Turning Life Digest, January 2025
Volume 1, Issue 1 — First month overview, and concept explained
Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of Turning Life Digest!
What is the digest?
The website and newsletters have been up and running for three weeks, and the concept is beginning to take shape.
What I wanted to do was to approach a traditional magazine shape of publishing, but without losing the advantages of the web format. This means that articles are made available immediately during the month, so that subscribers can read them as soon as they are ready, while a digest is issued when the month is over, giving an overview of what was published since the last digest, plus some hints to what the next period will bring.
This way, you can decide how and when you want to dive into the articles, and you will be able to quickly get an overview of all that is new.
From the beginning, everything in the publication is freely available, but when the magazine is fully up and running and the articles flow in a steady stream, I plan to turn on paid subscriptions, making most articles immediately available for paid subscribers only, right when published, and then for free subscribers after a while.
This payment model should make it possible for everybody to read everything, but for those who want to support the publication or simply prefer to get access to the articles as soon as possible, the paid option will accomodate their needs.
You can pledge for your support already and will then be converted automatically to a paid subscriber when this concept goes live.
Expected contents
Turning Life by Inidox has a focus on five areas:
Through these five areas, I try to cover a broad scope of the major changes we see in the world during these years, and sometimes also what happened historically or is expected for the future. Articles can be short or long, but they will always try to get a step deeper than most Internet contents.
You can expect one article in each section each month, with most posts made available on Mondays, but in any case distributed over the month.
Person of the Month
There is, in addition, a special series of articles called “Person of the Month”, featuring a person who had or still have a special importance for one of the areas covered. It can be any person, from anywhere in the world, but will most often be a commonly known person.
A person can be suggested by the readers of Turning Life, but will always be chosen by me (or later perhaps by a panel of people set down for this). There will usually be a specific reason for being named Person of the Month, such as an aspect of their life or a particular action they have taken.
Being the Person of the Month means an article published in this publication in the middle of the month to announce this, and an opening for a later feature article, which can be in cooperation wth the Person of the Month, if so wanted, either as a guest posts or an interview, or as a description of a product, service, or other aspect of the persons’ achievement.
Guest posts
With no regularity, a guest post can appear. When someone has something to share, we can talk about it and possibly agree on it. Guest posts may appear instead of one of the regular articles, just written by a guest writer, or as an additional article.
There will be an opening for up to two guest posts each month.
Kind regards,
Jorgen Winther
New articles
From the early start on the 12th of December 2024 and until now, we have published the following articles, which you can find on the website or by clicking on the link. If you wish to subscribe, so that you will get an email each time an article is published, please use the button.
Welcome to Turning Life!
Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Ron Fricke made a cult movie back in 1982: Koyaanisqatsi.
Area: Society
The introduction to the publication, explaining how we see change happening and borders for what can be accepted crossed all the time, making it necessary to pay attention to what is happening and take part in the public debate, to avoid being run over by life.
MAGA, Neo-Nazism and Friends
With the repeated election of a man with extremist opinions as the president of the USA, most Americans have become aware of one way in which their society has changed.
Area: Society
One very visible change that takes place in many countries, all over the world, is the stress on democracy and the flirting with right-wing or outright totalitarian principles. Obviously, something is happening, and this article tries to explain what and why.
What Will 2024 Bring? — Part 1/3 (Predictions from a year ago)
Written in the last days of 2023 and published on Medium on New Year’s Eve 2023, the below text was completely ignored. After 24 hours, there had not been even a single view of it.
Area: Society
This story in three parts (due to the length of it) was originally planned for publication in another forum at the turn of the years 2023/2024, but I decided to bring this long stored article now — so that we together can see how precise the picture of the world could be, before things happened. A picture, that was mainly influenced by the news media narratives at the time of writing it.
Parts 2 and 3 can be found here:
What Will 2024 Bring? — Part 2/3 (Predictions from a year ago)
What Will 2024 Bring? — Part 3/3 (Predictions from a year ago)
Cutting Corners of the Future
Have you noticed, how park areas in the bigger cities typically get smaller over time?
Area: Environment
We see recreational and nature areas being reduced and down-prioritized over time. Why does this happen? This article tries to analyze and describe, leaving the somewhat dark prediction that this phenomenon is going to continue forever.
The Game with One Winner
It was on sale. That’s my excuse. I watched the latest round of The Hunger Games and felt as bad when watching that one as I did when watching the first several episodes.
