Influenced Ice

How To Be Influenced

Ian Leslie | The Ruffian | 23rd July 2022

In a world of online influencers we are all going to be influenced. "For almost every decision we have to take, bidders line up to take the contract". The trick lies in turning this to your advantage. "Be impervious to social influence and you get closed off from the best that your fellow humans have to offer. Be defenceless against it and you become manipulable, boring, and unhappy" (2,800 words)

A Midsummer On Ice

Fridtjof Nansen | Lapham's Quarterly | 22nd July 2022

Extracts from the diary of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, written in June 1894 while Nansen was waiting for ice floes to carry his ship towards the North Pole. "Life is one incessant hurrying from one task to another. Life’s peace is said to be found by holy men in the desert. Here there is desert enough; but peace — of that I know nothing. I suppose it is the holiness that is lacking" (1,990 words)