Agency character
Winston
Psychology & Mind
Digital Culture
Writing & NarrativeWho is Winston in the Agency editorial?
Winston is the farmer of A Life in Tranquility, a short piece of fiction in Issue.6 of the Agency editorial. He plants corn, lives without screens and has time, because his life follows the slow cycle of his crops. The edition sets him against the reader, whose life runs at the pace of the information consumed.
In short
Winston is a fictional farmer created for Issue.6, the edition about time and consumer psychology. The edition says that life today runs at full speed, for the author and for the reader, but not for Winston, and then tells who he is under the heading A Life in Tranquility (Fiction). He lives in a rural zone not far from a city, is not old but is what the edition calls analogic, dislikes technology and screens and plants corn, whose cultivation takes about 90 days. Of him the edition says: "His clock ticks to the rhythm of nature." In his free time he wants good old-west stories, and he finds them in books. The edition then turns to the reader and asks how the clock ticks in their life.
Key facts
- In which edition does Winston appear?
- Only in Issue.6, in the passage with the heading A Life in Tranquility (Fiction). The heading itself marks him as a fictional figure.
- What kind of life does Winston lead?
- He is a corn farmer who likes physical work, sun and dirt, and does not like technology or screens. His life circulates entirely around his crops.
- Why does Issue.6 tell the story of Winston?
- To show a slow life next to the reader's fast one. The edition argues that the rate at which we consume information defines the rhythm of every aspect of our lives.
Who is Winston in Issue.6?
Issue.6 introduces Winston by name before explaining him, and has someone yell from another boat to ask who he is. The answer is the fiction A Life in Tranquility. Winston is a farmer who lives far enough from the city to see stars at night and hear birds in the morning. He is not an old person, but he likes the sun on his skin and the dirt on his fingers, and prefers real physical work to clicking a mouse or typing on a keyboard.
He plants corn, and the edition notes that corn cultivation has a lifecycle of approximately 90 days and that he does not need to worry about anything else. It sums him up in one sentence: "His clock ticks to the rhythm of nature."
What does Issue.6 do with Winston?
The edition asks how a disconnected person spends his free time. Winston has no series to watch and no messages to answer, and does not care about what people post about their life in the city. What he cares about are old-west stories of cowboys, horses and camps in the wild, and the edition says of them: "That is the definition of adventure for Winston." He finds such stories in books, which pass the time while his corn grows.
Then the edition turns to the reader, who receives e-mails, news, posts, messages and notifications all day, and asks how the clock ticks in their life. The contrast supports the idea stated just before the story: the information consumption rate defines the rhythm of every single aspect of our lives.
Source editions
Where this entry comes from in the Agency editorial.