I have to laugh sometimes at how my life has turned out. In some ways I am living a life that is beyond my wildest dreams, at least in terms of what I thought was possible for me as a teenager. I’m 33 years old, and I make enough money from my patrons and my ebook sales and my occasional consulting that I can spend my days doing pretty much anything I like. When I remind myself of this, I feel gratitude and joy. It hasn’t been an easy journey. I struggled, particularly in my 20s, to keep my creative spirit alive. I’d write feverishly every day on my commutes, in hopeful anticipation of a future which is now my present.
And yet, the tenor of my moment-to-moment experience isn’t nearly as delightful as I had hoped it would be. Reality always has a surprising amount of detail, which tends to conveniently get left out of idyllic daydreams.
I’ve written two books that I’m very proud of, and yet moderately dissatisfied with. Da Vinci said that art is never finished, only abandoned. And Orwell said that every book is a failure. They were both right. Working on my own books has revealed to me the staggering depth of the truth of those statements. Still, artistic perfectionism aside, I get the privilege of asking myself: what’s next for me? What do I want to do? I’ve been stewing on some form of this question day and night for almost 2 years now. What’s next for me right now?
There are many different things I’d like to work on. And I feel myself pulled apart in many different directions. And I find myself feeling sorry for myself. Sorry that I don’t seem quite capable of properly, decisively capitalizing on the opportunity that my past self worked so hard to present to me. But as I write this out, I have a new set of emotions blossoming within me. More gratitude, again. A part of my sobs with the anguish of feeling like he let his team down. Another part of me is gracious, loving, supportive, forgiving – which of course makes the wretched part of me sob even harder. “What if my best isn’t good enough,” I hear one character say. “It’s good enough for me,” I hear from another. More tears. And amidst the breakdown, a growing resolve. We will do this. We will figure it out. We will make good on the chance that we were given. We will earn it. We will tear down everything and start over if need be. Let’s make a list. What are the things we want to do?
- 🪞Memoirs. Tell the story of who we are and where we come from, what we know, what we experienced, what we’ve learned. This might seem self-indulgent. Montaigne wrote, “Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain.” I won’t claim to be as good a writer as Montaigne was, but I intend to walk part of his path.
- 👑 Sovereignty. A research project into the history of kingship, archetypes of kingship, boundaries, self-knowledge, leadership, strength. Feudalism. Talismans. Ceremonies. Consecration. Luckmaxxing. Scaffolding. Thor and T’challa, Aladdin, Elsa. Light the heart beacon. The cup overfloweth. Rugpulls. Focus on what you want to see more of. Born to be Wild.
- 🔮 Media. The crystal ball. Universal cursed artefacts. McLuhan. Pamphleteers. The Republic of Letters. Erasmus. Mersenne. The Aldine Press. The telegraph. Telephone switchboard operators. Twitter. Plaintext literacy. Hyperthreading. Narrative cycles. Against Flanderization.
- 🎭 Stories. Dreams. “In other words”. “In media res.” Artful Incompleteness. “Just describe stuff bro.” What do our ads tell us about ourselves? Threshold guardians. Storytelling Heft. Scheherazade. Yinsen. The Paradoxes of Popularity.
- 🏗️ Scaffolding. Project management. Make yourself comfortable. Navigating mess. A Guide To Chaos-Surfing.
- 🔬 Nerdposting. Exploring questions. How has cinema shaped language and national identity? Why do we all speak english? what was life like during the steam and electric revolutions? transition?
more to come