The state of text
Every so often I will write about the state of text. This won’t count towards the every-other-free-text thing that we have going on here. It’s just some text about text. Metatext.
For something that I have completely not promoted in public, text is going pretty good. People are reading and responding to text. I feel empowered to keep making text. I feel good about text.
When people reply to text, it gives me a sense of what sort of text matters to you. So if you like some text, tell me, and I will occasionally make more of that text.
This is contrary to how things normally go over here, . In the past, I would some text and everyone would love it and I would reply by saying “welp, never gonna top that one,” and I stop making it. I think I have done this because I am sort of averse to widespread fame, even as I know that the way I see the world is broadly interesting.
The problem with fame, in 2022 more than ever, is that people tend to want to come at you. There is a tall poppy vibe to the broader conversation. Becuase they are influential is a common stated reason for someone’s takedown. So I am working carefully, in private, for now, and not sharing specific numbers around text.
In mid-May, I am going to start promoting text. I will not stop you from promoting text before then; I will consider it a sign of validation. But I guess we should still note that in May, I will become loud about text, and I will remain loud about text, in a way that will probably cause a bit of a psychic shift in the way that I think about and create text. There will be a continuous promotion of text.
Within this, I will attempt to show up every day thinking that I have a chance to start from scratch and create something that really resonates. This is a practice that feels a bit like patting your head & rubbing your belly at the same time. It smacks of multitasking. I dislike multitasking.
I am curious what you want out of text. What you want out of me, in this moment. Normally I am good at predicting what people want, and making it. I did this well when the world was not in chaos, when we were not experiencing fractal societal collapse, when there was some amount of clarity in how to move. Mostly these days, I have been cooking, sitting in stillness, creating text, keeping the consultancy alive enough to sustain me, and holding space for my community. I know I am a good person, by whatever definition of “good” arrives for you. I try to maintain good friendships. I try to show up for others. I try to provide. Within all of this, there is probably some way to move forward, and there is an awful lot of text.