2020 Year-in-Review

Our Top 6 posts from our first six months

Common Pursuits started publishing in June 2020 and has published 34 pieces on the practices and philosophy of ordinary life since then. To close out the year, we're celebrating our writers by revisiting the posts most loved by our readers.

Enjoy the countdown, and allow your thoughts to be provoked as we consider ordinary life, together.

6: On the effects of social media feeds

The Mirror in the Window

What we see on social media is very often distorted by our own experience of the feeds. By the flattening of reality into a personalized feed, the mirror in the window.

Common PursuitsMatt Civico

5: On deferred dreams and compost

Another Dream for the Compost Heap

There are days I think it would be easier if I wasn’t such a hopeful person. It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t have such strong desires. If I could just be nonchalant about outcomes.

Common PursuitsVivienne Tam

4: The promise and peril of remote work

Remote Work & Renewing Neighbourhoods

Remote work should give people more freedom and flexibility, but how we use that freedom matters.

Common PursuitsMatt Civico

3: Identity, disagreement, and belonging in divided times

Border Crossing and Bridging Difference

“Where are you from?” The truth is it’s complicated. I feel I am from nowhere and anywhere. I’m from the uncomfortable middle.

Common PursuitsPaola Barrera

2: Parenting in a pandemic

Pandemic parenting and homeschool

Do we want to go back to normal after the pandemic? What if this is a chance to make the changes we were never brave enough to make?

Common PursuitsEmily Morrice

1: The business of being local

At Origin: Coffee for artists, art for Mount Pleasant

Cuneyt admitted that displaying artwork in a café or hosting a workshop might seem insignificant. “But these can actually be very encouraging things for artists,” he said. “Especially those at the beginning of their careers.”

Common PursuitsCaitlin Condit

2020 has been a year, a year that came with gifts and griefs aplenty. Watch for more from Common Pursuits in 2021 and be well this New Year's Eve.