Zampanò

One of the abilities that humans generally take for granted is pattern matching—the ability to see how things fit together. And of course, part of this must necessarily be the ability to see what sticks out. This is what “salient” means: to stick out, to draw one’s attention.

Dear Reader,

There’s a scene from The Wire that has stuck with me since I first saw it. Well, more than one actually, but the one I’m thinking about right now is when a character who goes by “Bubbles” is meeting with his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. The sponsor, played by Steve Earle, tells Bubbles that quitting drugs is the easy part, but that after that “comes life.”

Dear Reader,

Once upon a time, I thought that if I got sufficiently outraged on Facebook, this would make a difference. And maybe there is something to be said for trying to shift the Overton Window for the small group of people who used to read what I would write. (I say “used to” since I haven’t had an active Facebook account since sometime in 2015.) After all, we don’t dismiss columnists as pointless or not doing anything important, or at least not the whole class of them. Individual ones may be another story.

Dear Reader,

It's a weird sort of serendipity that I wrote about wondering what “great enough” meant, only for Freddie deBoer to come along and do the same thing much better. In his most recent essay, he bemoans the ironic distance that contemporary educated people effect, especially those who hold themselves out as writers. It's a longing for unironic passion for the craft, for wanting to say something and thinking you have something worth saying.

As I've written about before, I often struggle with absolutist thinking when it comes to valuing something. It's especially prevalent when it comes to myself; I tend to be a lot more charitable with other people.

Dear Reader,

One of my primary functions in the Bureaucracy is to communicate Its intentions and decision-making. I’m not quite in public relations, but there is that element to what I do. It involves a lot of writing, as thankfully I don’t have to actually talk to anyone outside of my office.

Dear Reader,

One of the things that's kept me from writing more regularly is large amounts of self-doubt. I wish it were as simple as thinking I suck, but there's more going on than that (isn't there always?). Instead it seems to be some combination of not being good at honest self-appraisal and demanding unrealistic feedback.

Dear Reader,

Over the last couple years, I've finally sat down to make some attempts at reading Scripture. Like with most things I do, I've started and stopped repeatedly over that time, and not come close to actually finishing. But this hasn't meant that no thoughts or insights have been forthcoming.

Dear Reader,

Thinking positively, my parents and teachers used to tell me I could do whatever I wanted when I got older. But not only did this prove to be iffy from a practical standpoint (thanks to a combination of as-yet undiagnosed ADHD and the 2008 Financial Crisis), there was a bigger issue: no one ever taught me how to figure out what that actually is.

Dear Reader,

This is, admittedly, a weird thing to be blogging about. It may even be counter-productive (you’ll see why presently), so I just have to hope that the benefits of organizing my thoughts and sharing them will outweigh any reinforcement of negative habits that this also entails.