It happened on Medium: October 2024 roundupMuch-highlighted insight, notable new publications, and evergreen listsPublished inThe Medium Blog4 min readJust now--Image: The Travelling Companions by Augustus Leopold Egg (from Birmingham Museums Trust)Ive been thinking a lot about just sitting with things. Not in an actual physical sense, but in the emotional / psychological / existential sense.Its really easy to want to flood your brain with more more more, as fast as possible. Over the last couple of months, Ive caught myself going back to the same bad social media habits I always regress into: only reading headlines on social media, barely skimming an article before deciding I get the full gist of it, replacing deep thinking with dopamine-saturated quick content.And look, sometimes we all need a lil bit of those empty brain calories. But then I come back to Medium and get lost in a lovingly-crafted deep dive that makes me sit in whatever emotion I am feeling that day and I walk away feeling better? I read a piece that makes me sit up, read closer, go deeper than I normally would with something I encounter on the internet, and I feel more grounded once I do.Last month, nearly our entire Medium team met in North Berwick, Scotland, for one of our twice-yearly in-person off-sites (we all typically work from home), and one thing that I most appreciated about that time was the ability to sit with colleagues and actually think about what we do every day, and what we want this magical place to be.Now, does this mean Ive completely cut myself off from my other platforms? No, of course not, we all contain multitudes. But am I more likely to turn to the voices on Medium to help me sit with difficult things or emotions? Youd better believe I am.And thats because of what all of you, fair readers and writers, bring to it every day.So lets check out what we all read and wrote in October, shall we? Amy Widdowson, VP Communications5 of Octobers most-read storiesHow Old Is Your Body? Stand On One Leg and Find Out by Yale associate professor of medicine F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCEUnderstanding LLMs from Scratch Using Middle School Math by Meta GenAI data director Rohit Patel in Towards Data ScienceA day at Secret Starbucks by Jill BennettMost commented-on and opened Medium Newsletter issuesLately Ive found that the Medium Newsletter + a strong cup of coffee = the best way to start a morning off right. When I checked in with our content lead Harris Sockel on what drove the most buzz this month, he pointed me to How to make your weekends feel twice as long, which caused me to take a long, hard look at how I spend my time from Friday-Sunday. Our most-opened newsletter in October was Pursuing your passion feels like cheating, which included the straight-to-the-heart line: So, what is happiness? Its not just passion. Its purpose. Something you love that people around you actually need.We love that yall keep reading these evergreen lists from Medium staffSelf-Improvement 101: Learn how to beat insomnia, cultivate emotional intelligence, create a realistic budget, and more.General Coding Knowledge by Medium backend engineer EduardoAnd the list I personally found most helpful as well, Living Well as a Neurodivergent Person by our director of content curation Terrie SchweitzerMost-highlighted passages in OctoberI shall not quit something with great long-term potential just because I cant deal with the stress of the moment. Diana C., Im Losing My Writing MojoAI wont take your job, a person using AI will; most likely you using AI will replace yourself not using it. Alberto Romero, in 30 Things Ive Learned About AIWhen you know you are taking the wrong train, make sure to get out at the next station because the longer you stay, the more expensive the return trip will be. Meena Rohith, Write Your First 100 Articles Then StopTheres the risk of true vulnerability: uncertainty. True vulnerability requires that you dont know. You dont know how your share will be received; you dont know how others will perceive you for sharing it; you dont know if theres a happy ending yet. Ally Sprague, Fake Vulnerability is Keeping You StuckTwo notable new publicationsHave a story youve written and you cant find a Medium publication to pitch to? Check out CarolFs Square Peg publication.Interested in evidence-based strategies for fostering curiosity? Check out STEM Parenting, edited by Silvia PM, PhDAnd finally, one story that made me grateful I keep an e-reader with me at all times5 Massive Books That Are Worth Your Time by Mark Manson. Look, between us friends, I must admit that Ive started Infinite Jest more than once but stopped because the book was too heavy to carry. Mark reminded me that, since I can fit an entire library in my purse, I no longer have an excuse anymore.