The art of essay writing

Via Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell has a really good piece on essay writing techniques that, although written with political science in mind, seems to me equally applicable to philosophy/sociology.

Well worth reading.

On being crap at sports

I can identify with Tricia Sullivan's on being a crap runner. Not because I necessarily am. But because in my head I am. There is no way my brain can accept that I'm athletic. I'm not a runner, swimmer, cyclist, whatever. I'm just a person who happens to do those things. I don't even take them particularly seriously. For some strange definition of seriously.

Plus. Sullivan's advice is good: don't run a ten miler on day one; start slowly and build up.

Bear also has a good take on the idea, particularly that sport is fun and exercise is boring. But I see things the other way around. Sport is boring. Sport is madly competitive. Sport is thing I hated at school. But exercise is good. Exercise has a meditative quality. Exercise is about blowing off stress. Making time to think things over. Becoming fit enough to outrun the zombie apocalypse. Important stuff like that.