N+1 Blogs
November 18, 2024
Bumping the blog count by one and hoping I don’t introduce an off-by-one error.
1.
As I write this, I’m gazing out at a giant, rusted crane, spilled on its side. A new art piece in Madison Square Park. Children are climbing over the triangular frame of the red boom. Just as a plastic straw can become a toddler’s faithful companion for hours, this upcycled industrial detritus has been promoted to jungle gym. Little boys playing with construction vehicles, framed by the real thing. If it’s lost as art, the giant crane is in the very least an excellent argument for the importance of Doing Things in the World.
2.
I’ve been consuming for a very long time. For decades. And while I produce for my corporation and I give myself to my friends, I don’t think I’ve spent enough time creating. In the final weeks of a year of too many transitions, I’m hoping to gently shift the balance between consumption and creation.
Now I do keep an obsessive journal, and I have for years. But I suspect that there’s a significant difference between writing for myself and writing for no one, in public.
Perhaps I can get better at defeating perfection, the enemy of my good. I can shake off anxiety about being seen as under-formed, about being seen at all. And I want to start subjecting my writing to scrutiny! Critically, feedback is missing from my loop.
3.
I recently reread Letters to a Young Poet, a tiny book I haven’t touched since I was the age of the eponymous young poet, perhaps even younger. Rilke frames the project of writing to Mr. Kappus in the first letter:
“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”
Kinda dramatic. Though he’s also quite young, Rilke is working with a good compass here. I think he’s correct to caution the officer cadet. But I’m also encouraged that he later praises Kappus for threading the needle: pursuing a stable career while continuing to write.
I feel compelled to do the same! Certainly, for me, writing has become a process of meaning making, a necessary relationship with the world and myself. So I will keep writing.
4.
We so severely underutilize our freedom of expression. And our capacity to individuate is constantly under attack by the forces of late capitalism that would prefer if we could be fully described by a handful of keywords.
Imagine instead that you were a song that didn’t really fit on any single playlist, an impossibly unique admixture of memory and experience, carefully curated and expressed back out into the world. How do we more fully cultivate the singular song of our life? By living boldly, nurturing our solitude, practicing free thought, resisting mimetic desire, and quacking from time to time.
Thus a little website to fuck around and find out. A blob of HTML as simple as possible, but no simpler.