15 Life-Changing Writers/Stories From 2021

I come to Medium to be challenged to think differently.

Photo of a cutting board I made today from a Sugar Maple tree on our farm. This is a gift I am making today. I need a photo for every story and sometimes I just see what is on my phone that day.

One of my most delicious experiences is changing my mind on a topic that I thought I knew something about. Right now, I am reading The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow, and it is blowing my mind, chapter after chapter. To have my thinking opened up like this is like taking mind-altering drugs. I LOVE IT.

This is one of the reasons I read on Medium. I am chasing the perspectives that are new to me. I am looking for someone to argue on the other side of my point of view and win me over. I want someone who lives a life very different from my own to tell me why I am wrong or illuminate a topic I had never thought about. I want my privileges tweaked.

I think Medium is the perfect venue for this, because if someone was challenging my deeply held beliefs in person, I might not be able to listen. I might feel compelled to defend myself. But here, I can read an essay and feel my brain twisting around in the ecstasy of rearrangement.

GIVE ME MORE!

As a writer I strive for this quality — to have a fresh take on a topic that can open a reader’s eyes to see the world in a new way.

In no particular order, here are 15 stories that tweaked my neurons in 2021: