps the best action is simply inaction. 

Disengagement likewise underpins

Caroline Busta

’s argument that, “to be truly countercultural in a time of tech hegemony, one has to betray the platform, which may come in the form of betraying or divesting from your public online self.” Is 2024 the year we meaningfully log off?

That’s what

Max Read

did, quitting Twitter and Instagram “in the same manner [he leaves] parties: abruptly, silently, and much later than would have been healthy.” This is not another piece about post-algorithmic enlightenment. Rather, it challenges us to wonder, “What if the reason we tweet is because we wish we were dead?”

Speaking of parties, here’s a poem I think about every time I dissociate in a room full of people:

In the coming weeks, some of us will wonder what we’re doing here, wherever that may be for you, and with these people, whoever they are in your life. Many will swear to attend fewer parties, to cut bad relationships and go whole hog on the good. As for the relationships we’re ambivalent about? Here I agree with

Freddie deBoer

that people who “extract a cost to be close to and then repay that cost with rare and complicated gifts of personality” are worth keeping around.

Most of all, this time of year is for being close to the people we love, and who we love precisely because they’re close. As Sam Anderson writes in a hauntingly beautiful piece on the last two White Rhinos on earth, “Love has an outer range of maybe 30 yards.” That’s why “we will never act, collectively, with the urgency that befits true love”—not for the rhinos, not for Gazans, not for our planet. As essential a read as it gets.    

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s read this newsletter over the past year. Your enthusiasm keeps this work alive. With every new subscriber, I'm motivated to explore new ideas and share them with you. If you haven’t already, subscribe now—or not! It’s 11 days till the New Year so do what you can x

Few things satisfy me as much as reading something I’ve liked and sharing it with others so that they can read and like it too. As such, I’m expanding this practice beyond my WhatsApp chats with friends and bringing it to lol/sos.

Moving forward, I’ll publish a monthly selection of my favourite long-form articles. I’ll organize them around a theme or weave them together to maintain some semblance of order, but they won’t necessarily be urgent or essential. The only criterion is my belief that you’ll enjoy them, which, if you like this newsletter, I’m sure you will.

On that note,

• Did you like this format?

• Did any of these pieces resonate with you?

• What’s something you think I should read?