Quixotic Variations
May 1, 2024
Current location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Reading: Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson
Listening: Like I Say (I runaway) by Nilüfer Yanya(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status via email or in the comments)
Note: How To Turn 39 is now available as an ebook, paperback, and audiobook!
Quixotic Variations
I’ve had some good discussions with friends, recently, about what we make and how we spend our time.
There was a period in which you could make one thing, and just one thing, and that thing would stand a decent chance of reaching a large enough audience (or a small but suitably spendy one) so that you could make a nice little living from whatever it is you’re best at and most passionate about.
The world has changed, though, and the reasons for this change are many and not universally negative.
Some of this evolution stems from the disempowerment of traditional gatekeepers, for instance, which is arguably a wonderful thing. But it’s also the result of our communication channels fracturing and forking, which has jolted us from a world in which there were relatively few and mostly regional distribution mechanisms, to one in which there are globe-spanning mega-platforms owned by companies that mint their fortunes by convincing us to fill their metaphorical pages and airwaves with work we previously would have been compensated for.
In this new reality, such efforts often become unpaid toil that primarily benefits the platforms through which it’s disseminated, and if we want to garner enough attention and credibility to maybe sustain the work we would prefer to be doing—the stuff that actually matters to us, and in many cases, which actually matters to the folks engaging with it—we’re told we need to post more, pivot to video, becoming influencers, and generally add this additional portfolio of (again, usually uncompensated) responsibilities to our pile of other compulsory labors.
(It speaks volumes about the value of such content, I think, that AI-based tools can so casually churn out convincing replicas of human-made social shareables.)
Most of the people with whom I’ve spoken about this dynamic and its implications for the work they do have decided to refocus more of their time and effort on the stuff they actually care about.
They’ll make more books, they’ll make more music, they’ll do a lot more of the stuff that fuels them and a lot less of what drains them and pulls them away from that former category.
This is roughly where I’ve landed, too.
I decided to finally write a new book after years of exploring other mediums and delivery mechanisms, in part because that’s the sort of conversation I like to have with folks on the other end of my work; big projects, longer duration relationships, more opportunity to really explore that which warrants exploration.
Shorter and more temporal methods of communication also have their place, and in some cases these methods are ideal for making connections and following up on larger bodies of work (after reading a book, attending an event, etc).
I love social media for its capacity to help people cross-pollinate in this way, as it grants us the means and permission to reach out into the void and see who’s on the same wavelength, wherever those resonant souls happen to be geographically located.
Thus, I’m reworking my life to ensure I have plenty of room for heftier, more intensive projects, so that I can experiment with how I get said projects in front of people who may be interested in the same, and so I can determine what role those bite-sized bits of communication and creation might play in my body of work, moving forward.
I don’t want posts and promos to be a dominant, or even medium-sized focus in my life—I’m not interested in working as a serf in a social media company’s fields—but I do still think these can be valuable tools if deftly and purposefully wielded: I just don’t know what it means to use them in that way, yet, in part because they’re not currently optimized for that sort of utility.
This is a liminal moment for me, then—and for many other people, I suspect—during which I’m shrugging off some outmoded personal definitions of value and usefulness, adopting some potentially Quixotic variations of the same, and scanning the horizon for workable models that might be a better fit than what’s become the norm in many making-focused spaces.
Interesting Links
The Lengthy, Beloved Coffee Rituals Binding Ethiopians Together
“Drinking coffee takes time in Ethiopia, a nation of caffeine lovers. In her village in Kafa, Ethiopia’s coffee heartland, Hagre Bekele starts by roasting the raw green beans over an open fire. Then she grinds them by hand and brews them in a jebena, a bulbous, long-necked clay pot. The drink is ready when the coffee boils and almost overflows.”
“For the case of Balinese, Devanagari, Telugu, Tamil or Odia, to name but a few, different forms of leaves were used as the platform in which to write – for example, scratching messages into dried palm leaves before applying and whipping back an ink-like substance to reveal the ‘printed’ letters. It’s argued that these Southeast Asian and South Indian scripts opted for rounder forms as more angular lines damaged the leaf surface, making both the medium and the message beyond repair.”
“The movement has spawned its own catchy monikers, like “plant parenthood” and “psychedelic parenting,” and there has been an increase in support groups—both online and in person—for parents looking to connect in a safe space. “Look around the playground,” a 30-something mom friend texted me. “At least one of those moms in Lululemon leggings has benefited from psychedelics.””
Outro
The book is on shelves and already in some hands, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with the response to it so far.
A huge, huge thanks to everyone who’s picking up a copy, requesting the book at their local library, and sharing their thoughts with me as they read it. Glad the concepts and topics are resonating with so many people :)
If you do grab a copy, please leave a quick review on Amazon or wherever you get your books—those things help more than you might realize, especially for a new book which otherwise has a bare (and suspicious-looking) sales page.
I’m experiencing an intense vulnerability hangover from all this self-promotion (which always makes me cringe, despite its arguable necessity) so I’m giving myself a few weeks of focusing on my non-book work and psychological recovery.
But one of my next steps is to update some of my earlier books with new editions (fixing typos, changing some wordings) and audiobook recordings (which are already recorded—I just need to produce them to perfection, which takes time and is incredibly tedious).
Happy May! How’s life for you at the moment? What’s been on your mind? Take a moment to introduce yourself if you have a minute—I respond to every message I receive and would love to hear from you :)
Prefer stamps and paper? Send me a letter, postcard, or some other physical communication at: Colin Wright, PO Box 11442, Milwaukee, WI 53211
Or hit me up via the usual methods: Instagram/Threads, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or PalmOS.
German teen lives on train full-time and travels somewhere new every day.