Area: People
The movie world has long been open to quite radical expressions, including explicit violence and killings. But during recent years, several movies have appeared with children in the main roles, killing other children. This can be wrapped up in a bigger story, but it leaves me with a strange feeling of these movies actually being meant for children to watch, which I don’t like. In this article, I examine one such movie and the phenomenon as such.
When We All Became Teachers
An apprentice learns from a master, who themselves were once an apprentice, learning from another master — but has, in the meantime, practised the trade for years, hence, really becoming a master of the trade.
Area: Business
Looking at social media and the Internet in a broader perspective reveals that a very large number of people are offering their assistance as online coaches, teachers or advisors of all kinds, and even the regular stream of memes and short messages on these media are full of advice from people to people. How did it become this way, and what does it mean for the world? Is teaching a good way of socializing?
Area: Business
Since social media appeared about 20 years ago, following other socializing approaches on the Internet, they have been through a solid development towards becoming money machines for their owners. In that process, they become more and more alike, and they are also, more and more, leaving the social aspects and the needs and wishes of their regular users behind. This article peaks into this development and predicts a worsening.
Area: Environment
The first article in January 2025.
We have only one Earth, and we have known for many years that we are, in general, using it up faster than it can recover. This article walks through a number of thoughts and ideas that you can look at and take into consideration in your daily life, to help make the environment last a little longer.
Guest posts
December offered one guest post, and it became very popular — currently the most popular article in the publication!
AI and Human Disconnect
We all have heard about the usual risks associated with AI—job displacement, disinformation, and deepfakes. They are real, yes, and very potent dangers. However, I believe a deeper, more structural issue lies here, and that is AI’s potential to create a serious disconnect among humans, jeopardizing our authenticity in the l…
Area: Technology
Sameer Sohail takes a look at how the use of AI tool affects the way people see each other, how it threatens our interpersonal and and emotional skills, as well as the creation and enforcement of bubbles, thereby cutting off some people from our lives, and by this, we forget how the basic social skills work. He urges us to cultivate more genuine human relations to maintain our ability to be genuine and authentic.
Coming up next
For January 2025, the following articles have been planned so far:
How To Spoil Your Life With ChatGPT
Area: Technology
A story about something that happened in the real world, showing how problematic it can be to trust generative AI in situations where you want to present facts. It then goes on to analyze the practical use for such a tool, and the expected consequences.
Like a Motherless Child
Area: People
Dragging in music as an expression of change by looking at a particular song and the circumstances under which it was made and performed. Music often tells a story, and this can be a short story of a moment or a feeling, but it can also be something of historical value, still with the feeling incorporated, but also providing an insight into a historical epoch and change.
What do you mean, "urgent?"
Area: Business
While being in a hurry is nothing new for our time, there is nevertheless a tendency, maybe in some businesses more than others, to move towards a paradigm of urgency for all tasks, leaving the quality steps behind and creating an added layer of stress. This article is looking at the phenomenon for one particular business, where it is outspoken these years.
What Did 2024 Bring? — (Follow-up on the predictions from a year ago)
Area: Society
Given the three parts of the predictions, what actually did happen? How well did the predictions fit the reality? The media landscape is always moving forward, and often, there is no follow-up on news or worries that have been mentioned. At times, the events are still on their way, they have just not happened yet. Whatever is the case, I will try to do my best to see what the actual status was at the end of 2024 and let you know in this article.
Person of the Month
Area: People
The first in this series, and there are still a couple of candidates being runner-ups — it will be interesting to see who will be chosen for Turning Life by Inidox Person of the Month, January 2025.
Guest post(s)
There are still up to two open slots for guest posts. Please let me know if you are interested or have a suggestion for a writer who could be.
Thank you for reading!
This was the first issue of the first volume of Turning Life Digest. I hope you liked it!
Going forward, each new issue will be published in the beginning of each month, this way becoming 12 issues per year.
The digest is in itself free to read, but along the way, most articles will be published for paid subscribers only and then made available for free subscribers some time later.
If you want to make sure that you always get access to everything as soon as it is published, please indicate your wish and pledge your support — you can use the subscribe button for this.
If you are happy to read the articles later, then you may select a free subscription. Please use the same subscribe button, and you will be given that option.
Please also share this digest and the publication with anyone, you could imagine would be interested in it.
Slightly off-topic: I'm just so impressed by the branding of all of your content. I mean, those custom dividers alone should earn you a nomination for Person of the Month!
Sounds like a good plan. All the best!