Newly Ancient

John Scalzi offers an excellent explanation of privilege through the conceit of a video game:

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the “Gay Minority Female” setting? Hardcore.

Although I didn’t choose it, I’m lucky enough to be playing life on the easiest difficulty setting. Still, I’m trying to use the many starting points handed to me to explore new parts of the map where I’m not necessarily playing on the lowest difficulty setting. Hopefully, this can help me to make other difficulty settings a little less hard, with the side effect of making a pretty easy game a little more fun.

This excellent explanation was recommended by Jason Kottke.

I just found an excellent essay by Paul Graham which should be required reading for all high school students (and teachers). It successfully shows that school is just a stupid day job, but you shouldn’t give up. Just like any day job, you should do well to get paid, but you need a passion for something else.